Editor’s Note (2026 Update)

This article was originally written by Nad Elias, CEO of recruitAbility, in 2017. As we move into 2026, the conversation around authentic core values, culture alignment, and retention has only intensified. In an era of increased transparency, tighter talent markets, and faster employee feedback loops, the risks of misaligned values are even more immediate. The perspective below remains foundational for hiring leaders who want to attract, retain, and build teams that truly fit their organization.

Why Core Values Matter More Than Ever in Recruiting and Retention

It’s never been more important for your company to refine its core values. With competition for top talent heating up, these values will make or break your recruiting and retention efforts. They’ll help determine who is attracted to your jobs and, if your values are authentically grounded in your company’s culture, they’ll help ensure your new recruits will be valuable team members for a long time.

In fact, employees who fit well with their organization, coworkers, and supervisor have greater job satisfaction, are more likely to remain with their organization, and show superior job performance. The price of attracting employees who don’t fit your core values is equally impressive. The result of turnover due to poor culture fit can cost an organization between 50-60 percent of the person’s annual salary.

Why Inauthentic Values Hurt Retention

But here’s the rub: Your company’s core values don’t need to be pie-in-the-sky altruistic to recruit and retain top talent. They just need to be honest. In fact, the more potentially phony “we want to save the world” values veer from your company culture, the worse your retention will be. It won’t take long for new recruits to feel duped and start looking elsewhere for a job that’s truly the right fit.

As VMWare’s Jessica Amortegui explains in Fast Company, “For companies to truly close the chasm between their stated and lived values, they must enter the human psyche to extract excellence from the inside-out, not dictate it from outside-in. This requires organizations to pivot their approach: rather than get people to live the values, they should focus on the values that live in the people.”

Why Even Polarizing Values Work

The book Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business by Gino Wickman perfectly explains this way of thinking. In the book, Wickman states, “It doesn’t matter what your core values are as much as it does that you’ve clearly defined, communicated, and are living them as an organization. Only then can you truly surrounding yourself with the people who will prepare your organization for growth.”

How Different Core Values Attract Different Talent

Under Armour tells candidates, “Everyone that we hire has one thing in common: They have a spirit that never gives up. They are excited to go beyond the average. And they are ready to learn new things to create the unexpected. If you have this drive, then no matter your experience level or background, you’ll find a place here at Under Armour.”

Amazon takes a different approach to core values. Its vision statement is “to be Earth’s most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” And its self-published leadership principals include values like customer obsession, stating that Amazon leaders “start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.”

Will the same type of candidate be equally drawn to both companies? No. And that’s not a bad thing. Under Armour is seeking unapologetic competitors while Amazon aims to attract leaders who are unquenchable public servants. While both companies seek trailblazers at the top of their game, the motivation behind the quest to innovate is much different. That central motivation is where your core values hide and it’s exactly where your recruiting and retention efforts will fail or succeed.

How recruitAbility’s Core Values Shape Fit and Relationships

At recruitAbility, we worked hard to develop core values that truly reflect our corporate culture. Doing so hasn’t only help us with recruiting and retention, but it helps us develop the most advantageous business relationships across the board. In a nutshell, we don’t have time for drama; we apply transparency and accountability to every we do, and we play to win.

These core values resonate with some potential candidates, employees, clients and vendors and, with others, they don’t. That’s OK with us. If a potential candidate or stakeholder reads through our simple, straight-forward core values and doesn’t nod their head vigorously in agreement, they likely aren’t a good fit for us. Acknowledging that from the start of a relationship provides solid ground on which to move forward.

How to Define Core Values for Yourself

In addition to Wickman’s Traction, business leaders interested in defining strong core values can benefit from understanding Jim Collins’ Hedgehog Concept from another classic business book, Good to Great.

The Hedgehog Concept will prompt you to investigate how your company intersects within the following three dimensions:

• What can you be the best in the world at?
• What drives your economic engine?
• What are you deeply passionate about?

Uncovering the answers can be a painful but enlightening endeavor and Collins reminds readers along the way that “a Hedgehog Concept is not a goal to be the best, a strategy to be to be the best, an intention to be the best, a plan to be the best. It is an understanding of what you can be the best at. The distinction is absolutely crucial.”

Why Aspirational Values Undermine Trust

What too many companies do, even when following Good to Great strategies like the Hedgehog Concept, is to base their values on aspirations rather than reality. The two aspects must be married to create core values that employees can trust and believe in. How do you know if your core values fall short of representing who your company is right now? Measuring your turnover is one way. Low retention rates can signal a disconnect in what you “sell” candidates versus the actual day-to-day reality for your employees.

