Ask HN: How do companies go about getting cultural fit with a candidate? - alinalex
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cauterized
I recently learned that the concept of cultural fit was originally about being
a fit for the process and work culture, not about being best friends with
one's teammates.

What does that actually mean?

Well, for instance, someone who wants or needs to be told exactly what they're
expected to do and how to do it is not a good cultural fit for us - we need
people who can show initiative and direct their own work.

Someone who wants to work 6pm-2am is also not a good cultural fit. While we
offer some flexibility in work hours, we rely too much on reasonably-
synchronous communication (aka slack) for collaboration.

And we can't hire selfish or self-important assholes, because they're toxic
and will ruin morale.

All the rest (beer or wine or non-drinker? Loves basketball? Plays an
instrument?) is beside the point and usually just an excuse for various types
of otherwise illegal discrimination. Hire someone who's capable of acting like
a professional when in the office. Someone who can be courteous and
communicates well. Once your company is past the size where you can all fit in
a sedan at one time, you don't need to all be best friends.

~~~
stagbeetle
A simpler version: Can you fit into our micro-society?

~~~
cauterized
I think a bit less about "can you fit into our society?" and more about "can
you produce effectively given certain constraints and reward structures?"

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brnstz
Ask a question that has more than 1 right answer (and also more than 3 right
answers). To be honest, I do the "cultural" fit while I do the "technical"
interview.

 _How would you approach solving <insert some problem>?_ Dig into their
solution for its technical merits, downsides, pitfalls, etc. But, more
importantly, pay attention to how they react when they are challenged, whether
they overcomplicate things or whether they hand-wave around real problems. Do
they know when to say "it depends" or "I don't know"?

You can get a "right" answer and still "fail" the test. My feedback will
basically be, "This person is smart and I can't justify saying 'no' but..."

The "cultural" question is "Do you want to work _with_ this person?" So try
working _with_ them not _at_ them.

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TurboHaskal
Here's how to pass most startup cultural fit tests:

Avoid strong opinions even if you're asked. The interviewers themselves may be
crapping on emacs, PHP, design patterns or whatever so you may be tempted to
voice your own, but it doesn't go both ways. Don't get too comfortable.

You'll be offered coffee. Drink it. Don't refuse beer either. Fake a liking if
need be. After work drinks are mission critical.

Make sure you're not too fat nor too old nor too Indian. If you're a woman,
look your best and practice your natural makeup skills.

"What are your hobbies? / What do you like to do on your free time?" don't
mean what you think they mean. "Spending time with my family" or "reading" are
not valid answers. The only valid answers are the ones that imply you like
working for free (Github, OSS, and the like.) Bonus points for consecutive
green squares.

Don't talk badly about former colleagues. This is the biggest red flag.

~~~
coredog64
I know this response is only semi-serious, but I'll say this anyway.

HR professionals that I respect have advised me that asking questions about
hobbies or personal interests are to be avoided.

~~~
rando444
I'm not sure where you're located, but the opposite is true in Europe.

Personal questions are used to gauge your interests and personality to see how
well you might fit within the company or a specific team.

~~~
Peroni
I'm a HR/Talent professional based in London and I can assure you that those
questions should be avoided at all costs regardless of your geographic
location.

------
bensummers
Make sure you don't mean "how do companies make sure they only hire people who
are clones of their existing staff?"

The answer lies more in making your company somewhere where anyone can excel,
then looking for people who show empathy in your interview process.

Here are some things we do: [https://www.haplo-services.com/blog/2017/working-
with-early-...](https://www.haplo-services.com/blog/2017/working-with-early-
stage-developers)

The post focuses on early stage developers, but I believe the principles stand
at all levels.

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sokoloff
Assuming you're asking about _assessing_ cultural fit, we do a couple of semi-
overt things.

First, we make sure that every interviewer, including initial contacts and
phone screens, offers the candidate a chance to ask their own questions and I
make it a point to state that "you're picking us just as much as we're picking
you". From the questions the candidate asks, we get some insight into what's
on their mind and they get their questions answered and can form a more
informed opinion of us as well.

Second, we generally schedule an informal lunch in our cafeteria (we buy, of
course) with the candidate and a 1-3 of our engineers, often from the team
they're interviewing with but sometimes just other non-team peers. This is
explicitly meant to be informal and similar-level peers, but you can't help
sharing data about who we are, how we interact with each other and the
candidate, and learning/teaching whether there's likely a good fit.

If you're asking about _creating /enhancing_ cultural fit once hired, that's
an ordinary leadership challenge.

~~~
sawmurai
I also had such a lunch on an on-site interview day and must say that I really
liked it. Not only can the company assess your fit but you can also assess
whether you like the company and your future colleagues.

~~~
jbernardo95
Indeed, I've gone through a similar process and it was really nice for both
sides. Although I believe that this should be done carefully, because when
people get close and personal, they tend to "judge" others based on the
personality, which is important, but not really what they are doing, instead
they should focus on the cultural fit having in account the candidate's
personality and other factors.

------
zwischenzug
I had a friend who was present in interviews at a hedge fund in London where
the standard first question was 'where do you ski?'

When she quit, they asked her what it would take for her to stay. She asked
for an equality policy and BOOM! A big cheque fell in her lap and they thanked
her for her contribution.

~~~
andyjohnson0
I've been asked "do you ski?" quite a few times in my life, and it took me a
while to realise that most of the time I was really being asked "are you a
member of the same social class as me?"

------
jasonmotylinski
I just went through the interview process for a management role at a company
in which they stressed the importance of "cultural fit." I assumed this meant
I would be evaluated for my ability to work within a startup vs the
traditional large enterprise companies I had been working for over the last
few years.

