10 ms·

‘Culture fit’ (without clearly specifying what that means) is such an enormous backdoor for all manner of bias and personal prejudice I’m surprised the concept

‘Culture fit’ (without clearly specifying what that means) is such an enormous backdoor for all manner of bias and personal prejudice I’m surprised the concept is even legal.

ixtli 7y ago
Completely agree. I've been lucky to have been surrounded by pretty reasonable people in my 8-10 years in the startup world on the east coast but "culture fit" was one of the rare situations that I got in a really impassioned arguments with my superiors. It's code that allows you to avoid hiring a guy who wears Fubu or has a Kentucky drawl.
kaesar14 7y ago
What’s wrong with evaluating whether you’d get along with someone as a coworker? In my experience, being friendly and getting along has aided cooperation far more than hiring the most qualified candidate at the detriment of group dynamic. Yes, there are potential biases, but at a smaller company I’d say that’s a huge factor.
- ixtli 7y ago
  I edited my top level comment for just this reason. Interpersonal communication skills are extremely important to evaluate for any position. But the person you're replying to is saying, correctly, that this isn't what people mean in practice when they bandy about the term "culture fit."
  - kaesar14 7y ago
    I see, yes, stereotyping based on some perceived “flaw” like accent is absolutely wrong and needs anti-bias training to remedy. It is tough though. I want people I interview for my company and team to get along with everyone, and trying to make that evaluation in a short amount of time can often result in immense bias. In the end, interviewing is fucking hard.
    - ixtli 7y ago
      No question. Personally I think the first and most important step is getting everyone in our industry to admit that they have deeply internalized biases that they're not likely to be fully aware of and that they have a real effect on important decisions. Once you've acknowledged that you can start to check yourself.
      - kaesar14 7y ago
        Agreed, and it's up to the organization to remedy those biases with multiple rounds of interviews, and most importantly, making sure those multiple rounds consist of interviewers with different inherent biases and tendencies.
aantix 7y ago
Or it’s such a vague term that means something different to each team and might have significance depending upon what is valued?
- ixtli 7y ago
  Yes but my point is that in my 8+ years in the startup world it has a very specific connotation that is, as someone else said, a vehicle to legitimize really inappropriate biases into hiring.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    "Poor communication skills" is another that seems to just mean "has an accent."
umvi 7y ago
So if I make a startup, I should be forced to hire some brilliant programmer whose personality I clash with over over a slightly less brilliant programmer who I can tell will become a fast friend just because the former has demonstrated more technological prowess?
- Drakim 7y ago
  "Hard to work with" is a pretty big minus on somebody's skillset, you don't need to hide it under "culture fit".
  - umvi 7y ago
    I mean, it's just a hunch though. I've only spent an hour or two with the person, I don't know actually know if they would be hard to work with. Candidate one gives off slightly anti-social vibes but is brilliant, candidate two jokes around with me during the interview and is smart as well, but less so than candidate one. Am I justified in going with candidate two on a hunch?
    - kaesar14 7y ago
      In your position, I’d take candidate 2. Displaying a reasonable level of competence and ability to work in a group is so much more crucial for a small company!
      - maaaats 7y ago
        But now you did the mistake of assuming a lot of stuff, with very little data. Why can you say that person 2 is better at working in a group? Maybe person 1 was just very nervous, or is a type that takes a few days to warm up to new people. Maybe person 1 just crack jokes all day and is actually detrimental to the productivity. Impossible to tell from this one que alone.
        jvagner 7y ago
        And hence, some weight in the skills/judgement of the interviewer. Which is also why there are usually multiple stages in an interview process, or at least, you pass a candidate to 3 or more team members to interview the candidate. In my experience, it's hard to find good candidates, but not that hard to figure out which of the candidates will be a good fit, and a strong contributor, to a team. I've also hired mostly for team sizes of 10-20 developers, not 200.
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
So? Bias isn't illegal unless your pattern of bias lines up with a protected class.
- SkyBelow 7y ago