How to Evaluate Your Lived Culture

In their book IGNITE: Setting Your Organization’s Culture on Fire With Innovation, David J. Neff and Randal C. Moss recommend evaluating an organization’s culture using a method coined by organizational development expert Edgar H. Schein. Schein identifies three levels of culture that provide clues into an organization’s true values: artifacts (visible organizational structures and processes like employee handbooks), espoused beliefs and values (strategies, goals and philosophies—things usually outlined in your company’s “about us” page on your website) and underlying assumptions (unconscious beliefs, perceptions, thoughts and feelings—how employees have learned to act and react in certain situations).

The process Neff and Moss outline includes a half-day exercise in observing and documenting the different artifacts, beliefs and assumptions that are present within an organization. Perhaps the most crucial step in their process is to take a few minutes to informally talk to the newest individuals in your office (which may be an intern). Ask them what they think are the top five unmentioned elements of your culture that they uniformly obey (these would be their perceived underlying assumptions). Their answers may be very surprising. And, if they are, you have a lot of work to do when it comes to reconciling your core values with your corporate culture.

In the end, it’s critically important to put your best face forward when it comes to defining your core values and using them to recruit and retain the best of the best. But be sure it’s YOUR best face that you reveal. Hide behind a mask of meaningless words and empty promises and your efforts are sure to fail.

Nad Elias

CEO- recruitAbility

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Last year was crazy; anomalies were happening all around us.  It was the only time I can remember in history where cars and boats were appreciating assets; houses were nearly doubling in value in certain markets, and yes; candidates were being offered double their salary among other perks to take new job.  Last year was dubbed “The Great Resignation” for that very reason!

If 2022 was the Great Resignation, I’m calling this year The Great Reckoning!  We saw mass layoffs in Q3 and Q4 of last year across many industries (mostly tech).  Our industry (recruiting) was hit as well, including here at recruitAbility.  Companies over-hired, paid people more than their skillset deemed, and agreed to unrealistic perks and demands.  This is a big reason you saw Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. have to make deep cuts.  As positions are re-filled and companies start growing again, they’re going to be much more careful and critical during the interview process.  We’re already seeing that through Q1 of this year.  When a candidate gets a job now, the fit will be better for the employer and potential employee b/c both sides will have done their homework.

The fit will be better, and we’ll get back to a time when both employer and candidate are grateful for each other.  The Great Reckoning is all about getting back to being grateful to have the opportunity to do work that you love to do!

In a world where economic uncertainty and job loss are becoming increasingly common, having a job can be a reason for immense gratitude. However, it can be easy to take our employment for granted and forget about the many benefits it brings over just a paycheck. Mental Health, Energy Levels, and self-confidence can all be effected.

Having a job gives us a sense of purpose and belonging. Whether we’re working in a traditional office environment, hybrid, or from home, our jobs provide structure and routine to our days, and allow us to contribute to something larger than ourselves. They also give us the opportunity to build relationships with our colleagues and make a positive impact in the world.

Being grateful for our jobs can have a positive impact on our mental and physical health. Research has shown that gratitude can help to boost our mood, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve our overall well-being. By focusing on the things we’re thankful for, we can shift our perspective and find a greater sense of happiness and contentment, even in difficult times.

The next time you find yourself feeling frustrated or overwhelmed, take a moment to reflect on the things you’re grateful for, including your job. You may be surprised by how much it lifts your spirits.  Let’s use the Great Reckoning to be thankful for the opportunities we have!

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In our previous articles, How to Retain Your Remote Team and Top Employee Retention Strategies For Today’s Market, we covered best practices for increasing team engagement and commitment.

However, just implementing retention strategies isn’t enough. Setting metrics and benchmarks around each initiative will help you measure your progress, determine where changes are necessary and get the desired results from your efforts. 

Top 4 Employee Experience and Retention Metrics to Track

 Based on benchmarks that our clients track and additional industry research, we have compiled a list of the Top 4 Employee Experience and Retention Metrics to Track in 2023:  

1. Retention rate:
This metric tracks the percentage of employees who stay at your company over a specific period, typically 12 months. It can be broken down by job function, department, designation, and age group for deeper insight.

2. Employee Engagement Score:
This metric can give you an understanding of your employees’ engagement and commitment levels. By performing regular surveys on the company’s vision and environment, you will have constant, reliable data on the engagement of your team.

3. Average Employee Tenure:
This metric gives direct insight into how long an average employee will stay at your organization. You can use this information to make better-informed decisions when it comes to forecasting your talent needs.