I was caught a bit off-guard when the interview pivoted towards inclusion and
diversity. I stumbled through some questions which, in hindsight, were geared
around determining if I was a "brogrammer". The questions were very open-ended
like: "How do you deal with diversity?" and "How do you accommodate other's
working styles?"

Speaking with HR after the interview the company their definition of "cultural
fit" was much broader than just work or programming style. The company is
extremely interested in building a talent pool that is diverse in all ways
(age, gender, ethnicity, etc...) and viewed the engineering practices as
something that can be taught.

Their belief, if you invest in good people who like their jobs then they will
build good products. And if those products are good then the company will make
money.

~~~
tarsinge
> "How do you deal with diversity?" and "How do you accommodate other's
> working styles?"

I don't understand these kind of questions, culture shouldn't play a role as
long as core values are shared (like honesty, empathy, humility...) The rest
should be irrelevant in the workplace

~~~
stagbeetle
> _I don 't understand these kind of questions, culture shouldn't play a role
> as long as core values are shared (like honesty, empathy, humility...)_

It's important to have non-toxic and morally good employees, but if you start
forcing a "core value" system on subjective morality you're going to throw a
wrench into the cogs.

Shared core values are better for goals and brand identity. Company culture is
more leading by example, than meticulously choosing what is honest and
empathetic and humble.

------
phereford
[http://firstround.com/review/why-firing-brilliant-
assholes-i...](http://firstround.com/review/why-firing-brilliant-assholes-is-
required-to-build-a-great-engineering-culture/)

For me, it's always been just to make sure the person isn't toxic to other
employees

From some other comments I skimmed: I think it's a bonus if you have opinions
on software. I want to hire people that challenge the team to grow and
challenge me to grow with their differing opinions. It is very important as to
how that opinion is conveyed though.

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thanatropism
"Corporate culture" is weird.

In my experience it's useful for teams to share some "culture" \-- some shared
expectations so not everything has to be communicated explicitly.

On the other hand, it's kind of useful that different teams have different
cultures and some between-teams attrition goes on in meetings related to
larger projects. Think "marketers versus engineers". It's important that these
mutually contradicting views clash!

Also: I've had the bad experience of the buddy-chuminess of team culture
gradually drift into flirting and then into unsustainable sexual tension,
complete with big fight and months of really bad communication. But note this:
we've been able to work through all that storm, and now we're on pretty good
speaking and collaboration terms. This only worked because we were cogs in a
seven-ish-cog-machine and the machine could grind on with insufficient
lubrication between two cogs. (This is a bad analogy because it seems that the
more cogs the better, but there's a sweet spot...)

------
ollybee
I love this approch from
[https://careers.bytemark.co.uk/process](https://careers.bytemark.co.uk/process)

"There's no "cultural fit" requirement. If you have a skill we like and you
can learn and work with a team, you'll get on fine here. You'll be our company
culture, and we welcome your contribution."

------
dankruss
I think it's important to first know which traits you deem to be 'culturally
fit'.

Before coming up with a solution, the first step should always be defining the
problem.

This could be worth running a workshop with the people you know are good
cultural fits to come up with this trait-list.

In an interview (real-world application), similar to Google's layover test, I
would suggest randomly picking people in the office to have an informal (but
guided) chat around interests and everything after the fact of the candidate
being competent enough to actually do the work.

As soon as that meeting concludes, send a form to all employees in that
interview to rate against the traits you've defined.

Come up with a score tactic, if you want, and anything above, let's say 85%,
is a fit.

Side note: You can be specific in your choice of words in the job posting to
make it more likely that you attract the right type of people.

------
JSeymourATL
George Bradt offers a good framework for defining & understanding company
culture > [http://www.primegenesis.com/blog/2010/12/b-r-a-v-e-
framework...](http://www.primegenesis.com/blog/2010/12/b-r-a-v-e-framework-
for-thinking-about-culture/)

You'll want the interview team to assess the candidate with that criteria
mind. Probe important areas, such as learning-style, interpersonal
communication, and decision-making.

Ultimately, you're trying to answer the question "Can we live with this
person?"

------
vorotato
We mostly focus on _work_ culture. Is the developer a move fast and break
things dev, but your culture is more of a move slow and do it right? Do they
focus more, less, or the same as other employees on tooling. Are they about
always pushing the latest greatest, or are they more focused on stability, and
which do you need. Do they have a big problem with collared shirts? Polos? are
those in some way a business need for you? Do they have a big need for work
from home but your workplace doesn't presently provide that?

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dsgriffin
'Cultural fit' is quite hard to define - sadly the phrase has a lot of
negative connotations as too many people have used it to filter for people who
'look/act/think like me' or to make sure the person will regularly attend
company drinks otherwise be ostracised (one example).

A more positive way to think of it could be to search for people who work well
as a team, treat others fairly regardless of their role, like/employ
transparency and so on.

------
wink
Just had an aha moment, where I realized that I might have been using
"cultural fit" as a proxy for "work ethic".

Then again I don't think we've ever used the exact term "cultural fit" in my
team.

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awinter-py
Ask questions that go to socioeconomic background. 5 decades of sociology
research have shown that skin color is a fair proxy for this. College rankings
work too.

Newsworthy culture fit problems at e.g. uber could have been solved out of the
gate by not hiring those pesky women. They bring the majority of culture-fit
litigation.

Sometimes you can't tell if someone is not biologically male just by looking,
so consider also supporting anti-trans legislation in your municipality.

~~~
s_kilk
/s, I presume?

~~~
TurboHaskal
You presume wrong.

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nunez
Lunches or drinks (if your company is into that). No work talk. Exactly like a
date or a catchup with a friend.

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xyzzy4
"Cultural fit" should be an illegal form of discrimination.

