Ask HN: Is this extreme cultural fit selection? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is this extreme cultural fit selection?

4 pointsculturalfitt5 comments

I have interviewed at two dozen companies for a senior developer position and just had a weird experience at an Austrian company.

Two HR reps spent the first 12min talking about why they liked working there, their hobbies, friend and family, sports, etc, before I had a chance to introduce myself.

When I started talking, they didn't want to know about professional experiences ("it's all in your CV, tell us about YOU"). I was super uncomfortable with a giant looking glass looking into my soul. It was awkward.

Company was 100-200 employees.

Is this what being screened for cultural fit looks like?

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Yes, many companies do it from the 10 person to the 10,000. It’s more important at 10-50 person range to ensure you don’t have disrupters. It’s entirely unneeded at larger scale but you still see it.

I can understand it. I just thought it was a bit too extreme. At some point it seemed like I was interviewing them (but I hadn't asked any questions).

They seemed a bit bummed out when my hobbies weren't traveling around the world or helping impoverished communities in my spare time. They asked me what great thing I wanted to learn next and when I say $tool_X, I could feel the disappointment.

But it was good to see this first hand. On one hand, I think maybe HR is running the cultural filter a bit too high... who knows if the engineering culture is like that?

On the other hand, if that alone without asking a single question about my experience or skills is enough to reject me... that's a bit too extreme. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

my outlook on those sorts of filtering activities is that if it doesn’t fit and that’s what’s most important to the company then it might be in your favor anyway.

When your work contribution is secondary to other things, I question a company’s long term resolve.

Austria is quite a small country and I wouldn't assume culture differs a lot across companies. Which type of work was it?

Backend software development.

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