
Why Hiring for “Culture Fit” Hurts Your Culture - michaelochurch
http://www.paperplanes.de/2015/6/11/why-hiring-for-culture-fit-hurts-your-culture.html
======
scelerat
In my free time I'm a musician. I play in several different projects, and know
a lot of people who do the same, even making a living doing so.

There's a rule of thumb in that world: "Good hang, good music, good money:
don't take the gig if you don't have at least two out of three." If the money
isn't good, at least the people and the music are. If the music sucks, at
least you can spend your money with people you like. If the people suck, at
least you can justify sticking around because it's worth it as a musician and
you're well compensated.

Working for a startup or small company is very similar to being in a band, in
my experience. And in the beginning, the money isn't great, and so if you're
going to be happy there you make double extra sure that the technology (music)
and the culture (the hang) work for everyone.

I get what this guy is saying: don't handicap your ability as a team to grow
and innovate just because a potential hire doesn't care about the kegerator,
or cannot, out of nature or obligation keep the same crazy hours as other
members of the team. But when the going gets rough, there's nothing like
having a sense of mutual respect and understanding among team members. You
_do_ want your team to develop a sense of camaraderie. Likewise, you _do_ want
your new hires to be able to fit in and communicate in productive ways. You
want your team members to care about one another.

I have been in on hiring people where 'culture fit' has been a topic. On at
least three occasions I can think of people hired for a team where yellow
flags raised during the interview under the rubric of culture fit actually did
become problem later on: failures in ability to argue or communicate honestly
or effectively; superiority complexes glimpsed during an interview turned into
unneeded friction later on, etc.

On the other hand, there have been hires where the 'culture fit' issue was
raised before the hiring which turned out to be unfounded.

I think the key is to truly understand yourself and your own group dynamics
before adding more people to the soup.

~~~
s73v3r
"I have been in on hiring people where 'culture fit' has been a topic. On at
least three occasions I can think of people hired for a team where yellow
flags raised during the interview under the rubric of culture fit actually did
become problem later on: failures in ability to argue or communicate honestly
or effectively; superiority complexes glimpsed during an interview turned into
unneeded friction later on, etc."

Are these really culture fit issues, though? Does anyone pride themselves on
having a culture of miscommunication?

~~~
binxbolling
Not a culture built on miscommunication, but there are typically going to be
different norms around communication.

E.g. can you approach the C-suite directly, or have to go through their
assistants? Can meeting participants cut things off if it's unproductive, or
is that feedback shared privately afterward? Is really vigorous (perhaps
intimidating) debate an expectation, or are people more laid back about
discussing ideas? To what extent can you express emotions, and which emotions?
Two companies can totally be "feedback-oriented" yet drastically differ on
when, how, and to whom feedback is given/received—none objectively The Right
Way, just different cultures.

To me this is all culture, hard to judge pre-hire, and hard to adopt if it's
really not your style.

~~~
s73v3r
At the same time, these are all things that can be easily communicated after
the person is hired. Nothing on this list should even be thought of when
interviewing someone.

------
mwfunk
If "hiring for culture fit" universally meant what this article says it means,
then yeah, it's a bad thing to do all around. But the article seems to be more
about the toxic cultures that some companies have, and how hiring more people
that fit really well into that toxic culture just keeps it going or makes it
worse. All good points.

It's not an argument against the idea of hiring for culture fit though- rather
it's an excellent description of just how toxic some startup cultures can be,
and how interviewers can abuse the culture fit concept (intentionally or not)
to discriminate against people who are different from them.

~~~
davesque
Very good point.

------
jasode
_> Parents, people of religion who don't drink, non-alcoholics._

Those are bad but there are also legitimate clashes of "culture fit" and
almost every blog writer that complains about it is leaving it out.

For example, consider a software team writing rocket guidance software for
NASA or SpaceX. They are very disciplined about bottom-up analysis, 100% code
path coverage, proofs of algorithm correctness, etc. However, they interview a
candidate that is somewhat of a cowboy coder (a duct tape programmer)[1]. He's
smart and competent but he doesn't fit their culture.

The team can acknowledge that the duct tape programmers are not inferior to
overly cautious and disciplined programmers. The team can also acknowledge
that the fast-paced world _needs_ duct programmers. However, they just don't
need him _on their particular team_.

