11 ms·

Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

122 points by clebio 11y ago

DevPad 11y ago
How about remote teams? At previous startup we had guys from: Germany, Russia, US, Romania, Brasil, Ukraine, Philippines. Our "cultural fit" was just about: Be a Hacker (innovative, open-minded).
- nileshtrivedi 11y ago
  And be able to communicate well in a shared language - most likely English.
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - harperlee 11y ago
    Good point. Not knowing english well enough is a good technical barrier. I've been working on a project in english for the past two months, and although I speak and write sufficiently good and fluently, I still see a huge distance in front of me. I can't think, express and discuss so easily. It's like I've slept badly for some days. It's frustratingly. And it takes time to overcome, so any test period that you have with a candidate won't be enough for that to be overcome (not that I propose hiring people for a couple of years to see whether their english levels improve, mind you)
- EliRivers 11y ago
  Our "cultural fit" was just about: Be a Hacker. Why did you put "cultural fit" in quotes? Your criterion is just as poorly defined as everyone else's "cultural fit" criteria and, just like theirs, acts as a way to simply exclude people because they're not like you.
  - savanaly 11y ago
    I believe using quotes like he did is shorthand to indicate that you think the term is illegitimate and a bit silly, so you may be in agreement with him.
    - deleted 11y ago
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  - lordnacho 11y ago
    "Be a hacker" is not cultural though. It's skill. He's saying they are just using skill as a criterion.
    - EliRivers 11y ago
      WTF are you talking about? "Hacker" is entirely cultural. It was in its infancy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture) ) and it is now. Part of it's current culture is the pretence that it's all about skill; it's not. The completely lacking in skill won't get recognised as part of it, but it's attitude and style that buys admission to that club. These days, software places that are looking for "hackers" generally mean they're looking for inexperienced youngsters who have dabbled in a handful of currently trending web frameworks, but have "Agile" written on the crumpled t-shirt they will wear to the interview. The world's finest software engineer could turn up but because that person has decades of experience, plans their software before they write it, children in college and a liking for going home at five, the world's finest software engineer will be rejected on grounds of "culture fit". HN is heaving with people who have immersion baptised themselves in this particular kool-aid.
      - lordnacho 11y ago
        A subculture that requires you to have a specific skill...
        EliRivers 11y ago
- raindev 11y ago
  "Guys" is an exclusive label.
  - setitimer 11y ago
    Triggered!
  - chapium 11y ago
    It all depends on context. "I'm going to go hang out with the guys." yes, exclusive. "Hey guys, I'm going to work." not exclusive. Try focusing on the meaning being conveyed and not the glyphs representing it.
    - raindev 11y ago
      I don't think the issue is as simple as that. Here is more on the topic: https://subfictional.com/2012/07/02/language-matters-stop-using-guys-to-address-mix-gender-groups/ https://subfictional.com/2012/07/02/language-matters-stop-us...
      - throw_away 11y ago
        Douglas Hofstadter wrote a classic essay on this as well: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
        jschwartzi 11y ago
        This one is right up there with A Modest Proposal.
      - ta92929 11y ago
        The strangest part of that article is this: I understand how ingrained the “guys” habit might be for some of you. It was for me. After several months of concerted, conscious effort, I still slip and say it on oc- casion. So even the author herself used the word with completely gender neutral intent, but then she insists that others can't. It's like she's looking for reasons to be offended.
voidz 11y ago
I don't fit in! Then again, I am a genuine feminist, which to me means I am happy to let the missus (who does fit in) focus on her career, which she prefers anyway, while I, as a dad, stay at home and parent the kid(s). Feminism, f* yeah! All I can do now is wait until they're old enough to learn a thing or two about computers if they are so inclined...
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earljwagner 11y ago
I think of my work in terms of seeing unexplored areas to go with software (e.g. support self-insight or personal growth). I prefer to work with people having a similar perspective and aesthetic sensibility. A lot of the examples in this article seemed absurd to me - fit or misfit because of your preferred sports teams? As a Myers-Briggs "intuitive", maybe I "fit" with people having a similar outlook and values, while "sensory" folks fit with people who've had similar experiences and hobbies. I wonder if similarities in this dimension dominates the other MBTI dimensions in accounting for fit (e.g. introversion/extroversion, thinking/feeling, perceiving/judging). Any research on this? Seems like a worthwhile question.
- EliRivers 11y ago
  When interviewing, one of things I deliberately look for is people who are not like the current team. People who are not a "cultural fit", whatever that even means. I need people with different ideas, different experience; people who will approach the problems in a different way, fill in the blind spots and vulnerabilities the current team has. There's a trade-off to be made, sure, but professional adults can work together with people that are not the same as them, and a team composed of people who think differently and have different approaches and different experience is far more advantageous than a team of people who all think and work in the same way.
  - earljwagner 11y ago
    What dimensions of difference do you look for?
    - EliRivers 11y ago
