How can one not being a "culture fit" be interpreted in any way that is not blatant discrimination?
For instance: you are discriminating against people who don't know javascript if you are hiring for a job that requires javascript and don't hire people who don't know it.
Is that a bad thing? I dont' think so.
There are some things that we as a society have determined that it is not okay to discriminate based on. Here is a list of them: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_class
In colloquial American usage, "discrimination" in the context of hiring and employment refers exclusively to judging people by illegal or inappropriate factors.
>you are discriminating against people who don't know javascript if you are hiring for a job that requires javascript and don't hire people who don't know it.
This may be an appropriate statement for other English-speaking countries, but in the US, this is a statement that borders on sophistry.
You are discriminating ... if you are hiring for a job
that requires javascript and don't hire people
who don't know it. Is that a bad thing? I dont' think so.
Similarly, I recall an article from Matasano that said that some of their best candiates did not have prior experience with something that one might have expected to be a prerequisite: "Some of the best testers we've worked with didn't have a formal security background." [0].
If you only hire people who "know" $Language, what will you do if six months down the line you decide to rewrite in Clojure, or find that Haskell is the best way to move forward?
Our whole team is very relaxed and smiles a lot. We aren't going to hire someone who is cynical, tense, and overly opinionated and has different values than us. That's culture fit. Yes, that is discrimination. But not based on gender, sexual orientation, race, or age.
Yes, yes, and yes, it can mean all of those things and more.
> The concept of "cultural fit" is so vague it can easily be used to mask actual discrimination
No kidding? Really? Wow, I hope no one else realizes this.
It means whatever they want it to mean. It is a general, hand-wavy no that you can't really question.