If pressed for reason for why they rejected him, it's very easy to fall back
on the simple phrase "culture fit" instead of itemizing an inventory of
intellectual incompatibilities. Teams can reject candidates for other reasons
besides the He's-Not-White-Anglo-Saxon-Protestant-22-year-old angle.

I guess they could add an adjective and say it was " _intellectual_ culture
fit" but that phrase isn't commonplace enough that people would instinctively
use it.

Just consider that _some_ clashes of "culture fit" are intellectual instead of
ethnic discrimination and engineers are not always the best at articulating
why they rejected candidates for legitimate reasons.

[1]
[http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html)

------
bdavisx
Sometimes "Culture Fit" is a way around age (or other discrimination).

Sometimes it really means you have a specific culture you want to maintain.
But you better watch out if you do this, at some point, all the "yes people"
in your culture will end up missing something that would be obvious to someone
who doesn't fit your culture.

Basically, if you hire for "Culture Fit", you're saying that diversity is
bad...

~~~
_joe
I have personally been discarded from a startup without even a phone
interview, because of "not being a cultural fit to the company". What makes it
more absurd (if possible, how do you determine "cultural fit" from a CV?) is
that the position was remote. What makes it even more absurd is that the
company actively used a software I wrote.

I deduced that "cultural fit" translated to the fact I was over 35.

------
alphanumeric0
> Have an honest look at why someone doesn't match your expectations. Did they
> not match implicit or explicit expectations? If they're implicit, are they
> really a part of your company culture? If they are, why are they not
> explicit?"

I recently got a 'culture fit' rejection. Towards the bottom of the e-mail
they welcomed follow-up questions from me. I would love to respond and ask the
questions above, but I also believe most rejections in life are a good thing
and if someone comes up with some ridiculous excuse like 'culture fit' I'm
better off not working for such a silly company.

------
mixmastamyk
I don't mind going out for happy hour once in a while, I enjoy it, and would
never give anyone a hard time that was drinking, say a diet-coke with lime.
The writer seems a little sensitive to socializing/drinking though. Perhaps he
doesn't realize young people like to "rib" those who are a bit different... I
don't think they mean any real harm, they just lack perspective that comes
over time. I've learned to ignore people's dumb comments, as I've made quite a
few myself--hopefully they are decreasing over time.

However, in agreement I've noticed that a lot of company/startup "culture"
tends to exclude anyone not a late-twenties white|asian male with skinny
jeans. Here's a few job pages I've looked at recently:

[https://stripe.com/jobs/](https://stripe.com/jobs/)

[https://www.olark.com/jobs](https://www.olark.com/jobs)

[https://www.planet.com/assets/themes/planet/images/team/taho...](https://www.planet.com/assets/themes/planet/images/team/tahoe.jpg)

[http://jobs.lifesum.com/](http://jobs.lifesum.com/)

Look at some of these photos, and struggle to find a team member from the
majority of the population who is homely, or chubby, or female, or
$other_minority, over thirty, or god-forbid over forty.

No wonder it is so hard to find people when you exclude 90% of the population.

~~~
greenyoda
_" The writer seems a little sensitive to socializing/drinking though. Perhaps
he doesn't realize young people like to 'rib' those who are a bit
different..."_

"Ribbing" a recovering alcoholic because they won't join you for drinks would
be rather insensitive. By the time young people are old enough to be in the
workforce, they ought to be a bit more mature than that. (The author mentions
that "I've been a non-alcoholic for more than 16 years now".)

~~~
mixmastamyk
Yes, ought-to, but reality is different. Most people are still learning social
graces far past their twenties.

~~~
__z
Many people never learn social graces. I'm surprised how many incredibly rude
comments I get from people who are old enough to know better.

------
dynamicdispatch
I recently interviewed at a company where I did the onsite tech interview one
day, was then told I passed that and had to do a culture fit interview the
next week. I did that, mainly with non-technical folk, and then got a standard
rejection email the next day. I still find it a bit baffling - at the very
least, they could've given me an idea of their culture (didn't seem very
different from any standard issue tech company, IMO) and what exactly I was
lacking.

~~~
davesque
That's part of the problem. How can you pin down what the person was lacking
in that situation? Were they lacking "friendliness", "suaveness?" Were they
not attractive enough? How many shortcomings which could be attributed to
"culture fit" are actually things you could change?

~~~
nostrebored
You can change being a terrible programmer, it doesn't mean that I want to
work with you while you do it...