      Some examples off the top of my head: Desktop applications experience vs. embedded software experience (I say "vs"; I don't mean they're opposed, but that someone with a lot of experience in one of those will think about things in a different way to someone with experience in the other; it's a spectrum along such a dimension). Pure software experience vs. designer/seller of hardware+software Computer Science degree vs. other technical degree (Maths, Physics, Engineering) Technical degree vs. arts degree Degree vs. on-the-job/self-taught Experience in big megacorps vs. experience in small companies Experience in established companies vs. experience in new businesses or startups Experienced vs. inexperienced (this one is more broadly "life " experience, and it could roughly translate to older vs. younger, but it's not quite that simple) Consumer apps experience vs. business-to-business Mobile devices experience vs. supercomputer number-crunching And so on. More, I expect. So, for example, if I had a team of Computer Science graduates, I might wonder if they're all thinking about problems through the lens of their classes on algorithms and data-structures and so forth, and maybe a mathematician would think about these same problems in a different way. If I had a team with a lot of people from global defence industry megacorps used to spending a decade on a project and ensuring that all reqts are solid up front, I might think that someone from a startup might bring a different approach to the software life-cycle (and, of course, vice-versa). Adding another person to a team who thinks the same just gives me more of the same. If I want to make fewer mistakes and have more novel ideas, I need to fill in gaps. Not every gap, and there's always a balance, but a professional adult can work effectively with people who are not the same as them. I'm not hiring in the hopes of creating a group of people who really like each other.
dataker 11y ago
For most high-exec types, cultural fit is one of the only excuses to justify their position and achievements. The technical barriers for these jobs are very small, but as corporations have a self-reinforcing cronyist culture, "acting and being part of the wolves" is the most important thing. Not only will qualified people not get a chance, but many sectors end up collapsing or getting stuck. For example, for a decent "banker", it wouldnt be hard to predict events in 07-09.
- lordnacho 11y ago
  This is exactly right. Corporations are pyramids, where each rung feeds the higher rung. Consequently, there are plenty of people with the right experience for each promotion. Who gets that promotion? Well, since it generally doesn't matter, it's decided politically.
lordnacho 11y ago
The examples in the articles are obviously bad choices though. Cultural fit should be about work behaviour, not what you do in your free time. Whether someone likes sports or whiskey shouldn't matter. Whether they prefer to have large meetings vs one-on-ones is the kind of thing you want to know, but it's probably not a great idea to prioritize that over actual ability.
scrrr 11y ago
Best reason to visit a top school. So you become more similar to the people running the country.
- ak39 11y ago
  Ouch. Even if what you say could be true, is it a good thing to send our kids to institutions of learning so that they can become arse-licking sycophants? Is that even a conscious decision in parenting?
  - andrewchoi 11y ago
    Speaking as a lower-income student who went to an Ivy League university, appearing more similar to those in power is an entirely different thing than becoming an "arse-licking sycophant". I'd argue that going to a so-called "elite" institution is more akin to learning a language by immersion.
    - ak39 11y ago
      "appearing more similar to those in power" ... So you must possess the talent of Tom Ripley?
      - andrewchoi 11y ago
        I don't think that's true; it's really more about learning the lingua franca of a different world. Style, hobbies, etc. I didn't know what "rowing crew" was until I got to college, and to be honest, I still have no idea how lacrosse is played.
        walshemj 11y ago
        Lacrosse / Field Hockey is for those who cant handle playing Rugger. I recall one of my first Bosses who went to the same public school as one of Pres Obamas roommates at Harvard said the school sports are Rugger, Rowing and Drinking Beer
    - 11y ago
paragpatelone 11y ago
Companies have to be very careful how they define cultural fit. If they leave it open, it can impart personal bias that are not at all beneficial to the company. Maybe "value fit" should be used instead of cultural fit. Do your values align with the core values of the company. The top NYTimes comment below illustrates some of the warts of a "cultural fit". "Hiring managers who would never in a million years describe themselves or even privately consider themselves to be racist or sexist or ageist commonly use cultural-fit criteria to perpetrate racism, sexism, or agism in the workplace. I was recently in a meeting with two other managers to compare notes on a group of candidates whom we'd all just interviewed for a mid-level job. My top pick was a supremely well-qualified 45-year-old black woman who outscored all the other candidates on the skills test, was the only one to arrive on time for the interview, and was the only one who dressed professionally for the interview. It's a corporate job in Midtown. She was poised, amiable, and direct during my conversation with her, asked well-informed questions about the work and the company, and she was also the only candidate who sent a thank you letter after the interview. The other two hiring managers - both of whom, incidentally, were white women who were wearing Black Lives Matter pins - didn't think my top candidate "would be a good fit" or "feel comfortable." We hired a young white guy for the gig. He fits in the gang really well at happy hour, but his job performance is extremely poor. My two managerial colleagues have scheduled a meeting for next week to discuss what we're going to do about him. The good candidate is working for someone else now."
- zo1 11y ago
  And this company that didn't hire the most-competent candidate: Would you say that they are now some how measurably worse-off within the market? At the very least, in relation to a potential competitor that did snag up that candidate?
  - ak39 11y ago
    If you're asking whether they "learnt" their lesson ... I very much doubt that cultures that entrench such biases are ever shaken up to reconsider the harmful effects (financial or otherwise) of their adopted attitudes. Don't underestimate the power of the "backfire effect" on the minds of middle-managers who don't want to be revealed as having made mistakes. It takes a bold and courageous leader to admit mistakes in the corporate environment. Or a stupid one.
arenaninja 11y ago