4. Cost of employee turnover:
This number pulls together all the subset costs of turnover. That includes advertising the vacancy, background checks, lost production, interview time, onboarding, and first 90-day ramp up.

As a talent leader, business owner, or department head, your goal is always a strong employee experience. When you get it right, dedication and loyalty follow. The right retention metrics keep you ahead of satisfaction issues before they become turnover.

For help improving your employee experience and retention metrics, reach out to our team today.

*This article is supported by content created and distributed by Academy to Innovate HR and their employee retention metrics article.* 

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We’re living in unprecedented times, and I’m not even talking about the pandemic.

Rather, I’m referring to the U.S. economic rebound from 2020. I’ve witnessed firsthand the bounceback from the 2001 dot-com bust and the 2008 financial crisis. What we’re experiencing now is crazier. It’s a slingshot. There’s nothing gradual about it.

Perhaps my perspective is skewed due to the migration of companies and people to Texas and Austin (see below chart). But I think it’s bigger than that. The stock market is rising, government stimulus payments are being spent nationwide, and demand is surging across multiple jobs sectors. In March, the unemployment rate dropped to 6%.

The result? Salary inflation is rising faster than at any point in my 23-year career in the recruiting industry. 

Factors Impacting Salary Growth

We’re seeing myriad factors contributing to rising compensation.

1. Geography: Job seekers and job postings no longer have the same geographic restrictions. Companies now recruit nationwide. While this expands the candidate pool, it also creates new competition for top talent in certain parts of the country.
2. Open to offers: Many employees took pandemic pay cuts. Now these people want to be compensated for that “sacrifice,” so to speak. As a result, more people are considering job changes and listening to offers. Companies are wooing them with money.
3. Competition: Most companies curtailed their hiring or announced layoffs starting in March 2020. Now, these companies are playing catch-up as they project growth and revisit projects that were sidelined during COVID-19. Everyone’s hiring at the same time.
4. Buying trends: Industries like e-commerce, 3PL, cybersecurity, telecom, grocery delivery, and telehealth took off during the pandemic. These are the fastest-growing jobs sectors, and the impact is far-reaching.

Recommendations For Companies In This Market

A typical “cost of living” raise is 3-5% annually, but that’s insufficient to keep top talent in this environment.

For roles in software engineering and development, project management, data science, and civil and mechanical engineering, we’ve seen salaries rise 10-30% for the exact same role this year vs. last year. 

A $100k annual salary for a software developer pre-pandemic now pays approximately $130k per year. I believe we’re on the front end of this shift. Expect these salaries to rise further.

Our advice to companies is to evaluate your business closely. If your profit margins are growing, but you’re not paying your employees or vendors more, we suggest right-sizing your compensation to hang on to your best people and attract new talent. Do a salary audit to see how close you are to the market average.

In the book, “No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention,” I learned that Netflix encourages all of its employees to take calls from recruiters. They want to know what the market is paying, so they ask employees to present job offers to them. If you’re a valued employee, Netflix will beat any offer you present. It’s part of their culture of transparency.

Even if your company is not part of the rising economic tide right now, it may still be worth it to increase your staff’s salaries. Realize that it’s easier than ever for your employees to go elsewhere, and act accordingly.

Missing out on new hires is one thing, but pay close attention to your attrition rate. Losing your best and brightest employees can create ripple effects that are difficult to recover from. 

Do you need help with a salary audit? Want a free consultation to address your hiring and employee retention practices? Email us at sales@recruitAbility.ai.

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The S&P 500 hit an all-time high last week. It’s symptomatic of how much optimism there is in the economy right now. 

We’re seeing this take shape in our recruiting practice as companies’ demand for high-caliber finance & accounting professionals is surging, especially in Austin. People are flocking to Austin, but the city remains short on CFOs and seasoned accounting executives that can consistently handle the financial reporting required for board meetings, fundraising, and M&A activity. This need also extends to public accounting firms.

Recognizing this gap in the market, we launched a dedicated segment of our business focused on finance & accounting last October. Historically, high-growth companies in Austin have gone out of town to find capable recruiting firms in this space, but now we can offer a local resource with a strong track record thanks to recruitAbility’s Director of Financial Services Damien Richburg, CFA.

With six years of recruiting experience in finance & accounting and an MBA from UT’s McCombs School of Business, Damien is a continuous learner who has built a competency in connecting clients with hard-to-find talent. One of our core values is “live to serve,” and Damien’s relationships with companies and candidates reflect this character trait.