------
7Figures2Commas
> The best way to avoid falling into the culture fit trap is to have an honest
> look at why someone doesn't match your expectations. Did they not match
> implicit or explicit expectations? If they're implicit, are they really a
> part of your company culture? If they are, why are they not explicit?

The reason many startups don't explicitly state their expectations around
"culture fit" is that reasonable, ethical people would find them to be
unacceptable. In some cases, these expectations are associated with criteria
that companies are not legally permitted to use in making hiring decisions.

~~~
davesque
I thought of this too and I think it's true. That should be an indicator that
it's not a good idea. The reason laws are in place to prevent discrimination
of that kind is that people have come to the consensus that it's bad for
society.

------
cloakandswagger
The article fails to realize that "cultural fit" is an ineffable, inherently
implicit judgment. You can't reasonably make a checklist of "cultural fit"
items for this reason.

More importantly, "cultural fit" is a good catchall for probably the most
important aspect of hiring someone: Your instinctual, gut feeling about the
person. Do they seem like someone you want to work with 8 hours a day? Is
there something "off" about them?

These are incredibly important subconscious criteria that can't be explicitly
codified, and the term "cultural fit" is a good umbrella term for them.

~~~
abduhl
This implies that culture fit is a guise for discrimination. Which, let's be
honest, is what it is in most cases.

An old person doesn't fit the culture of a young tech startup. A woman doesn't
fit the culture of the executive level. A black person doesn't fit the culture
of the new neighborhood. A guy that works out every day doesn't fit the
culture of a disruptive and innovative company.

~~~
therobot24
Whoa there, culture fit may be a guise for discrimination, but I don't think
it's in the same sense you're referring to. Rather I believe it's along the
lines of, 'we don't think you'll drink the kool-aid like the rest of us do',
and regardless, just because someone is qualified for the job doesn't mean
they're the right fit for it.

------
Daishiman
I thoroughly disagree with this in the startup space.

Run a food startup? I expect the people there to be at least much more
interested in the space than average, even if they're working on a purely
technical role.

Music business? Events? Cars? Clothing?

Look, if you're going to be busting ass while getting funding and traction and
you'll be inevitably spending a lot of time getting these things right, the
kind of person involved has to have a personal interest beyond their job
description. You need to understand customers and the business, and
empathizing and knowing where to look in those spaces is more than just having
business acumen.

You can hire without regarding culture fit if you're a medium-sized business
and above where people have clearly defined roles and specialties. But when
passion and interest are just as important as putting in the effort, I want to
work with people whom I have more than just a cordial time at the office.

~~~
greenyoda
_" Run a food startup? I expect the people there to be at least much more
interested in the space than average, even if they're working on a purely
technical role."_

Actually, it could be an advantage to have people around who have only an
average interest in your product - they can provide valuable insight into how
the average consumer might react to your product. If your food startup is
unconsciously geared toward the top 1% of picky eaters because everyone in
your company belongs to that group, you're not going to have a very big
market. If everyone in your car company drives a Ferrari, you're going to be
at a disadvantage selling minivans to suburban parents.

~~~
Daishiman
By the same token I could tell you that those people have no idea what foodies
are looking for or how to discriminate between good chefs and mediocre chefs,
or how to talk the talk to relevant people in the industry. Or that they'll
spend a lot of time missing targets in price points.

It is _always_ better to have at least an above-average knowledge of any
industry you want to be part of. The narrative of outside players coming in
and having success is very nice, but it's based on the premise that the people
involved were originally very passionate and picked up the ropes very quickly.

------
edgarvaldes
Somehow, I think "culture fit" is more like an euphemism.

~~~
zinkem
I have the same feeling... I've been to places with the expressed goal of
understanding and integrating into the culture, only to find out after I've
left that there were actually 2 groups within the company: those that wanted
change and those that wanted things to stay the same.

------
ebiester
I hate the culture fit conversations.

People are looking for the wrong culture fit.

I care intensely about cultural fit, but could care less about gender,
ethnicity, race, political inclinations, sexuality, and other non-work
behaviors.

I care intensely about a culture of automated tests, automated deployment,
campsite rule (leaving something better than you found it), clean code,
empathy as a core engineering principle, and other cultural issues where
reasonable people disagree. I can respect Michael O. Church's opinions on
agile, for example, but I think that we would be best fit working in different
companies.