The article is spot on. In tech, cultural fit means one of several things. Some time ago at a company, we were considering candidates when the most senior software developer left. We went through two weeks of interviews, and I recommended we go with the strongest technical candidate because his experience was very obvious. The employer flat out said that he wouldn't fit because he was too old. When I raised my eyebrows he immediately backtracked to say that he meant that the culture was so different, I got out of there as soon as I could. The guy that was eventually hired because he was 'nice' even though his technical skills were weak was fired six weeks into the job and left a mess that took six full days to 'fix', until we discovered the changes he had made to how things were stored in the database without considering the full implications. I've also had it happen to me that I pass every technical interview, and then when I meet the team, we'll go for lunch and they'll order beer and I get an orange juice. Drinking comes up as a subject and since I don't drink alcohol my lack of craft beer knowledge somehow becomes the subject of my interview. Needless to say, I've always been rejected at these jobs. Another one is hobbies. I've a family and my commute is LONG, to the point that I don't even play PC games anymore. Hobbies come up, I have none, and I have no intention of lying to get the job. I've learned since that these are companies I don't want to work for. I've gotten along with everyone at every job I've had, so I'm not intimidated by these, but every one I've had has been utterly pointless.
- mreiland 11y ago
  Yep, I've always believes that there are times when you find yourself in a place you shouldn't be in. It isn't their fault and it isn't your fault, just different people who don't mesh and it's best to admit to it and walk away. The cultural fit thing can be important in that a negative nancy can seriously cause problems in a group, to the point of people leaving due to getting such a negative view of management/business over time from the constant negativity. It's a hard thing because there are definitely people you don't want to hire due to 'fit', but it's so hard to get it even fairly right.
  - jrs235 11y ago
    > a negative nancy can seriously cause problems in a group I consider a negative Nate an attitude issue not a cultural fit issue. If I picked up on a negative attitude during ht interview, the candidate probably won't be offered the position.
curiously 11y ago
so if you don't fit, what options are available to you?
- mhurron 11y ago
  Find a company that doesn't work to exclude you? I wouldn't say I fit anywhere, but I'm not unemployed. I also don't remember questions about anything outside of work during the interview either.
- deleted 11y ago
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- kaitai 11y ago
  Utah, apparently. https://medium.com/culture-club/a-black-man-walks-into-silicon-valley-and-tries-to-get-a-job-b467903acac0 https://medium.com/culture-club/a-black-man-walks-into-silic...
dvirsky 11y ago
I think the key is to define within the company, what the cultural values are, and then talk about how to check if a person is aligned with them or not. At the company I work for, we value creativity, independence and taking ownership and responsibility of one's work. It sounds generic but it's not - people who like structured workplaces and process, just wither and don't succeed. So we try to assess that in interviews, and we took the time actually define what are our values (it goes way beyond this example). Over time we became better at this, and it actually contributed more heterogeneous hires. Since you don't have to assess people on your personal chemistry and how much they're like you personally - you have better tools do do that. This approach opened the door to people who fit with the work culture, even though they're not similar to the core "social DNA" of the team, and that's just fine, it works well for everyone.
- rev_bird 11y ago
  This strikes me as striving for "cultural fit" at a company that actually knows what its culture is, or at least what it wants its culture to be. That could genuinely help -- but the actual list seems like the important part. Without the list, it's just finding somebody everyone wants to be friends with.
  - dvirsky 11y ago
    Yep, I guess finding someone everyone likes and is similar socially to the team - is a rough approximation, before you defined what your culture actually is or should be. BTW when we sat down and defined it, we tried conveying this to the whole team because not everyone was aligned with those values. One or two people actually came forward after that in private, and said something like "I get what you want from the team, I don't think I can find myself in this culture, and I think it's better for both sides that I leave". I have huge respect for that.
kator 11y ago
I hire for Attitude and Aptitude. If you have a crappy attitude I can't do anything to help you there. If you have the aptitude and your attitude is positive, can-do, willing to learn, we can teach you anything you need to know or you can learn it on the job. I too worry that "Cultural Fit" is becoming the new "don't like them" excuse of the day. I try hard to hire people who think about problems differently than myself or other members of my team. My hope is to get as many angles as possible to see problems from so we together as a team can find solutions that might not have been obvious if each of us has a homogeneous view driven by some bogus "cultural fit". What I know about my life is I was born with almost none of the skills I leverage every day. From the ability to walk and talk, I've had to learn it all. I feel focusing too much on fit and skills is like judging a baby on how cute it is. Basically useless.
- culturalshit 11y ago
  Cultural Fit is, in fact, routinely used to make discriminatory choices that aren't rooted in anything related to what it takes to succeed. Worse, people like Peter Thiel and Max Levchin celebrate this and encourage other startups not to hire women and not to hire men who are even slightly different than themselves. These are influential people and they're purposefully using their influence to make the world a dramatically worse place. You might think I'm exaggerating, but I'm actually understating the amount of discrimination that they encourage. Good cultural fit is about being able to perform on the team. But most SV cultural fit is about being able to party with the team. It's a different thing. The good news for founders who aren't bigoted assholes is that this means there's less competition for diverse talent, and if you can help those folks know that they'll feel welcome in your office, they'll be knocking at your door.
  - clebio 11y ago
    I'd possibly agree with you, but, can you give references for the allegations about Thiel and Levchin?
