In my experience as a recruiter, the companies with the most thriving teams and successful hiring results have a strong sense of the values guiding the company and prioritize values alignment in their hiring process. This goes beyond a surface-level definition of culture or personality fit. It means intentionally seeking out individuals who share the company's core values and beliefs. Sometimes more overt cultural distinctives are tied to deeper values. Such as the time we had to find a dirt biking enthusiast for the VP Finance role with a motorcycle manufacturer. Or finding dog lovers as the early hires for an online marketplace startup in the petcare space. Dirt biking interest wasn't just about attending company-sponsored motocross events and loving the product but connected to a unique raw energy and testing the limits that was part of the culture. For the petcare startup, a strong emphasis on empathy for "pet parents" undergirded customer relationships and that quality spilled over into how the company operated internally. In these instances, the job description and candidate messaging were carefully constructed to attract individuals who embraced those and other cultural values and would be magnetized by the opportunity. Beyond such clear distinctives as loving dogs or dirt biking, the deeper values of the company were both implicit and explicit in every aspect of the recruiting process, including thoughtful interview questions. So many times a potential job candidate has relayed to me that they weren't looking to make a move but something about the introductory email or opportunity description resonated so deeply that they felt compelled to respond. This can be applied to job postings as well. #recruiting #executivesearch #hiring #interviewing #culture #values #team