------
shalmanese
People when discussing this, make the mistake of thinking there's one best
culture and if we all just moved towards that superior culture, everything
would be better. Instead, I think there's such a thing as Product/Culture fit.
Different cultures unavoidably product different products and some products
fail in the market because the culture that produced it never achieve
Product/Market fit.

Take Lyft and Uber for example. Both are ostensibly doing very similar things
yet I know people at both and I can confidently say very few people could work
happily in both places. If you work at Uber, you have to be OK with stripping
an entire research lab to build up your self driving car department. If you
work at Lyft, you have to be OK that Lyft hasn't expanded internationally yet
as they're cautiously focusing on the US.

Even though Lyft and Uber are looking for the same skillset in their
employees, the pools they're hiring from are almost completely distinct.
People interpret "not a culture fit" as a negative thing, as if it's about
that person not being good enough for the company's culture. Instead, when
"not a culture fit" is said honestly, it simply means that, even though both
of you want to accomplish the same things, you want to accomplish them in
different ways and there's other, better places for your talents.

Similarly, companies should look long and hard at their Product/Culture fit
and, if they do indeed find it lacking on some ways, actively recruit people
who have the force of will to alter their culture. This is much harder,
however and has to come from the top.

------
xacaxulu
Culture fit is very important in any organization, or at least complimentary
cultures. There are of course abuses in any kind of hiring process, but it's
wrong to think that culture fit is responsible for this. When you're turned
down because of culture fit, it's easy to get upset about it, but honestly,
would you have wanted them to hire you anyways, knowing that they'd be
'tolerating' you? In the same vein, when a company _does_ hire you, I feel
like it's assumed that it's because you're technically proficient and can
provide value; they usually don't say "we're hiring you because you're a solid
culture fit" even though it's highly likely that you are, and that is a chunk
of why they hired you. It seems like: a) culture fit where you get hired ==
good b) culture fit where you get declined == racist/ageist/sexist/whatever.

------
davesque
There's basically nothing more frustrating than being told you were passed
over because you weren't a good "culture fit." The reason it's frustrating is
that it gives you no information you can use to improve yourself. The basic
take-away is that you should go away and become cooler somehow.

~~~
dynamicdispatch
But do companies explicitly say that, though? From my experience working at a
YC startup, the company just used to send out a canned rejection email,
irrespective of whether the candidate was rejected because of a bad interview
or because someone thought they'd be a pain to work with. The startup I work
at once had a staff/lead engineer from twitter interview, and while some loved
him, some didn't and he was rejected.

~~~
davesque
A reasonably professional person will follow up with rejection emails in order
to determine what was lacking so they can work on it. Companies who reject
people should be ready to give useful feedback that people can use to improve
their chances moving forward.

~~~
tricolon
And, unfortunately, it is in the best interest of a reasonably professional
company to decline to comment on a rejection.

------
spaceprison
I just experienced this. To have gone through 8+ interviews over the course of
a few months to find out that the firm essentially thinks you have a bum
personality was quite the experience. Throughout my whole career, technical
capability aside, my inter-personal skills have been what have really
propelled me to where I am today. Some of the best Engineers I have worked
with have had INTERESTING personalities and we have been able to get great
stuff done despite potential _incompatibilities_.

In the end I'm glad it didn't work out, for one it grounded me, apparently my
shit does stink. It also helped me recognize that I really do enjoy working
with all stripes of people and would hate to give that up. I also feel like I
get bonus points for not joining a cult.

------
simonmales
I would say most people actually mean a personality fit when that say
"Cultural Fit"

------
serve_yay
Come on, we all know what "culture fit" really means.

~~~
bcoates
Anecdote: I've been described by a recruiter as "a culture fit" (definite
article and all), and not in reference to any particular job or company. This
dude knew roughly nothing about me except how I looked and my generic
California accent.

If you think it's about excluding people who have kids or don't want to drink
all night you're actually giving them _too much_ credit.

------
rcarrigan87
Kind of hard to discuss culture fit without discussing the stage of the
company (context is key).

Early stage companies need a homogeneous culture. Their advantage is moving
quickly. Hiring similar people is good.

Later stage companies need diversity. Hiring similar people is bad.

Hence why scaling is so difficult and why so many early stage employees wash
out in later stages.

------
jack-r-abbit
If you don't value "culture fit" then a company that does value "culture fit"
is probably not a good fit for you. ;)