- jrs235 11y ago
  I would love to get your input on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760203
kaitai 11y ago
This sentence: "Crucially, though, for these gatekeepers, fit was not about a match with organizational values. It was about personal fit." For all of you defending hiring on fit, which fit are you thinking about?
hagmonk 11y ago
I wholeheartedly agree with the need to make cultural fit bigger than just "happy hour" fit, but primarily on moral grounds. I haven't seen strong data to make a technical case here. Do we observe discrepancies between company performance that are correlated with diversity? They say this is observable at the team level in controlled studies, but at the macro level do we see it? Put another way, if diversity was a strong influence on success, why do elite institutions in banking and tech not appear to exhibit much of it?
joesmo 11y ago
"Cultural fit" is just another form of discrimination, a currently legal alternative to racism, sexism, and other forms of illegal discrimination in the US to keep the "unliked" and "unwanted" out of jobs. The author acknowledges this, yet still sees fit to add advice for using cultural fit; that weakens the article a bit, but not much. The reality is "cultural fit" should never be used to make decisions. It is never right, either as a predictor of performance or ethically. Companies and interviewers already have an incredibly difficult time figuring out ways in which to judge qualifications, even when standard tests and procedures are available. To add in this nonsensical idea of "cultural fit," something that can't be measured, quantified, qualified, or identified, and to make that a selection criteria for applicants not only shirks the duty to hire the most qualified, but gives the company and interviewers an unchallengeable way to reject applicants, an option that otherwise would--and should--be illegal. tldr: Cultural fit is discrimination, it cannot predict job performance or any otherwise meaningful information related to a candidate's skills and abilities, and should be illegal as its only use is to deny qualified applicants jobs they qualify for.
- MarcusVorenus 11y ago
  Cultural fit can definitely impact performance. Imagine a luddite working for a biotechnology company, or an anarchist working for the government, or a muslim working for an atheist non-profit. These people would never find the motivation to perform better than the absolute minimum required to keep their jobs because their goals and the goals of the organization are complete opposites. They could even go as far as sabotaging the performance of others by creating a toxic work environment.
  - joesmo 11y ago
    Not necessarily. There are plenty of Muslims who could help an atheist non profit by maintaining their professionalism. Likewise for your other examples. By assuming that they will let their beliefs sabotage their work, you're judging a whole group by the potential actions of zero or more people. That's just discrimination against people with these various beliefs without proof. By this line of reasoning you could say that Catholics should never be hired at planned parenthood because they will sabotage it. Total load of bull shit and exactly the reason "cultural fit" should be illegal. It's just plain discrimination.
samstave 11y ago
I was once let go from a company for "just not being a good fit" after landing them a successful contract with bigTechCo here in the bay area and earning them over $1mm in services. Further, they had showed me that my bonus was going to be over $27K one three separate occasions, then they let me go before having to pay me the bonus because I had to be actually employed there to receive my share of the money earned from me doing 100% of the work. People should not be able to be fired for "not being a good fit" they should have concrete documented issues on which to fire someone.
tsmith 11y ago
Hiring for cultural fit is just laziness, and interviewers should stop using it as a "metric". Assessing for ability is extremely difficult - in the case of programming positions, technical interview processes either suffer from a large number of false negatives (e.g. the "Google filter") or a large number of false positives (e.g. "this person doesn't know how to write a for loop; how did they get hired?"). Per the article, most interviewers interpret "cultural fit" as "personal fit" - how well do you like the interviewee? The example heuristics (going out for a beer with the candidate, spending a snowy night in an airport together, etc) have very little to do with company culture and very much to do with answering the question: "Do I like this person?". Any 4 year old can tell when they like somebody. It's one of the easiest things in the world for a human being to assess. Technical ability, on the other hand, is one of the hardest things in the world for human beings to asses, at least in the context of an interview. Assessing for "cultural fit" - which on the face of it makes perfect sense as a hiring metric - devolves into a way to avoid doing something difficult (assess technical ability) by doing something easy (assess personal affinity).
Joky 11y ago
In my opinion "cultural fit" is important, but it has to be about work culture. For instance: are you comfortable with code reviews (or lack of thereof), coding standards, how are you positioning yourself with respect to pressure, etc. I overlooked this when joining my current team and I'm already thinking about finding a new place to land!
thenerdfiles 11y ago
I'm often hired exactly because I do not "fit" within the culture, but because I am apparently African American, it becomes important to trial a litmus test. I think "culture fit" is generally opportunity for both sides to determine if their brands of humor are compatible. If you cannot laugh with your coworkers, why work there? A large part of the "human-centric" modality of web design, for instance, involves writing less code and solving human needs. If you do not have hobbies, etc., why participate in what is inherently a social activity? You are writing code for humans, and humans are likely those wherein you will craft and discover solutions.
lexcorvus 11y ago
The obvious solution is complete freedom of association. (To the extent that "fit" doesn't help companies succeed, it is its own punishment.) But this would make for a short article. It would also make for simple laws, and would prevent busybodies from making other company's hiring practices their business. But we couldn't have that—not in the Land of the Free.

