“Culture fit” craze is turning tech from innovators to ideological fiefdoms
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Although, I must say, he did seem to be a fairly decent developer, as far as I could tell by talking with him over two days.
He actually missed his start day, without notice, now that I remember, and started late.
I looked up his music scene and realized he'd been at a rave in another state all weekend, and was clearly hungover and irritable.
I still hate it, but I understand it.
This results in a "clean" rejection, where the rejected don't have traction for arguing that they'll "change" or "not do that again" when the rejecters simply don't want to deal with them anymore (for whatever their reasons, rational or otherwise). It's certainly not productive from the rejected's perspective, they truly might not know what they did to offend/displease their coworkers, but it can prevent awkward situations.
By not including "real" reasons for rejected, your signaling the the rejected that your not interested in conversing about your decision and that your decision is final, regardless of the logic used to reach it (I think all of these are implicit properties when you don't share your logic behind a decision).
As an added bonus, the same strategy works when rejecting people in your personal life, so there's also the societal familiarity/subtext that comes along with the generic rejection that can further emphasize the undesirability of continued interaction and the finality of the decision.
"They Loved You" (No they were lukewarm at best but they're being polite at this point.)
"Wouldn't be a good fit" (Not their responsibility to point out your flaws, some of which were subtle, some were obvious so keeping it brief and to the point. We know we can find somebody better or already have.)
This applies to onsite interviews obviously, not initial phone screens.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9851060#9853911
a little over a year ago. The short answer was that we couldn't find a single thing that this interview helped with.
And since then I have yet to hear anyone give a reasonable answer as to what a cultural fit interview provides.
I mean by the time you are ready to hire someone, they've met the team and the team has already approved. We've already given them the hard sell on why they should work for us, infact this is what I spend half our initial phone screen doing, just selling the company.
Almost all cultural fit interviews seem to be a form of asking: "Can we figure out if this person will dedicate all their waking hours to our company", and that's just really sad.
Speaking only technically will give you that person's tech skills... that person's non-tech skills and nuances will actually have a huge effect on their performance and that of those they work closely with.
Something powerful comes out of that - you learn intuitively what a person's true priorities are, and they do the same. You get a "feeling" about them and how they will incorporate into the team. those are just as important
For us fit interviews make sense enough that we started doing them for every candidate, instead of just for ones that passed the technical parts, and I'll try to explain ... Maybe you can see something that could be useful for you.
There's ~1000 people in our IT (and we are hiring - poke me if your interested), 50+ different nationalities, 95% of us are expats, we mostly do Perl code on BackEnd, expect everyone to have good commercial awareness (put ideas on backlog, push back on ProductOwner ...etc) and overall try to have the least bureaucracy/processes as possible.
You can write code, push and roll it out into production within 30ish minutes - with no stamp/approval required (though on call sysadmin will ask you why are you doing it at 6am on a Sunday).
IMHO quite an interesting setup for being majority part of publicly traded group (Nasdaq: PCLN).
Most often you're not interviewed by people you'll work with (interviewers are not from same team).
Fit interviewers focus/check commercial sense/awareness, motivation, flexibility regarding approaching things like tools and technology (we don't introduce new technology unless you can make a good commercial argument for it), follow up on anything raised by recruiters and technical interviewers, and also answer candidates questions.
Indeed most of reasons we would not hire someone are noticed in other parts of interview as well. Besides being the ones who answer the most questions to candidates (besides recruitment) - fit interviews tend to be helpful for cases where everyone else is on the fence.
If someone aced the tech parts - it's extremely rare fit interview is so bad we don't make an offer.
BTW - everything mentioned is my personal interpretation ...
If anyone has specific questions I'll try to answer them.
Neither one of those are captured in the "data-driven" hiring process; however, they are key in our particular company's culture. And yes... years of experience can be dismissed simply if the candidate thinks they're above everyone else.
"professionalism" is one particular set of features of culture (and different people use the term to describe slightly different feature sets, but each definition is a set of culture features), and "work style" is a synonym for workplace culture.
Only if a workplace chooses to enforce a particular style. Otherwise, it is an individual variation that a good organization tries to work with.
On professionalism, I think it comes down to how you use the word "culture". Yes, professionalism is an aspect of culture in the larger sense, but one which I think should transcend the cultures of individual organizations. Most of the surface variation in professionalism are the little things that vary by geographic location and industry and should not vary by company.
No, the actual work style practiced in the workplace is an element of workplace culture whether or not a uniform style is enforced (whether or not a uniform style is enforced is, itself, an element of the workplace culture.)
Companies take note: be a fun place, but protest too much about your culture and risk becoming a weird hive-minded cult.
The "culture" of an open source tech shop is vastly different than a typical .Net tech shop - the clients are different, the dress codes are often more strict in the .net shops, the hierarchy and "feel" is far more corporate... Those are different worlds, and trying to stick someone from one into the other inevitably doesn't work well... at least not optimally..
As someone with a DOD-heavy work background I have experienced firsthand that kind of arbitrary rejection.