How To Recruit Finance & Accounting Professionals

Identifying, attracting, and hiring employees in finance & accounting requires subtle differences in approach compared to other career fields. Put simply, it’s a different conversation.

Generally speaking, these searches focus more on skill set and experience compared to qualitative measures. The qualifications for candidates vary depending on the level of the job, but they must be adept at processing information quickly and presenting data in a digestible manner.

By recognizing these nuances, we’re able to save our clients’ time and improve our success rate.

A Buyer’s Market In Finance & Accounting

It’s a perfect storm of hiring for finance & accounting roles because so many companies ran lean last year during the height of the pandemic. Now, the floodgates are open as companies play catch-up. In an effort to cast a wider net, many businesses have lifted geographic restrictions on roles that have historically been in-office.

This dynamic has led to multiple offer scenarios for top talent. In this situation, experienced recruiters become invaluable since we’re able to apply our market knowledge to help clients during negotiations. In most cases, in-house recruiters don’t have an equivalent number of job placements, so it puts them at a disadvantage.

If you’re a company in need of elite finance & accounting talent, contact us today for a free consultation or salary benchmark analysis. You can reach us at sales@recruitability.ai.

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There are two types of work environments: high-trust and low-trust.

A low-trust work environment is often characterized by:

• Employees who assume their coworkers or supervisors have bad intentions
• Lack of transparency among employees and upper/lower management
• Silos between departments that discourage communication
• Blurry lines and ambiguity relative to goals
• Excessive micromanagement 

The results of this type of toxic company culture include higher employee churn, finger-pointing, lack of productivity, reputational damage, and employee resentment. 

Does any of this sound familiar? 

One of the byproducts of remote work is that your company culture reveals itself much faster. That’s why this is such an important topic during the pandemic. The past year has taught many professionals how challenging it is to thrive when working remotely in a low-trust environment.

What we never see is goal-oriented, metrics-driven companies that have low-trust workplaces. The circles never intersect. When people know their roles and responsibilities – and they’re clear on what they’re being held accountable for – it creates clarity. There are set lanes and defined outcomes.

Companies that operate using these principles tend to foster collaboration, build better relationships, give their employees more freedom, and spend less time on office politics (which kills productivity). They can do these things because people trust each other to handle their respective duties. It’s like New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s motto: Do Your Job. He must be on to something with six Super Bowl rings. 

This framework also provides the foundation for employees to achieve work-life balance, which is also a hot topic during the pandemic. If you’re curious how we’ve built our company culture – particularly in the context of remote work – click here.

Are you looking to increase employee engagement and retention? Contact us for a free consultation: sales@recruitAbility.ai.

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Maybe it’s because of the pandemic and remote work that we see so much discussion about work-life balance these days.

It’s true that working from home blurs the lines between your personal and professional lives. It’s difficult to create boundaries when work is just a few steps away, but that’s been true for as long as laptops have existed.

Perhaps it’s the uncertainty of COVID that has accentuated the pressure and anxiety that people feel at work, and that’s spilling into home life.

Regardless of the cause, what are the best ways to balance and compartmentalize your work and personal lives? How can companies help in this process?

Creating Separation Is Easier Said Than Done

In my experience, too many companies treat work-life balance as a cute catchphrase to help attract or retain talent, but they don’t follow through.

This article advocates for companies to build barriers to help their employees recharge outside of work hours. There’s definitely some merit to this approach, but it’s not always practical. Sometimes completing a project or closing business requires spending time outside of traditional work days and work hours.

What I’ve learned is that a culture that fosters work-life balance is best achieved by creating metrics for every role that focus on accountability and results. The measurement should not be tied to the number of hours worked or which days you work, but rather on the quality of the work output.

A results-oriented culture enables everything else to fall into place. Job flexibility, work-life balance, trust, and camaraderie all seem to take care of themselves when people know their goals and are held accountable to those goals, rather than to superficial measures of productivity.

If you’re curious about how we’ve built this type of work culture at recruitAbility, check out this article.

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Virtual hiring isn’t something companies fall back on out of necessity anymore. What started as a forced substitute for in-person interviews has become how a large share of hiring actually happens now. The reasons go beyond convenience.

Companies that built a real virtual hiring process discovered something unexpected along the way. Evaluating candidates remotely was not just workable. In several ways, it turned out to work better than the process it replaced.

What Changed When Interviews Went Virtual

The most visible shift was speed. A hiring process that once took a month can now happen in a fraction of that time. Video interviews remove the scheduling friction that used to stretch a search out for weeks. Candidates no longer need to coordinate travel or block off a full day around a single in-person round.