122 points by clebio 11y ago

How about remote teams? At previous startup we had guys from: Germany, Russia, US, Romania, Brasil, Ukraine, Philippines. Our "cultural fit" was just about: Be a Hacker (innovative, open-minded).

nileshtrivedi 11y ago
And be able to communicate well in a shared language - most likely English.
- deleted 11y ago
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- harperlee 11y ago
  Good point. Not knowing english well enough is a good technical barrier. I've been working on a project in english for the past two months, and although I speak and write sufficiently good and fluently, I still see a huge distance in front of me. I can't think, express and discuss so easily. It's like I've slept badly for some days. It's frustratingly. And it takes time to overcome, so any test period that you have with a candidate won't be enough for that to be overcome (not that I propose hiring people for a couple of years to see whether their english levels improve, mind you)
EliRivers 11y ago
Our "cultural fit" was just about: Be a Hacker. Why did you put "cultural fit" in quotes? Your criterion is just as poorly defined as everyone else's "cultural fit" criteria and, just like theirs, acts as a way to simply exclude people because they're not like you.
- savanaly 11y ago
  I believe using quotes like he did is shorthand to indicate that you think the term is illegitimate and a bit silly, so you may be in agreement with him.
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- lordnacho 11y ago
  "Be a hacker" is not cultural though. It's skill. He's saying they are just using skill as a criterion.
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    WTF are you talking about? "Hacker" is entirely cultural. It was in its infancy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_(programmer_subculture) ) and it is now. Part of it's current culture is the pretence that it's all about skill; it's not. The completely lacking in skill won't get recognised as part of it, but it's attitude and style that buys admission to that club. These days, software places that are looking for "hackers" generally mean they're looking for inexperienced youngsters who have dabbled in a handful of currently trending web frameworks, but have "Agile" written on the crumpled t-shirt they will wear to the interview. The world's finest software engineer could turn up but because that person has decades of experience, plans their software before they write it, children in college and a liking for going home at five, the world's finest software engineer will be rejected on grounds of "culture fit". HN is heaving with people who have immersion baptised themselves in this particular kool-aid.
    - lordnacho 11y ago
      A subculture that requires you to have a specific skill...
      - EliRivers 11y ago
raindev 11y ago
"Guys" is an exclusive label.
- setitimer 11y ago
  Triggered!
- chapium 11y ago
  It all depends on context. "I'm going to go hang out with the guys." yes, exclusive. "Hey guys, I'm going to work." not exclusive. Try focusing on the meaning being conveyed and not the glyphs representing it.
  - raindev 11y ago
    I don't think the issue is as simple as that. Here is more on the topic: https://subfictional.com/2012/07/02/language-matters-stop-using-guys-to-address-mix-gender-groups/ https://subfictional.com/2012/07/02/language-matters-stop-us...
    - throw_away 11y ago
      Douglas Hofstadter wrote a classic essay on this as well: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
      - jschwartzi 11y ago
        This one is right up there with A Modest Proposal.
    - ta92929 11y ago
      The strangest part of that article is this: I understand how ingrained the “guys” habit might be for some of you. It was for me. After several months of concerted, conscious effort, I still slip and say it on oc- casion. So even the author herself used the word with completely gender neutral intent, but then she insists that others can't. It's like she's looking for reasons to be offended.

voidz 11y ago

I don't fit in! Then again, I am a genuine feminist, which to me means I am happy to let the missus (who does fit in) focus on her career, which she prefers anyway, while I, as a dad, stay at home and parent the kid(s). Feminism, f* yeah! All I can do now is wait until they're old enough to learn a thing or two about computers if they are so inclined...

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earljwagner 11y ago

I think of my work in terms of seeing unexplored areas to go with software (e.g. support self-insight or personal growth). I prefer to work with people having a similar perspective and aesthetic sensibility. A lot of the examples in this article seemed absurd to me - fit or misfit because of your preferred sports teams? As a Myers-Briggs "intuitive", maybe I "fit" with people having a similar outlook and values, while "sensory" folks fit with people who've had similar experiences and hobbies. I wonder if similarities in this dimension dominates the other MBTI dimensions in accounting for fit (e.g. introversion/extroversion, thinking/feeling, perceiving/judging). Any research on this? Seems like a worthwhile question.

