1) What does "culture fit" mean? What specific things would you include?
2) What exactly does a candidate get asked in these interviews?
3) What is the interviewer evaluating?
It can be a cover for clear racism/sexism/agesim etc. but can also be used to discriminate on less clear terms - i.e. maybe all the co-founders at a startup went to Yale, Harvard, MIT etc. but the candidate is a self taught programmer who comes from a poor background in the Midwest. If the candidate shows that he is just like the co-founders (i.e. has the same interests, outlook on life etc.) then he will be a culture fit. But if the candidate has four kids at the age of 29, goes to church every sunday, hunting on the weekends etc. he will not be a culture fit.
In essence, "culture fit" is the result of a company hiring candidates based on aspects of them that should not even be considered at all. It shouldn't matter if the candidate has a large family or no family at all, if they candidate is religious or not, what the candidate political beliefs are - these are all things that should really be kept out of the workplace.
One thing I have picked up on is resentment from academic elites who work in small teams with non academic elites. They often feel like the achievements they have from the past entitle them to positions that non ivy graduates should not have. This is really common in finance
EDIT: Academic qualifications are also only a small part of what I'm talking about.
Basically, you're asking: "okay, that person has the necessary skills. But will they be happy working with us and will we be happy working with them".
As other comments mentioned, it can be other thing than technical culture fit. Is can be taste in culture for instance. Is the team a bunch of geeks that regularly play games together and would not fit well with someone who likes sport for instance. Or are they heavy drinkers, having a pint every evenings, and you should fit into that too.
If the company has issues (ever-changing requirements, overtime is the norm, technical debt is never addressed etc.), it can also be a way to predict if the candidate will be able to wistand those, or will leave before the end of their probation.
There are teams that work 9-5 Mon-Fri. If you're a workaholic that works from 8am-8pm, sending email at 12am, working on weekend and vacation, you will be a bad culture fit for such a team.
Imagine a team working on a Java project, and the entire team are die hard FreeBSD fans, but you're a die hard OSX or Windows fan and will not change your OS for nothing. Bad culture fit.
Team likes to go out, have a drink during happy hour. You don't. Bad culture fit.
It just means that you will clash with the team period, professionally or not.
One example was when I was interviewing for a game developer. I wanted to see something that was more like a tower defense game, which the interviewer wanted to move away from.
Sometimes they give you a description of the product and see your response - are you excited, confused, scared? Does your vision for this product align with the project manager's vision?
Like some others have mentioned, it's a way to see if you fit with their pace. Meaning if you're willing to work 80 hours/week or dedicate a lot of time to the office.
Some offices have the exact opposite culture - they like to work short hours but also need people who are extremely efficient and able to squeeze 100% out of those hours.
Some roles prefer people who adhere strictly to protocol.
Some are extremely flexible; we've worked with full time engineers who start work at 4 PM (stand up meeting) and end work at 9 AM (daily commit). They didn't care about the longer hours, only wanted to have a nightly cigarette and work when it's colder outside.
There's also different approaches to training. Some companies prefer to train on the job. Some expect you to train in your free time. Some will hire external trainers regularly. Some will stick to tried and true technology; others will encourage you to experiment. Some jobs even literally try to hire people who they can trust to experiment, so the boss/manager doesn't have to.
Is everyone super nice, and there is a "no asshole" policy then they need people that won't break that.
Does everyone tend to be social, lots of social events etc? Need to fit into that?
Or is it a pure work ethic place where you need to be pounding keys every minute until it's time to clock out? Same again they want people to fit into that.
b.) is this person higher on give or take: seemingly very interested in contractual benefits they will receive, seemingly uninterested in value they can add
c.) technical culture: e.g., are you walking into a “move fast and break things” company with a “six-nines-reliability” mentality, or vice-versa?
A twist in the plot is that I am an almost 60 year-old developer and completely understand the attitude. Furthermore, I think it should be legal to discriminate that way. In my experience, many of the older developers I know are utterly brilliant. I just paid a guy in his 50s $24,000 for 160 billed hours of work, and I know it was an absolute bargain. It saved my company.
Yet I have encountered many more who displayed what seems to me to be an entitled attitude. They talk as if they should be able to make the same money they always did without updating their skill sets. Like professional athletes, we are paid much more than the median salary because we can do things most people can’t. And like professional athletes, once we can no longer deliver the goods, we haven’t earned exorbitant pay levels.
In early stages, for instance, I would look for people who have a shipping fast mentality. In later stage for people who value technical excellence.
Everything else is at best childish and naive, and too often discriminating against certain persons who would actually be a valuable asset. A grown up can work efficiently in a team without going to Thursday beers every week.
Ironically many people doing the interviews don't like the competition, so they don't pass the candidate, who can call them out on it? Nobody really.