I have a lot of friends with plenty of DoD, NMCI stuff... but you know, they show up to an interview for a digital agency in full dress with a perfectly pruned resume and pressed shirts... because that's the culture they are used to, and it gives off the wrong vibe. What it shows, to the other side, is that your priorities are in those places... that you see those things as important... and its a turn-off to places that are more fluid and open. I wouldn't work anywhere where I had to wear dress shoes and a collard shirt every day. It would be a BAD culture fit, because I don't value those things, as I see absolutely no connection between my clothes and my output as a developer...
One of those friends with heavy DoD/Corp background, i helped him get his job, he loves it now, because hes good with the more relaxed culture at the agency he's at now... but it was like pulling teeth to get him to show up for an interview not dressed like he was going to a wedding...
While I agree that the way someone dresses has no correlation with their developer output, personally I wouldn't give someone any shit about dressing too nicely for an interview that happens to be at a startup, especially since they're probably used to "playing it safe" when it comes to interviews. I'd probably just make it a point to point out typical dress code when the interview process is coming to a close, if the interviewee hasn't figured it out by then.
... or that you were taught it was just the way the world works. You can't tell if someone is doing it because they think it is important or because they don't know any better and want to err on the side of caution. Yes, to some degree you should learn about the companies you want to work at and should be able to figure out that showing up in a suit and tie at a webdev shop is probably not necessary. However, there is so much conflicting information from careers sites about what is proper that I cannot fault someone for showing up dressed like that.
My other issue is that you are showing the same type of judgment and bias based on appearance that the people who set the pressed collar dress codes do. To them, showing up in jeans and a t-shirt shows lack of attention to detail and appearances that they believe translates to your work. Personally, I couldn't care less what people look like in situations where appearance isn't important, as long as they are publicly decent. You want to show up in a three-piece suit? Fine. You want to show up in shorts and flip-flops? Fine.
Your attire is part of your ritual. If your work day begins with a cup of coffee and a conversation with some friends in the office, and you skip it for a week, your week feels off. Because your ritual is off.
If there's no connection, then why does it matter how the other person dresses? They're an employee. Unless you're hiring them to hire everyone else, in which case it may matter because you need their judgement to match yours.
We should hire for culture-UNfit. Do you think differently? Are you going to give me options nobody else here would have thought of? Do you have experience with technologies that nobody else here does? Are you going to be able to fill in some of the blind spots and vulnerabilities that would stay open if I just hired someone identical to everyone else here?
Hiring another person just the same gets me the ability to do a little more of the same. Hiring someone different gets me something new.
You can have an entirely different skill set, knowledge base, experience base, and be a similar fit, culturally.
But you know, if you have an office full of people who enjoy spending their time together, who play games together after work, who go to lunch and laugh and talk, who listen to music out loud and don't prefer to have a library-quiet office space, then hiring someone who prefers to be a loner, who doesnt play well with others, who is arrogant, who needs absolute silence to work... those are pain points.
Culture and skills/experience are not at all related.
I think you've fallen into the trap of confusing the people with whom you work and the people with whom you are friends. There is zero need for those two groups to overlap, and it's really only in the tech world where the "culture fit" phenomenon is trying to force them together, often to try and get employees to work longer for free.
There is no reason that your friends and co-workers shouldnt overlap. There is no reason you shouldn't love going to work. There is no reason you shouldn't be happy in the company of the people you're around the majority of your day.
Your very post, is just you applying your own culture to a job. Part of your culture in the workplace is a detachment. Thats ok, everyone has their own thing, but you wouldn't fit into a place where people want to be inclusive, you would stand out and probably be considered an asshole by others.
You see that your view on what should happen in a workplace is very different than mine. That would cause strife over time, it would reduce our ability to work together compared to people who shared our viewpoint... While your view is equally as valid as mine, and neither are more correct than the other, they are definitely different.
Recognizing that difference is what the culture fit is all about.
And your last line, comes of as purely cynical. I don't work longer for free because i like my coworkers... I still work the same regardless, but I tend to LIKE going to work more, and enjoy my time, and feel more invested in the company when I enjoy my coworkers and share a bond with them...
Being friends/social with coworkers should be an opt-in experience, not mandatory for your employees. People have lives.
There is no reason you shouldn't be happy in the
company of the people you're around the majority
of your day.
If work=life is the only way to fit into your office, it had better be doing something life changing to justify that demand from your employees. Otherwise, you're stealing their precious time. The one thing we can never get back.
You're way of thinking is extremely close-minded... you're actually misrepresenting what I said to make your argument, because you're determined to make your point.
Which, as I said, goes a long way. Your way of thinking is almost entirely pragmatic - and you know what, surrounded by other entirely pragmatic people, that works well. But around a group of people who value interpersonal relationships a bit more than you do, you would indeed be the asshole. That would create a pain point in yours or others' work days.