EliRivers 11y ago
When interviewing, one of things I deliberately look for is people who are not like the current team. People who are not a "cultural fit", whatever that even means. I need people with different ideas, different experience; people who will approach the problems in a different way, fill in the blind spots and vulnerabilities the current team has. There's a trade-off to be made, sure, but professional adults can work together with people that are not the same as them, and a team composed of people who think differently and have different approaches and different experience is far more advantageous than a team of people who all think and work in the same way.
- earljwagner 11y ago
  What dimensions of difference do you look for?
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    Some examples off the top of my head: Desktop applications experience vs. embedded software experience (I say "vs"; I don't mean they're opposed, but that someone with a lot of experience in one of those will think about things in a different way to someone with experience in the other; it's a spectrum along such a dimension). Pure software experience vs. designer/seller of hardware+software Computer Science degree vs. other technical degree (Maths, Physics, Engineering) Technical degree vs. arts degree Degree vs. on-the-job/self-taught Experience in big megacorps vs. experience in small companies Experience in established companies vs. experience in new businesses or startups Experienced vs. inexperienced (this one is more broadly "life " experience, and it could roughly translate to older vs. younger, but it's not quite that simple) Consumer apps experience vs. business-to-business Mobile devices experience vs. supercomputer number-crunching And so on. More, I expect. So, for example, if I had a team of Computer Science graduates, I might wonder if they're all thinking about problems through the lens of their classes on algorithms and data-structures and so forth, and maybe a mathematician would think about these same problems in a different way. If I had a team with a lot of people from global defence industry megacorps used to spending a decade on a project and ensuring that all reqts are solid up front, I might think that someone from a startup might bring a different approach to the software life-cycle (and, of course, vice-versa). Adding another person to a team who thinks the same just gives me more of the same. If I want to make fewer mistakes and have more novel ideas, I need to fill in gaps. Not every gap, and there's always a balance, but a professional adult can work effectively with people who are not the same as them. I'm not hiring in the hopes of creating a group of people who really like each other.

dataker 11y ago

For most high-exec types, cultural fit is one of the only excuses to justify their position and achievements. The technical barriers for these jobs are very small, but as corporations have a self-reinforcing cronyist culture, "acting and being part of the wolves" is the most important thing. Not only will qualified people not get a chance, but many sectors end up collapsing or getting stuck. For example, for a decent "banker", it wouldnt be hard to predict events in 07-09.

lordnacho 11y ago
This is exactly right. Corporations are pyramids, where each rung feeds the higher rung. Consequently, there are plenty of people with the right experience for each promotion. Who gets that promotion? Well, since it generally doesn't matter, it's decided politically.

lordnacho 11y ago

The examples in the articles are obviously bad choices though. Cultural fit should be about work behaviour, not what you do in your free time. Whether someone likes sports or whiskey shouldn't matter. Whether they prefer to have large meetings vs one-on-ones is the kind of thing you want to know, but it's probably not a great idea to prioritize that over actual ability.

scrrr 11y ago

Best reason to visit a top school. So you become more similar to the people running the country.

ak39 11y ago
Ouch. Even if what you say could be true, is it a good thing to send our kids to institutions of learning so that they can become arse-licking sycophants? Is that even a conscious decision in parenting?
- andrewchoi 11y ago
  Speaking as a lower-income student who went to an Ivy League university, appearing more similar to those in power is an entirely different thing than becoming an "arse-licking sycophant". I'd argue that going to a so-called "elite" institution is more akin to learning a language by immersion.
  - ak39 11y ago
    "appearing more similar to those in power" ... So you must possess the talent of Tom Ripley?
    - andrewchoi 11y ago
      I don't think that's true; it's really more about learning the lingua franca of a different world. Style, hobbies, etc. I didn't know what "rowing crew" was until I got to college, and to be honest, I still have no idea how lacrosse is played.
      - walshemj 11y ago
        Lacrosse / Field Hockey is for those who cant handle playing Rugger. I recall one of my first Bosses who went to the same public school as one of Pres Obamas roommates at Harvard said the school sports are Rugger, Rowing and Drinking Beer
  - 11y ago

paragpatelone 11y ago

Companies have to be very careful how they define cultural fit. If they leave it open, it can impart personal bias that are not at all beneficial to the company. Maybe "value fit" should be used instead of cultural fit. Do your values align with the core values of the company. The top NYTimes comment below illustrates some of the warts of a "cultural fit". "Hiring managers who would never in a million years describe themselves or even privately consider themselves to be racist or sexist or ageist commonly use cultural-fit criteria to perpetrate racism, sexism, or agism in the workplace. I was recently in a meeting with two other managers to compare notes on a group of candidates whom we'd all just interviewed for a mid-level job. My top pick was a supremely well-qualified 45-year-old black woman who outscored all the other candidates on the skills test, was the only one to arrive on time for the interview, and was the only one who dressed professionally for the interview. It's a corporate job in Midtown. She was poised, amiable, and direct during my conversation with her, asked well-informed questions about the work and the company, and she was also the only candidate who sent a thank you letter after the interview. The other two hiring managers - both of whom, incidentally, were white women who were wearing Black Lives Matter pins - didn't think my top candidate "would be a good fit" or "feel comfortable." We hired a young white guy for the gig. He fits in the gang really well at happy hour, but his job performance is extremely poor. My two managerial colleagues have scheduled a meeting for next week to discuss what we're going to do about him. The good candidate is working for someone else now."

zo1 11y ago
And this company that didn't hire the most-competent candidate: Would you say that they are now some how measurably worse-off within the market? At the very least, in relation to a potential competitor that did snag up that candidate?
- ak39 11y ago
  If you're asking whether they "learnt" their lesson ... I very much doubt that cultures that entrench such biases are ever shaken up to reconsider the harmful effects (financial or otherwise) of their adopted attitudes. Don't underestimate the power of the "backfire effect" on the minds of middle-managers who don't want to be revealed as having made mistakes. It takes a bold and courageous leader to admit mistakes in the corporate environment. Or a stupid one.

