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Well, for one thing it's hiring people who may not be the stereotypical "cultural fit". I've always been a massive proponent of hiring based on "cultural fit",

Well, for one thing it's hiring people who may not be the stereotypical "cultural fit". I've always been a massive proponent of hiring based on "cultural fit", but have recently started to realize it can get really toxic that way. Hiring people who are good at their jobs, but may be different in a social setting can be a way of indirectly hiring people on the spectrum. If you have many extroverted employees, hiring more introverted people will inevitably lead to hiring people on the spectrum. How do you judge this? Well, personality tests are pretty common already, they can absolutely show traits that are more common in people with autism. Also, an interview can tell you a lot about a person.

dolni 5y ago
You raise good points and I am of the mind that this is a difficult problem without silver bullets. I don't believe there is any way to create and vet a "100% bias-free guaranteed" interview process. That said, our industry does have a reputation for being especially unwelcoming to women. It would be a shame if a candidate raised red flags and those flags went undetected or ignored in an attempt to be "inclusive".
jdgoesmarching 5y ago
I’ve always thought “cultural fit” was an odd thing to prioritize when we have research showing that (actual) diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink. Especially when this term is just begging for bias to creep in. One lesson that stuck with me was the Houston Rockets GM putting some barriers around how emotional judgments were allowed to influence decisions. Small rules like “don’t give players nicknames” or just giving less weight to personal interviews were good experiments in how to keep screenings more objective. We don’t have the granularity or measurability of new hire data as NBA offices do, but I think these concepts are still useful.
- bitwize 5y ago
  > I’ve always thought “cultural fit” was an odd thing to prioritize when we have research showing that (actual) diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink. Astronaut 1: You mean... our work culture is conducive to groupthink? Astronaut 2: * points gun * Always has been...
  - throwaway284534 5y ago
    I often downvote low effort meme posts, but the irony of groupthink here is palpable. I guess we’re all guilty
- Zababa 5y ago
  > I’ve always thought “cultural fit” was an odd thing to prioritize when we have research showing that (actual) diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink. Especially when this term is just begging for bias to creep in. Were these studies ever replicated? I think diversity is useful if you have diverse clients, but if clients have a monoculture, then trying to mirror that with your team makes sense.
jawns 5y ago
The new trend is hiring for "culture add" rather than "culture fit." In other words, not trying to determine whether a person fits in with everybody else, but trying to determine whether what they bring to the table is something new and beneficial. My own engineering team still uses the term "culture fit," but I recently helped refine our interviewing guidelines to make it more clear what we mean: "We are assessing the candidate's comfort level with our processes, priorities, frequency of change, etc. Assessments should never reflect an interviewer's comfort level with any candidate's culture, personal attributes, etc."
- hunter2_ 5y ago
  Regardless of what you aim for regarding culture, culture itself seems like the sort of thing that people can't readily change about themselves (just like you can't expect people to change their religion, even though technically they're free to do so in many cases), and for that reason, culture seems like it should be among the protected classes that shouldn't be used for hiring decisions. Sticking to whether they can get the job done, as cold as that sounds, seems most equal-opportunity IMHO.
  - jawns 5y ago
    Culture is such a vague word, though, isn't it? In some cases it identifies a regional association (like Mexican culture). In some cases it's religious or social (like Catholic culture or Deaf culture). In other cases it has to do with socioeconomic status (like uncultured country bumpkins vs. cultured Ivy League grads), the arts (low-culture gossip mags vs. high-culture literary mags), or business practices (like a culture of secrecy or a culture of inclusion within an organization). Fortunately, the law already bans discrimination on the basis of religion, ethnicity, and national origin, so that covers a lot of the legitimate cases where an attribute that has no bearing on a person's ability to perform the job cannot be factored into hiring decisions. But there is certainly a sense in which culture absolutely can have bearing on job performance. A company might have a culture of "move fast and break things," and if a candidate is not comfortable with that culture, then it would be to their (and the employer's) benefit to know ahead of time whether the job would be a good fit for them.

dolni 5y ago

You raise good points and I am of the mind that this is a difficult problem without silver bullets. I don't believe there is any way to create and vet a "100% bias-free guaranteed" interview process. That said, our industry does have a reputation for being especially unwelcoming to women. It would be a shame if a candidate raised red flags and those flags went undetected or ignored in an attempt to be "inclusive".

jdgoesmarching 5y ago

I’ve always thought “cultural fit” was an odd thing to prioritize when we have research showing that (actual) diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink. Especially when this term is just begging for bias to creep in. One lesson that stuck with me was the Houston Rockets GM putting some barriers around how emotional judgments were allowed to influence decisions. Small rules like “don’t give players nicknames” or just giving less weight to personal interviews were good experiments in how to keep screenings more objective. We don’t have the granularity or measurability of new hire data as NBA offices do, but I think these concepts are still useful.

bitwize 5y ago
> I’ve always thought “cultural fit” was an odd thing to prioritize when we have research showing that (actual) diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink. Astronaut 1: You mean... our work culture is conducive to groupthink? Astronaut 2: * points gun * Always has been...
- throwaway284534 5y ago
  I often downvote low effort meme posts, but the irony of groupthink here is palpable. I guess we’re all guilty
Zababa 5y ago
> I’ve always thought “cultural fit” was an odd thing to prioritize when we have research showing that (actual) diversity is more helpful for avoiding groupthink. Especially when this term is just begging for bias to creep in. Were these studies ever replicated? I think diversity is useful if you have diverse clients, but if clients have a monoculture, then trying to mirror that with your team makes sense.

jawns 5y ago

The new trend is hiring for "culture add" rather than "culture fit." In other words, not trying to determine whether a person fits in with everybody else, but trying to determine whether what they bring to the table is something new and beneficial. My own engineering team still uses the term "culture fit," but I recently helped refine our interviewing guidelines to make it more clear what we mean: "We are assessing the candidate's comfort level with our processes, priorities, frequency of change, etc. Assessments should never reflect an interviewer's comfort level with any candidate's culture, personal attributes, etc."

hunter2_ 5y ago
Regardless of what you aim for regarding culture, culture itself seems like the sort of thing that people can't readily change about themselves (just like you can't expect people to change their religion, even though technically they're free to do so in many cases), and for that reason, culture seems like it should be among the protected classes that shouldn't be used for hiring decisions. Sticking to whether they can get the job done, as cold as that sounds, seems most equal-opportunity IMHO.
- jawns 5y ago
  Culture is such a vague word, though, isn't it? In some cases it identifies a regional association (like Mexican culture). In some cases it's religious or social (like Catholic culture or Deaf culture). In other cases it has to do with socioeconomic status (like uncultured country bumpkins vs. cultured Ivy League grads), the arts (low-culture gossip mags vs. high-culture literary mags), or business practices (like a culture of secrecy or a culture of inclusion within an organization). Fortunately, the law already bans discrimination on the basis of religion, ethnicity, and national origin, so that covers a lot of the legitimate cases where an attribute that has no bearing on a person's ability to perform the job cannot be factored into hiring decisions. But there is certainly a sense in which culture absolutely can have bearing on job performance. A company might have a culture of "move fast and break things," and if a candidate is not comfortable with that culture, then it would be to their (and the employer's) benefit to know ahead of time whether the job would be a good fit for them.