Trying to recruit qualified candidates without taking into account how they fit your organization’s culture is much like trying to  convince yourself that vegan cupcakes taste just like the real thing or that Joey doesn’t need Chandler, Phoebe and the rest of gang: you might achieve short-term success, but eventually you find you really need that missing element for long-term success.

But when it comes to cultural fit versus skills, is one quality more important than the other? We’ve asked some of today’s top recruiting experts. Here’s what they had to say:

“Our talented recruiters work very hard to ensure we find the right fit for our open positions. There are plenty of people who could ‘do the job’, but we search to find the person who embodies our values and demonstrates the exceptional technical abilities to make the position and the person most successful.” – Tara Petty, AVP of Recruiting at Concentra.

“In our company, we recruit based on values first and then technical aptitude second…Maintaining our culture is my number one stress factor, and here’s why: I care more about creating a great company than I do a big company.” – Lanham Napier, President & CEO of Rackspace Hosting

“The right cultural fit is an absolute must when hiring new employees. You must, of course, have competencies for the right position, but we look for employees who…fit our culture at Lenovo. It’s much easier to train for skills than for cultural fit.” – Gina Qiao, VP of Human Resources of Lenovo

“More than ever, we need…people who excel across disciplines and are capable of being more generalists than specialists. They need to embody strong and diverse character attributes, not just sets of functional skills. Mindset and work ethic are as critical as they’ve ever been.” – Amber Naslund, co-author of The Now Revolution: 7  Shifts To Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social

“No matter how talented a manager you are, you can’t teach someone to have more integrity. That’s something life teaches you.  And…as a hiring manager, I can’t adopt you without these qualities [of work ethic, humility, integrity and maturity]. ” – Garrett Miller, author of Hire on a WHIM: Four Qualities That Make for Great Employees

Recruiting for Culture: Five Ways to Find That Perfect Fit

Know what you stand for as an employer. “If you’re not specific about who you are as an employer, you can’t as easily determine which candidates will be successful in your organization, and you won’t know what investments you need to be making in your organization,” CareerBuilder’s VP of Human Resources, Rosemary Haefner, recently told me. “Knowing who you are” in this case means having a clearly defined employment brand – one that reflects the culture of the organization and provides a foundation on which all company initiatives are based – including recruiting decisions. After all, it’s impossible to recruit for cultural fit if you don’t even know what that culture is.

Differentiate between the skills you need, and the ones you’re willing to train for. While you might not be able train someone for things like integrity, you do have the ability to train them for various technical skills, which could get you out of a bind when the supply of qualified candidates just isn’t there. “There’s data out there to show you whether the talent is out there or not,” Sanja Licina, CareerBuilder’s Senior Director of Talent Intelligence, said in a recent Q&A. If the answer is “not”, she says, employers and hiring managers might want to reconsider their requirements and take it upon themselves to train workers for the skills their organizations need.

Enlist the help of your own employees. Who better to recommend candidates who fit the culture of your company than the very people who live it every day? Because your employees already know what it takes to be successful at your company, it’s no wonder employee referral programs have been linked to lower turnover rates, lower costs associated with recruiting and increased morale.

Enlist the help of your own employees. Before you look outside your organization, consider promoting employees from within. Think about it: employees you recruit from within your organization are already well-versed in your organization’s culture, as well as daily business operations. Even if you have to provide training to supplement the skills needed for the employee’s new role, the costs of bringing in an external new hire will likely still outweigh the costs of training a current employee for a new role.

ABR: Always be recruiting. Waiting until a position opens up to search for qualified candidates can lead to hasty – and costly – recruiting decisions. Companies that say they recruit year-round – not just when a position opens up – report reduced time-to-hire and lower cost-per-hire rates. Staying connected and engaged with potential candidates will familiarize them with your organization’s culture and enable them to come on board that much faster once you are ready to bring in someone new. (Check out some of our tips for keeping candidates engaged and interested in your organization year-round.)

Even as many employers complain that they can’t find the skilled workers they need for open positions, it’s important not to discount the importance of cultural fit. Perhaps Jim Stengel says it best in his book, Grow: How Ideals Power Growth and Profit at the World’s Greatest Companies: “Nothing unites and motivates people’s actions as strongly as ideals.” Ultimately, what is going to compel your employees to stay with you and to work toward the success of your organization is a shared belief in its mission. None of this is to say that skills aren’t important, but they won’t get you far if cultural fit, shared ideals, a belief in the mission of the company – whatever you choose to call it – is lacking.

We want to hear from you! When it comes to cultural fit versus skills, is one quality more important than the other?