arenaninja 11y ago

The article is spot on. In tech, cultural fit means one of several things. Some time ago at a company, we were considering candidates when the most senior software developer left. We went through two weeks of interviews, and I recommended we go with the strongest technical candidate because his experience was very obvious. The employer flat out said that he wouldn't fit because he was too old. When I raised my eyebrows he immediately backtracked to say that he meant that the culture was so different, I got out of there as soon as I could. The guy that was eventually hired because he was 'nice' even though his technical skills were weak was fired six weeks into the job and left a mess that took six full days to 'fix', until we discovered the changes he had made to how things were stored in the database without considering the full implications. I've also had it happen to me that I pass every technical interview, and then when I meet the team, we'll go for lunch and they'll order beer and I get an orange juice. Drinking comes up as a subject and since I don't drink alcohol my lack of craft beer knowledge somehow becomes the subject of my interview. Needless to say, I've always been rejected at these jobs. Another one is hobbies. I've a family and my commute is LONG, to the point that I don't even play PC games anymore. Hobbies come up, I have none, and I have no intention of lying to get the job. I've learned since that these are companies I don't want to work for. I've gotten along with everyone at every job I've had, so I'm not intimidated by these, but every one I've had has been utterly pointless.

mreiland 11y ago
Yep, I've always believes that there are times when you find yourself in a place you shouldn't be in. It isn't their fault and it isn't your fault, just different people who don't mesh and it's best to admit to it and walk away. The cultural fit thing can be important in that a negative nancy can seriously cause problems in a group, to the point of people leaving due to getting such a negative view of management/business over time from the constant negativity. It's a hard thing because there are definitely people you don't want to hire due to 'fit', but it's so hard to get it even fairly right.
- jrs235 11y ago
  > a negative nancy can seriously cause problems in a group I consider a negative Nate an attitude issue not a cultural fit issue. If I picked up on a negative attitude during ht interview, the candidate probably won't be offered the position.

curiously 11y ago

so if you don't fit, what options are available to you?

mhurron 11y ago
Find a company that doesn't work to exclude you? I wouldn't say I fit anywhere, but I'm not unemployed. I also don't remember questions about anything outside of work during the interview either.
deleted 11y ago
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kaitai 11y ago
Utah, apparently. https://medium.com/culture-club/a-black-man-walks-into-silicon-valley-and-tries-to-get-a-job-b467903acac0 https://medium.com/culture-club/a-black-man-walks-into-silic...

dvirsky 11y ago

I think the key is to define within the company, what the cultural values are, and then talk about how to check if a person is aligned with them or not. At the company I work for, we value creativity, independence and taking ownership and responsibility of one's work. It sounds generic but it's not - people who like structured workplaces and process, just wither and don't succeed. So we try to assess that in interviews, and we took the time actually define what are our values (it goes way beyond this example). Over time we became better at this, and it actually contributed more heterogeneous hires. Since you don't have to assess people on your personal chemistry and how much they're like you personally - you have better tools do do that. This approach opened the door to people who fit with the work culture, even though they're not similar to the core "social DNA" of the team, and that's just fine, it works well for everyone.

rev_bird 11y ago
This strikes me as striving for "cultural fit" at a company that actually knows what its culture is, or at least what it wants its culture to be. That could genuinely help -- but the actual list seems like the important part. Without the list, it's just finding somebody everyone wants to be friends with.
- dvirsky 11y ago
  Yep, I guess finding someone everyone likes and is similar socially to the team - is a rough approximation, before you defined what your culture actually is or should be. BTW when we sat down and defined it, we tried conveying this to the whole team because not everyone was aligned with those values. One or two people actually came forward after that in private, and said something like "I get what you want from the team, I don't think I can find myself in this culture, and I think it's better for both sides that I leave". I have huge respect for that.

kator 11y ago

I hire for Attitude and Aptitude. If you have a crappy attitude I can't do anything to help you there. If you have the aptitude and your attitude is positive, can-do, willing to learn, we can teach you anything you need to know or you can learn it on the job. I too worry that "Cultural Fit" is becoming the new "don't like them" excuse of the day. I try hard to hire people who think about problems differently than myself or other members of my team. My hope is to get as many angles as possible to see problems from so we together as a team can find solutions that might not have been obvious if each of us has a homogeneous view driven by some bogus "cultural fit". What I know about my life is I was born with almost none of the skills I leverage every day. From the ability to walk and talk, I've had to learn it all. I feel focusing too much on fit and skills is like judging a baby on how cute it is. Basically useless.

culturalshit 11y ago
Cultural Fit is, in fact, routinely used to make discriminatory choices that aren't rooted in anything related to what it takes to succeed. Worse, people like Peter Thiel and Max Levchin celebrate this and encourage other startups not to hire women and not to hire men who are even slightly different than themselves. These are influential people and they're purposefully using their influence to make the world a dramatically worse place. You might think I'm exaggerating, but I'm actually understating the amount of discrimination that they encourage. Good cultural fit is about being able to perform on the team. But most SV cultural fit is about being able to party with the team. It's a different thing. The good news for founders who aren't bigoted assholes is that this means there's less competition for diverse talent, and if you can help those folks know that they'll feel welcome in your office, they'll be knocking at your door.
- clebio 11y ago
  I'd possibly agree with you, but, can you give references for the allegations about Thiel and Levchin?
jrs235 11y ago
I would love to get your input on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760203 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760203

kaitai 11y ago

This sentence: "Crucially, though, for these gatekeepers, fit was not about a match with organizational values. It was about personal fit." For all of you defending hiring on fit, which fit are you thinking about?