  Bias was for protected classes was made illegal for a particular reason, which also applies to a less extent to the non-protected classes. To argue that bias is acceptable along as it isn't explicitly illegal is a stance that seems dangerous when applied to other areas of technology, and many past discussion within this community have shown that many members here are concerned with doing more than the bare legal minimum when it comes to ethical behavior.
- ivanhoe 7y ago
  Ageism is illegal in US under Age Discrimination in Employment Act if that person is 40 or older.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    Only if the ageism is on favor of the younger person. It is never illegal ageism to always hire the oldest candidate.
  - turk73 7y ago
    Every ageist situation that I have encountered thus far (am age 46) was "not a cultural fit." I look younger than I am, but my patience for over-working too many hours is at an end. Years of stress have led to health issues that have to be managed. But this all rolls into "not a cultural fit."
    - ummonk 7y ago
      Yeah, and as a worker in his 20s who prioritizes work-life-balance, I wouldn't be a culture fit at those places either.
- ben_w 7y ago
  So the law is wrong. This is the alignment problem, but for laws instead of AI. The law doesn’t perfectly match what society (to the extent that society is an entity with desires) actually wants.
_jal 7y ago
As usual, the root problem is that workplaces are made of humans. Yes, "culture fit" can absolutely be used to excuse nastiness. It is also a real thing that seriously matters, and ignoring interpersonal dynamics is a very quick way to kill a startup. I'd just note that you can smuggle nasty behavior into any formal mechanism. Witness the legal system (which you'd engage here) - whining about bad-faith arguments in court is basically a national sport in the US, until the whiner is the plaintiff.
leetcrew 7y ago
tbh I don't see a huge issue with a small team of friends wanting to stay a small team of friends. imo, it starts to be problematic when a large (for some definition of "large") employer hires on the basis of culture fit.
thomascgalvin 7y ago
I've seen "culture fit" used in an attempt to reject female candidates because the interviewer didn't want to stop telling dick jokes around the office. Fortunately, the management chain caught this and ... corrected the issue.
- village-idiot 7y ago
  Turns out culture fit was the problem, just not for the candidates.
- joquarky 7y ago
  My wife had a great interview, everything was going well and they were showing her around the office. When she got to the team that was hiring, the hiring manager indicated that they like to shoot Nerf guns at each other, and they hope that is OK. My wife showed a sign of mild disapproval, and that was it. She was rejected for "not a culture fit".
suzzer99 7y ago
Culture fit does make a lot of sense though. I interviewed at a company where everyone was a gamer. Would I have fit in? Probably not. Another company everyone looked about 25 or younger. I don't blame them for not wanting to hire someone pushing 50. They just don't know if they're going to get the cool 50-year-old or the grumpy old troll who won't listen to anyone. Of course they can never come out and say that for obvious reasons.
- reificator 7y ago
  > Culture fit does make a lot of sense though. I interviewed at a company where everyone was a gamer. Would I have fit in? Probably not. Another company everyone looked about 25 or younger. I play video games. I have all of the last two generations of consoles, a smattering of older consoles I've managed to hold onto over the years (lost most of them for one reason or another) and a half-decent gaming PC where I prefer to play games if possible. On top of that I've done game development on the side, and have run multiple gaming communities for approximately a decade now. If I went to go interview with a company and they talked about how they were all "gamers", I'd be running for the hills. You know what I want to do at work? Work. You know what I want to talk about at work? Not video games. You know what I want for non-monetary compensation? Not a weekly autochess tournament or PUBG squad night. You know what kind of people I want to be surrounded with? Not a bunch of clones who all have the same beliefs and values and (lack of) experiences.
  - suzzer99 7y ago
    Right. So you would be weeded out by the culture fit, as I was. And in the long run I was glad for it. I think they made the right decision and I'm glad I didn't end up working for them. Even though it paid a little more and was half the commute of the job I did get.
  - mrmcht 7y ago
    Well that's exactly the point of the culture fit. You should be a good fit for the company, and the company should be a good fit for you. It goes both ways.
kthejoker2 7y ago
Let's try for a straightforward definition: Culture is preference between two otherwise value-neutral positions. For example: encouraging collaboration vs. encouraging independent work. Or supporting self-organizing teams vs. all work having a WBS/charge code. Culture is not choosing between being respectful and not; or choosing between being openminded and not; or choosing between being honest or not.

