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We don't do cultural interviews to determine if someone's a hacker, we do them to determine if they're a good fit for a team and if they'll be able to work in o
by RTigger 14y ago
We don't do cultural interviews to determine if someone's a hacker, we do them to determine if they're a good fit for a team and if they'll be able to work in our company environment.
And passion comes in many forms - the fact that they were willing to teach the team alone speaks volumes. If someone didn't care about programming, they wouldn't want to spend the extra time teaching their peers about it.
- xiaoma 14y agoI think what lmm is pointing out is that perhaps your "cultural interviews" might illegally shut out certain groups of people. For example, has the company ever hired a hacker over the age of 50? The question is hypothetical, but lmm's comment is valid. A lot of companies use 'cultural fit' as a cover for discrimination. Plausible deniability isn't hard to find, but it's still an unfortunate practice.
- pekk 14y agoThe law can't actually do anything about discrimination as long as there is a slight professional veneer to cover it. Don't want to hire old people? Want to fire someone who doesn't like your ideas? There is a standard stock of phrases like 'cultural fit' which are unimpeachable in almost any context, and once hired, almost everyone is or can be construed to be in violation of some regulation. As long as you use the right words, don't let slip any stupid smoking-gun memos, there is nothing anyone can really do because it is impossible to prove anything. The best protection is to be able to change jobs, and to stick with environments which do not contain toxic people who abuse their power or want to hurt you. If you are older and a company does not hire you due to 'cultural fit' then you are probably dodging a bullet. Forcing them to hire you wouldn't make things better even if it were possible.