hagmonk 11y ago

I wholeheartedly agree with the need to make cultural fit bigger than just "happy hour" fit, but primarily on moral grounds. I haven't seen strong data to make a technical case here. Do we observe discrepancies between company performance that are correlated with diversity? They say this is observable at the team level in controlled studies, but at the macro level do we see it? Put another way, if diversity was a strong influence on success, why do elite institutions in banking and tech not appear to exhibit much of it?

joesmo 11y ago

"Cultural fit" is just another form of discrimination, a currently legal alternative to racism, sexism, and other forms of illegal discrimination in the US to keep the "unliked" and "unwanted" out of jobs. The author acknowledges this, yet still sees fit to add advice for using cultural fit; that weakens the article a bit, but not much. The reality is "cultural fit" should never be used to make decisions. It is never right, either as a predictor of performance or ethically. Companies and interviewers already have an incredibly difficult time figuring out ways in which to judge qualifications, even when standard tests and procedures are available. To add in this nonsensical idea of "cultural fit," something that can't be measured, quantified, qualified, or identified, and to make that a selection criteria for applicants not only shirks the duty to hire the most qualified, but gives the company and interviewers an unchallengeable way to reject applicants, an option that otherwise would--and should--be illegal. tldr: Cultural fit is discrimination, it cannot predict job performance or any otherwise meaningful information related to a candidate's skills and abilities, and should be illegal as its only use is to deny qualified applicants jobs they qualify for.

MarcusVorenus 11y ago
Cultural fit can definitely impact performance. Imagine a luddite working for a biotechnology company, or an anarchist working for the government, or a muslim working for an atheist non-profit. These people would never find the motivation to perform better than the absolute minimum required to keep their jobs because their goals and the goals of the organization are complete opposites. They could even go as far as sabotaging the performance of others by creating a toxic work environment.
- joesmo 11y ago
  Not necessarily. There are plenty of Muslims who could help an atheist non profit by maintaining their professionalism. Likewise for your other examples. By assuming that they will let their beliefs sabotage their work, you're judging a whole group by the potential actions of zero or more people. That's just discrimination against people with these various beliefs without proof. By this line of reasoning you could say that Catholics should never be hired at planned parenthood because they will sabotage it. Total load of bull shit and exactly the reason "cultural fit" should be illegal. It's just plain discrimination.

samstave 11y ago

I was once let go from a company for "just not being a good fit" after landing them a successful contract with bigTechCo here in the bay area and earning them over $1mm in services. Further, they had showed me that my bonus was going to be over $27K one three separate occasions, then they let me go before having to pay me the bonus because I had to be actually employed there to receive my share of the money earned from me doing 100% of the work. People should not be able to be fired for "not being a good fit" they should have concrete documented issues on which to fire someone.

tsmith 11y ago

Hiring for cultural fit is just laziness, and interviewers should stop using it as a "metric". Assessing for ability is extremely difficult - in the case of programming positions, technical interview processes either suffer from a large number of false negatives (e.g. the "Google filter") or a large number of false positives (e.g. "this person doesn't know how to write a for loop; how did they get hired?"). Per the article, most interviewers interpret "cultural fit" as "personal fit" - how well do you like the interviewee? The example heuristics (going out for a beer with the candidate, spending a snowy night in an airport together, etc) have very little to do with company culture and very much to do with answering the question: "Do I like this person?". Any 4 year old can tell when they like somebody. It's one of the easiest things in the world for a human being to assess. Technical ability, on the other hand, is one of the hardest things in the world for human beings to asses, at least in the context of an interview. Assessing for "cultural fit" - which on the face of it makes perfect sense as a hiring metric - devolves into a way to avoid doing something difficult (assess technical ability) by doing something easy (assess personal affinity).

Joky 11y ago

In my opinion "cultural fit" is important, but it has to be about work culture. For instance: are you comfortable with code reviews (or lack of thereof), coding standards, how are you positioning yourself with respect to pressure, etc. I overlooked this when joining my current team and I'm already thinking about finding a new place to land!

thenerdfiles 11y ago

I'm often hired exactly because I do not "fit" within the culture, but because I am apparently African American, it becomes important to trial a litmus test. I think "culture fit" is generally opportunity for both sides to determine if their brands of humor are compatible. If you cannot laugh with your coworkers, why work there? A large part of the "human-centric" modality of web design, for instance, involves writing less code and solving human needs. If you do not have hobbies, etc., why participate in what is inherently a social activity? You are writing code for humans, and humans are likely those wherein you will craft and discover solutions.

lexcorvus 11y ago

The obvious solution is complete freedom of association. (To the extent that "fit" doesn't help companies succeed, it is its own punishment.) But this would make for a short article. It would also make for simple laws, and would prevent busybodies from making other company's hiring practices their business. But we couldn't have that—not in the Land of the Free.