‘Culture fit’ (without clearly specifying what that means) is such an enormous backdoor for all manner of bias and personal prejudice I’m surprised the concept is even legal.

ixtli 7y ago

Completely agree. I've been lucky to have been surrounded by pretty reasonable people in my 8-10 years in the startup world on the east coast but "culture fit" was one of the rare situations that I got in a really impassioned arguments with my superiors. It's code that allows you to avoid hiring a guy who wears Fubu or has a Kentucky drawl.

kaesar14 7y ago

What’s wrong with evaluating whether you’d get along with someone as a coworker? In my experience, being friendly and getting along has aided cooperation far more than hiring the most qualified candidate at the detriment of group dynamic. Yes, there are potential biases, but at a smaller company I’d say that’s a huge factor.

ixtli 7y ago
I edited my top level comment for just this reason. Interpersonal communication skills are extremely important to evaluate for any position. But the person you're replying to is saying, correctly, that this isn't what people mean in practice when they bandy about the term "culture fit."
- kaesar14 7y ago
  I see, yes, stereotyping based on some perceived “flaw” like accent is absolutely wrong and needs anti-bias training to remedy. It is tough though. I want people I interview for my company and team to get along with everyone, and trying to make that evaluation in a short amount of time can often result in immense bias. In the end, interviewing is fucking hard.
  - ixtli 7y ago
    No question. Personally I think the first and most important step is getting everyone in our industry to admit that they have deeply internalized biases that they're not likely to be fully aware of and that they have a real effect on important decisions. Once you've acknowledged that you can start to check yourself.
    - kaesar14 7y ago
      Agreed, and it's up to the organization to remedy those biases with multiple rounds of interviews, and most importantly, making sure those multiple rounds consist of interviewers with different inherent biases and tendencies.

aantix 7y ago

Or it’s such a vague term that means something different to each team and might have significance depending upon what is valued?

ixtli 7y ago
Yes but my point is that in my 8+ years in the startup world it has a very specific connotation that is, as someone else said, a vehicle to legitimize really inappropriate biases into hiring.
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  "Poor communication skills" is another that seems to just mean "has an accent."

umvi 7y ago

So if I make a startup, I should be forced to hire some brilliant programmer whose personality I clash with over over a slightly less brilliant programmer who I can tell will become a fast friend just because the former has demonstrated more technological prowess?

Drakim 7y ago
"Hard to work with" is a pretty big minus on somebody's skillset, you don't need to hide it under "culture fit".
- umvi 7y ago
  I mean, it's just a hunch though. I've only spent an hour or two with the person, I don't know actually know if they would be hard to work with. Candidate one gives off slightly anti-social vibes but is brilliant, candidate two jokes around with me during the interview and is smart as well, but less so than candidate one. Am I justified in going with candidate two on a hunch?
  - kaesar14 7y ago
    In your position, I’d take candidate 2. Displaying a reasonable level of competence and ability to work in a group is so much more crucial for a small company!
    - maaaats 7y ago
      But now you did the mistake of assuming a lot of stuff, with very little data. Why can you say that person 2 is better at working in a group? Maybe person 1 was just very nervous, or is a type that takes a few days to warm up to new people. Maybe person 1 just crack jokes all day and is actually detrimental to the productivity. Impossible to tell from this one que alone.
      - jvagner 7y ago
        And hence, some weight in the skills/judgement of the interviewer. Which is also why there are usually multiple stages in an interview process, or at least, you pass a candidate to 3 or more team members to interview the candidate. In my experience, it's hard to find good candidates, but not that hard to figure out which of the candidates will be a good fit, and a strong contributor, to a team. I've also hired mostly for team sizes of 10-20 developers, not 200.

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

So? Bias isn't illegal unless your pattern of bias lines up with a protected class.

