Question

When hiring an employee, which do you believe is more important: person-organization fit or person-job fit? Explain your rationale, and use examples if possible.

With your answer in mind, think about someone who you have worked with who was not a good fit and ended up leaving the organization. Share your insights as to why the individual left the organization. Please keep the person and organization anonymous. This post must be at least 250 words.

Answer 1

According to me, the person-job fit is more important than the person-organization fit. however, this does not mean the other is not important. The rationale for the person-job fit being more important is that for an individual to thrive in a job or grow, it is important to have the suitable traits and skills that a job requires. Although skills can be learned, there are certain traits that match people with jobs. Organizational culture, on the other hand, can creep its way as the individual data to the environment. For example, an introvert would find it really hard performing a sales role, similarly, an extrovert would thrive in a role that exploits that potential of the individual and not role that undermines it. Individuals who end up in a sales role but are not a good fit for the job will keep jumping from organizations and quitting because they do not love engaging with people.

One such example is a colleague of mine who joined as a Business Development Executive in an organization. Since we both studied at the same University, the knowledge that he disliked engaging in social discussions or convincing people was evident. Although he got the job as an executive, he was not fit for the job as the role required traits that he did not possess. In a month, my colleague had quit his job and joined another firm for the same role thinking the problem was the organization's culture of working under pressure. In the previous company, the pressure to achieve sales target was high, however, the next company he joined was lenient and didn't pressurize the salespeople. When I spoke to my colleague after 2 months, he told me that he had quit the organization despite the culture being lenient. He revealed that he didn't think that he was fit for the role. This is an example of the importance of person-job fit in hiring. For an individual to thrive, they must be job-fit as their potential would maximize with time. An individual who is an organizational fit cannot successfully achieve his/her potential as they are not performing the jo they are fit for.