The final round used to be reserved for an in-person visit, mainly to gauge culture fit. That step now happens by video too, along with everything leading up to it. A structured hiring process for senior and specialized roles translates well to a virtual format. The structure was never really about the room. It was always about the questions and the evaluation criteria behind them.

Virtual Hiring Opened Up the Talent Pool

Remote interviews removed a real constraint that used to limit every search: geography. A company no longer has to restrict a search to candidates willing to relocate or already living nearby. That changes who shows up in the pipeline, not just how candidates get evaluated once they are in it.

Building a genuinely national talent pool also means facing a real tradeoff around compensation. Some companies hold a single pay band regardless of location. Others adjust based on regional cost of living. Neither approach is automatically right, but a virtual hiring process forces the question earlier than an in-person one ever did.

Does Virtual Hiring Actually Work as Well as In-Person?

The honest answer is that it works differently, and mostly just as well, once a team adjusts for what changes. Reading a room in person is not the same as reading someone on a video call. Interviewers who never adjust their approach will notice the gap.

Structured interviews at senior levels close most of that gap. Every candidate answers the same well-designed questions, evaluated against the same criteria. The format of the interview matters less than the quality of the questions being asked. A strong structured process travels well across a screen because it never depended on the room to begin with.

What Virtual Hiring Requires to Actually Work Well

A virtual hiring process is not just an in-person process moved onto a video call. It needs its own deliberate design. Every stage needs clear expectations about format. A candidate should know in advance whether to expect a live conversation, a recorded exercise, or a written assessment.

Skills also need a reliable way to get assessed without a whiteboard or an office to walk someone through. So does the offer and signing process. It has to work smoothly even when no one involved is in the same building. Getting a new hire off to a strong start looks different when the whole process happened remotely, too. Remote onboarding done well picks up exactly where a virtual hiring process leaves off. A new hire who never set foot in an office needs deliberate onboarding even more than one who did.

Where Virtual Hiring Can Still Fall Short

Speed and reach are real advantages, but virtual hiring also removes some of the small signals that used to happen naturally. A candidate does not get a tour of the office. They do not overhear how a team actually talks to each other in the hallway between meetings. Some of that can be rebuilt on purpose, but it rarely happens by accident on a screen.

Engagement can slip in the same way. A candidate who goes days without hearing back after a video interview will read the silence as disinterest. That is true even if the delay is just a scheduling backlog. Moving through several rounds by video can also feel repetitive. That happens when each interviewer asks similar questions without coordinating in advance. None of these problems are unique to virtual hiring. They just surface faster and more visibly when there is no in-person moment to soften them.

The fix is not to add more steps. It is to be deliberate about the ones that already exist. Give candidates a clear sense of what happens next after every interview. Coordinate what each interviewer is actually evaluating. Then treat the offer conversation as the first real chance to make the process feel human again.

Virtual Hiring Is a Permanent Shift, Not a Temporary One

Treating virtual hiring as a temporary workaround leads teams to under-invest in it. That shows up as a worse candidate experience. Even a fully in-person process, or a genuinely well-built virtual one, would deliver better. The companies getting the most out of remote hiring are the ones that stopped treating it as a substitute. They started treating it as the actual process.

That shift in mindset separates a virtual hiring process that works from one that just gets the job done. It matters more than any specific tool.

Related Articles

• How to Build a Hiring Process That Works for Senior and Specialized Roles
• Fixing the Candidate Experience: Where Great Hiring Really Starts
• Move Like They’re the Only Candidate in the World
• How Slow Hiring Decisions Push Candidates Away

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Last week, we received the honor of being named the No. 1 place to work by the Austin Business Journal (ABJ) in the micro category of their 2020 Best Places To Work competition. I’m honored and humbled.

When I started recruitAbility in 2017, I envisioned a tech recruiting and consulting firm that emphasizes employee engagement after the hire to improve retention. Our message of shared accountability has resonated with our partners. Simply put, when companies focus on employee onboarding and provide the necessary resources to new hires, it consistently leads to better outcomes. 

There are plenty of companies on ABJ’s 2020 Best Places To Work list who illustrate this approach. We want to congratulate all of the businesses that the ABJ honored for setting a strong example and helping Austin to become an even bigger talent hub. 

Below are the other category winners. To view the full list of 65 winners, click here.

Large Companies
Overall winner: Realty Austin

Medium Companies
Overall winner: Twelve Rivers Realty

Small Companies
Overall winner: Pure Gold Realty

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