Customers form opinions about an organization from its brand image, its presentation and packaging of products and services, but most of all from their contact with employees.

The collective personality of an organization its organizational culture, yet two errors often happen. Leaders misjudge what the culture demands in reality, and/or managers hire candidates who mirror their own style rather than the organization's. Taking a closer look at the culture of one's company can yield benefits of improved productivity and retention of talent you hire.

One of the surest ways to begin defining your talent philosophy is to ask how employees are treated. Many organizations have evolved philosophies that are easy to understand, such as IBM's philosophy of hiring young people, usually right after college.

Other organizations have philosophies that are much more difficult to decipher either because they have not really defined a common philosophy, or because they have many sub-cultures within the organization. This is particularly true of newer firms who have not yet had the time to evolve a distinct personality.

"Frequently I work with organizations that have developed a talent philosophy that is attractive to candidates but not reflective or what they really do. It is often more a statement of what they want the philosophy to be rather than what it really is," states Kevin Wheeler, the President and Founder of Global Learning Resources, Inc.

Wheeler has developed the following questions to help define a corporation's talent philosophy.

Ten Tough Questions to Answer

1. What single characteristic is considered most important by hiring managers in a potential candidate?
2. If there are two equally well-qualified candidates for a job, what determines the final choice?
3. What are the personality styles, traits, and habits of those who get promoted or seem to be the most highly regarded in your organization?
4. If an employee were asked what adjective most accurately described the best employees' personalities, what word would they choose?
5. If a customer were asked to describe the culture of your organization, what would they say?
6. How do you deal with poor-performing employees?
7. Who is considered the most valuable employee in your organization? What distinctive traits or characteristics does s/he have?
8. How do major decisions get made? Are they made by consensus, a majority viewpoint, or a single person?
9. What do you expect a good employee to have as general career aspirations?

10.  What does an employee have to do/demonstrate in order to be considered for a promotion?

A truly honest understanding of your assumptions about people and their careers, and a solid analysis of what common traits employees should, have will go miles in improving the quality not only of the candidates you bring to the table and but also the people you promote to managerial/supervisory positions.

Takeaway for career professionals: These same concepts and the 10 questions above, can be tools useful to measure a company's cultural fit to a job seeker/candidate.

Source: http://bit.ly/a2IvuM