7 ms·

Several months ago I interviewed for a remote position with a startup based in NYC. The technical screening consisted of a project and of course a couple of ph

• mseebach 10y ago
  Playing devil's advocate, there are definitely entirely legitimate reasons one might fail a "culture-fit" interview, especially for a remote hire: Perhaps you weren't so much "not-like-us" as "you kids don't know shit, just wait until you hire me" (your comment does come off slightly condescending) or just generally as someone who'd struggle being outranked by someone 10 years your junior (I understand mid-western values to be slightly more conservative)? Perhaps they didn't feel your ideas of what remote work would look like was aligned with theirs, and they didn't feel you responded to hint that they didn't? Perhaps you indicated a style of working that they feel wouldn't fit well (are you going to be actively picking up work on your own, or are you just going to work your tickets and check out -- or perhaps the exact opposite, either is bad if you're not aligned)? Culture fit (or, more like "working-style-fit") is even more important for a remote position, because the bandwidth for subtle feedback is so narrow. But of course, I know neither you nor the startup in questions, so purely speculation -- but there are reasonable explanations that isn't that you didn't fit into a small, narrow-minded box (which, of course, is definitely also a plausible explanation).
  • st3v3r 10y ago
    If you're going to reject people for "culture fit", and not because of any technical deficiency, then I believe you should lose any right to complain about a so-called "shortage of talent".
    • imagist 10y ago
      Failure to recognize the importance of relating to other people is a technical deficiency.
      • AstralStorm 10y ago
        Using flawed methods to do so is one too, probably more damning.
        • imagist 10y ago
          What's your point? That you shouldn't try to filter candidates for culture fit because your methods for doing so might be flawed? Sure, anything done badly enough can be worse than not doing it, but that is a completely obvious and irrelevant assertion. It's still important to filter for culture fit.
          • st3v3r 10y ago
            No, it really isn't. If you have professionals on your team, they will be able to work together. And once again, most places are using "culture fit" as a way to say, "Not like me", and using it to enable discriminatory hiring practices.
            • imagist 10y ago
              > No, it really isn't. If you have professionals on your team, they will be able to work together. Okay, would it feel more comfortable if we interviewed for "professionalism" instead of "culture fit"? Fully realizing that standards of professionalism are different for each company and team within a company, i.e. that professional standards are part of a team's culture? > And once again, most places are using "culture fit" as a way to say, "Not like me", and using it to enable discriminatory hiring practices. That is true sometimes, but not always. More to the point, tightening the politically correctness standards of language around the problem does absolutely nothing to prevent discrimination--it just makes discrimination harder to identify. And in the process you're throwing out the idea that sometimes people aren't likely to get along--which is not a function of race/gender/class/etc. If you think someone is using "cultural fit" as an excuse for discrimination, the solution is to call them out for that, not to pretend that "cultural fit" doesn't describe a real phenomenon. What makes you think that a bigot can't say that someone isn't technically qualified in order to exclude them? A perfect example of this: I said someone wasn't a cultural fit a year ago, but I was outvoted because of his technical abilities. Four months later he was fired for groping the administrative assistant, and afterward, more incidents came to light. Do you think that my workplace was more or less discriminatory because we hired someone without regard to his cultural fit?
  • kesselvon 10y ago
    Culture fit is just code for 'let's hire someone who has identical life experiences to mine'
    • realbarack 10y ago
      Not necessarily. When we talk about someone being a good culture fit at the place I work, we look for someone who's respectful, approachable, not condescending, and who wants to empower their coworkers. There are many brilliant technical people who are jerks—we don't want to work with them. (And not to say that there's not a place for super-smart people who are assholes, but we try not to hire them.)
      • AstralStorm 10y ago
        Sure, evaluating that someone is respectful, tactful and approachable is best done with a few hour interview. Riiight. Anyone who believes that should be immediately fired. Those things come out in a few months at earliest, as does lack of professionalism or competence. Even a good judge of character needs a sample in non-contrived circumstances, which a hiring interview is not. I'd actually like to see hard research data on this... What I have is soft data on how people are in general horrible judges of character. In that plain old days mining is often more accurate. "You do not truly know someone until you fight (with) them."
• mccolin 10y ago
  This is definitely something that happens. It's valid, I believe, for the company to vet candidates for culture fit, but the go should not be hiring a team of "sames." In a recent batch of interviews (four opportunities local, three remote), I was put through a specific culture fit step of the interview process at all but one company, and it was part of all remote hiring processes.
  • andyjohnson0 10y ago
    Can you describe what the culture-fit interviewing stage was like?
    • jcadam 10y ago
      A series of interviews with various members of the team. Most of the questions were non-technical (or fairly high-level if they were). "Describe a time at work when you had to do X." etc. Of course, lunch with the team was part of the process as well (Eating while being evaluated is never fun, and I find I don't eat much).
      • novocaine 10y ago
        That isn't a cultural fit question, it's a behavioral interview question.
  • jcadam 10y ago
    Culture-fit is the hardest part of any interview process for me. I'm an extreme introvert -- though I can fake being an outgoing, friendly person when necessary (but it's extremely taxing and I need to take a nap afterwards). Perhaps others pick up on the fakery -- or maybe it comes off as 'creepy.'
    • AstralStorm 10y ago
      Fakery in a fake situation? Who would have thought...
  • 10y ago
• dba7dba 10y ago
  I find it very ironic that a company in NYC full of 20-something (who probably identify strongly with diversity and Dems rather than GOP) insist on hiring people like themselves...
  • 20yrs_no_equity 10y ago
    I'm one of those people who hits multiple diversity/minority characteristics for various reasons, which means in any group where we are all minorities, I'm the minority of that group for one reason or another. All groups of people selected for some characteristic - whether it's "works for this company" or "wants hillary elected to office" or "was persecuted historically by X" have their own reflexes that exclude "outsiders" or "anyone who is associated with X". Often at contradictory directions to their stated intent. For example, gay people supporting a candidate who has spent their entire career opposing gay marriage, over candidates and a party that has supported gay marriage for their entire career (and back to the founding of the party.)
• deleted 10y ago
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