SkyBelow 7y ago
Bias was for protected classes was made illegal for a particular reason, which also applies to a less extent to the non-protected classes. To argue that bias is acceptable along as it isn't explicitly illegal is a stance that seems dangerous when applied to other areas of technology, and many past discussion within this community have shown that many members here are concerned with doing more than the bare legal minimum when it comes to ethical behavior.
ivanhoe 7y ago
Ageism is illegal in US under Age Discrimination in Employment Act if that person is 40 or older.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  Only if the ageism is on favor of the younger person. It is never illegal ageism to always hire the oldest candidate.
- turk73 7y ago
  Every ageist situation that I have encountered thus far (am age 46) was "not a cultural fit." I look younger than I am, but my patience for over-working too many hours is at an end. Years of stress have led to health issues that have to be managed. But this all rolls into "not a cultural fit."
  - ummonk 7y ago
    Yeah, and as a worker in his 20s who prioritizes work-life-balance, I wouldn't be a culture fit at those places either.
ben_w 7y ago
So the law is wrong. This is the alignment problem, but for laws instead of AI. The law doesn’t perfectly match what society (to the extent that society is an entity with desires) actually wants.

_jal 7y ago

As usual, the root problem is that workplaces are made of humans. Yes, "culture fit" can absolutely be used to excuse nastiness. It is also a real thing that seriously matters, and ignoring interpersonal dynamics is a very quick way to kill a startup. I'd just note that you can smuggle nasty behavior into any formal mechanism. Witness the legal system (which you'd engage here) - whining about bad-faith arguments in court is basically a national sport in the US, until the whiner is the plaintiff.

leetcrew 7y ago

tbh I don't see a huge issue with a small team of friends wanting to stay a small team of friends. imo, it starts to be problematic when a large (for some definition of "large") employer hires on the basis of culture fit.

thomascgalvin 7y ago

I've seen "culture fit" used in an attempt to reject female candidates because the interviewer didn't want to stop telling dick jokes around the office. Fortunately, the management chain caught this and ... corrected the issue.

village-idiot 7y ago
Turns out culture fit was the problem, just not for the candidates.
joquarky 7y ago
My wife had a great interview, everything was going well and they were showing her around the office. When she got to the team that was hiring, the hiring manager indicated that they like to shoot Nerf guns at each other, and they hope that is OK. My wife showed a sign of mild disapproval, and that was it. She was rejected for "not a culture fit".

suzzer99 7y ago

Culture fit does make a lot of sense though. I interviewed at a company where everyone was a gamer. Would I have fit in? Probably not. Another company everyone looked about 25 or younger. I don't blame them for not wanting to hire someone pushing 50. They just don't know if they're going to get the cool 50-year-old or the grumpy old troll who won't listen to anyone. Of course they can never come out and say that for obvious reasons.

reificator 7y ago
> Culture fit does make a lot of sense though. I interviewed at a company where everyone was a gamer. Would I have fit in? Probably not. Another company everyone looked about 25 or younger. I play video games. I have all of the last two generations of consoles, a smattering of older consoles I've managed to hold onto over the years (lost most of them for one reason or another) and a half-decent gaming PC where I prefer to play games if possible. On top of that I've done game development on the side, and have run multiple gaming communities for approximately a decade now. If I went to go interview with a company and they talked about how they were all "gamers", I'd be running for the hills. You know what I want to do at work? Work. You know what I want to talk about at work? Not video games. You know what I want for non-monetary compensation? Not a weekly autochess tournament or PUBG squad night. You know what kind of people I want to be surrounded with? Not a bunch of clones who all have the same beliefs and values and (lack of) experiences.
- suzzer99 7y ago
  Right. So you would be weeded out by the culture fit, as I was. And in the long run I was glad for it. I think they made the right decision and I'm glad I didn't end up working for them. Even though it paid a little more and was half the commute of the job I did get.
- mrmcht 7y ago
  Well that's exactly the point of the culture fit. You should be a good fit for the company, and the company should be a good fit for you. It goes both ways.

kthejoker2 7y ago

Let's try for a straightforward definition: Culture is preference between two otherwise value-neutral positions. For example: encouraging collaboration vs. encouraging independent work. Or supporting self-organizing teams vs. all work having a WBS/charge code. Culture is not choosing between being respectful and not; or choosing between being openminded and not; or choosing between being honest or not.