And the biggest point of all of this, that you seem to miss, is nobody is forcing anything on you. The thing you dont like, is a style of culture, and you would avoid that culture, where others look for it... which is the entire point of the culture fit in the first place... you're making the argument FOR the culture fit by your very actions, you're proving the vast difference in cultures, and how they don't play nice together very well.
You wouldnt want to work somewhere that values the things i value - and people that value what i value wouldnt want to work for you, probably - and thats ok - and thats why the whole concept exists and is important.
Wait, seriously? I rarely say this on forums. But, fuck you.
I don't value interpersonal relationships? Literally the reason I live where I live is my approximately 50 good friends, about 20 close, and about 5 intimate friends. I could make a lot more money moving even 100 miles away, but I'd lose these relationships.
So, again, fuck you.
You're right. I'm not a cultural fit for companies like yours. Tell me where to apply so I can proudly display my rejection letter with the attached resume with big red "POOR CULTURE FIT" stamp.
At no point did I attack you or deserve that response.
You've made it clear that your relationships are work aren't all that important to you. The context of this entire conversation is entirely focused on work... so why you would jump to relationships in general is baffling.
You're really looking for a fight that isnt there, thats why you misrepresent what I said over and over...
>> you would indeed be the asshole.
> At no point did I attack you
Right.
And saying that in a group of people who think more along the lines of what I described, that you would be considered an asshole isnt calling you an asshole, its saying that in that situation you people would consider you that. In the same way that me, being a thinking-rather-than-feeling person, am often accused of being an asshole by feelers...
Neither of those are attacks on you. I never said your viewpoint was wrong, I even said its valid, but it doesn't play well with people of the other viewpoint, and that neither is better, just different...
Seriously dude, stop looking for the fight, there isn't one. You're taking offense way too easily here...
My "culture" as you put it is really an anti-culture, and it's the one that has worked for hundreds of years in workplaces around the world. I don't care whom I work with so long as they are professional, capable, and skilled in the tasks they need to do on a regular basis. What they wear, what their hobbies are, whether I enjoy talking to them about non-work activities, etc. has basically zero bearing on my evaluation of them as coworkers. In a very real sense, that approach is more open-minded and inclusive than yours, which prioritizes specific personal traits rather than job fit. That's the whole point of the post we are discussing in the first place - imposing a "culture fit" on a workplace to the exclusion of perfectly qualified people just doesn't make much sense. You might claim that employee retention and productivity are higher with a tight "culture" (though I would be extremely skeptical about that claim), but at what cost does that come? Or how about this - how well would the Apollo program have worked if NASA insisted that every engineer, astronaut, and flight controller had to be friends? If you want the best of the best, you deal with personal differences and still accomplish great things.
My last line is indeed cynical because it comes from the perspective of having been around the block a few times when it comes to companies supporting employees vs. supporting bottom lines. I've also seen how paragons of "strong culture" fall apart once employees get out of their 20s and start to have a family and social life compete with work. I really do hope that you're able to continue working with people you enjoy hanging out with every day, but unfortunately real life tends to make that difficult over time.
At one job we had some people hired who, from the stories I'm reading here, wouldn't have been good "culture fits" at a lot of companies. They were older (50+). Didn't hang out after work. Came from a different background (cellphones).
Instead, one brought us much improved coding standards that greatly accelerated our development process (by greatly reducing our debugging time). The other was just ludicrously efficient as a programmer and knew the ins and outs of embedded like no one else and single-handedly rewrote one of our major projects (which the bosses had been toying with hiring a consultant to do).
But they weren't like the rest of us. Single, 20-something, male (not universally white, we had a decent mix there). They didn't hang out with us on Saturday night. They didn't go to lunch with us. They didn't game with us when we had random game nights.
But as professionals, they brought expertise and experience and mentorship that we desperately needed.
They came out of that era without being spaghetti-coders like a couple of the guys that were, basically, ousted before I got to that office. So they learned to code well within constrained (cycles, memory) environments. As more cycles and memory became available, they just used it more effectively.
If you think you truly have such powers as to steer precisely how humans interact with each other across different departments, contexts, on/off hours, and their cumulative personalities, then I'm going to have to politely ask you to put down the keyboard for a minute and consider the idea that humans aren't programmable robots. How can you consider this idea? Easy!
Take any culture you are personally grooming right now. What makes you think you are the authority on defining the borders and structure of that culture? Are you the appointed cultural architect? And if you think you are, then you are no longer talking about the actual culture that is organically growing around you with each and every interaction of minds. You are talking about what you THINK the culture should be based on your position of influence.
And that model of what you THINK culture is... is not the actual culture it's attempting to represent. That position has a name: It's not cultural architect. It's the morality police and it's a cheap cop-out that stops you from actually exploring your own assumptions of how your peers are engaging.
To you: Unity = strength
To me: Unity = stagnation
So while you hide your reasons of not wanting to work with me based on "culture fit" and "not being someone you want to work with", I can define PRECISELY why I wouldn’t' want to work with you. I'm forced to justify my assumptions. You can just silently reinforce them.
And that's why the whole "culture fit" craze is bullshit.