
Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work - clebio
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/guess-who-doesnt-fit-in-at-work.html
======
arenaninja
The article is spot on. In tech, cultural fit means one of several things.
Some time ago at a company, we were considering candidates when the most
senior software developer left. We went through two weeks of interviews, and I
recommended we go with the strongest technical candidate because his
experience was very obvious. The employer flat out said that he wouldn't fit
because he was too old. When I raised my eyebrows he immediately backtracked
to say that he meant that the culture was so different, I got out of there as
soon as I could. The guy that was eventually hired because he was 'nice' even
though his technical skills were weak was fired six weeks into the job and
left a mess that took six full days to 'fix', until we discovered the changes
he had made to how things were stored in the database without considering the
full implications.

I've also had it happen to me that I pass every technical interview, and then
when I meet the team, we'll go for lunch and they'll order beer and I get an
orange juice. Drinking comes up as a subject and since I don't drink alcohol
my lack of craft beer knowledge somehow becomes the subject of my interview.
Needless to say, I've always been rejected at these jobs. Another one is
hobbies. I've a family and my commute is LONG, to the point that I don't even
play PC games anymore. Hobbies come up, I have none, and I have no intention
of lying to get the job. I've learned since that these are companies I don't
want to work for. I've gotten along with everyone at every job I've had, so
I'm not intimidated by these, but every one I've had has been utterly
pointless.

~~~
xaybey
I understand not drinking and not playing video games, but saying that you
have no hobbies would be pretty weird in an interview. They're just trying to
get to know you. Hopefully you follow it up with some personal detail that
distinguishes you from a robot.

~~~
informatimago
Distinguishes you from a robot, WHEN?

After the 80 hours a week spent at work, 56 hours a week spent sleeping (going
to work while sleep deprived is like going to work drunk, so they do expect
you to sleep!), 3.5 hours a week spent showering (and they do expect you to
come to work clean, wonder why), 10 hours a week spent in commuting to work, 7
hours a week spent on feeding yourself (and they do expect you to eat so you
can work (I can spend weeks without eating, but then I won't be productive)),
4 hours a week to buy the groceries, and 7 hours a week spent on the internet
or TV, there remains NO time for any hobby.

So if they want hobbies, they will have to reduce drastically work time.

~~~
npinguy
Let's start from 80 hours a week spent at work. Red flag #1. Don't know why
you would assume that's necessary

3.5 hours/week showering. Red flag #2. Even if you shower every single day, if
you're spending 30 minutes in the shower each time you might as well call it a
hobby. Unless you've got long luxurious hair, you should be able to get
everything done in 10 minutes.

10 hours commuting, so 1 hour each way? #3 How much do you value your time?
Clearly if you can't think of a hobby, not very much. If you did, you'd pay
extra to not waste 2 hours every day wasted. But wait...why are you wasting
that time? Can you read? Listen to audio books? Work on a side project? Even
day dream and think? If you have to drive, can you switch from driving to
motorcycling, and make that a hobby?

It sounds like you WANT to throw yourself into work, and spend all your energy
and time into it as an excuse for lacking the ability to become a fully
developed multi-faceted human being. And that is on you, not on your employer.

~~~
jazzyk
He used the word "shower", but I think he meant the time it takes to look
respectable - so please add drying after shower, shaving, toilet trip(s),
dressing, etc.

------
paragpatelone
Companies have to be very careful how they define cultural fit. If they leave
it open, it can impart personal bias that are not at all beneficial to the
company.

Maybe "value fit" should be used instead of cultural fit. Do your values align
with the core values of the company.

The top NYTimes comment below illustrates some of the warts of a "cultural
fit".

"Hiring managers who would never in a million years describe themselves or
even privately consider themselves to be racist or sexist or ageist commonly
use cultural-fit criteria to perpetrate racism, sexism, or agism in the
workplace. I was recently in a meeting with two other managers to compare
notes on a group of candidates whom we'd all just interviewed for a mid-level
job. My top pick was a supremely well-qualified 45-year-old black woman who
outscored all the other candidates on the skills test, was the only one to
arrive on time for the interview, and was the only one who dressed
professionally for the interview. It's a corporate job in Midtown. She was
poised, amiable, and direct during my conversation with her, asked well-
informed questions about the work and the company, and she was also the only
candidate who sent a thank you letter after the interview. The other two
hiring managers - both of whom, incidentally, were white women who were
wearing Black Lives Matter pins - didn't think my top candidate "would be a
good fit" or "feel comfortable." We hired a young white guy for the gig. He
fits in the gang really well at happy hour, but his job performance is
extremely poor. My two managerial colleagues have scheduled a meeting for next
week to discuss what we're going to do about him. The good candidate is
working for someone else now."

~~~
zo1
And this company that didn't hire the most-competent candidate: Would you say
that they are now some how measurably worse-off within the market? At the very
least, in relation to a potential competitor that _did_ snag up that
candidate?

~~~
ak39
If you're asking whether they "learnt" their lesson ... I very much doubt that
cultures that entrench such biases are ever shaken up to reconsider the
harmful effects (financial or otherwise) of their adopted attitudes. Don't
underestimate the power of the "backfire effect" on the minds of middle-
managers who don't want to be revealed as having made mistakes.

It takes a bold and courageous leader to admit mistakes in the corporate
environment. Or a stupid one.

~~~
woodman
> If you're asking whether they "learnt" their lesson ...

I don't think that is the question. I believe the point being made was that
the free market punishes this sort of behavior. You don't rely on the
company's officers learning their lesson, or following the spirit of some law
- you rely on market forces killing the company that passes over superior
candidates.

------
joesmo
"Cultural fit" is just another form of discrimination, a currently legal
alternative to racism, sexism, and other forms of illegal discrimination in
the US to keep the "unliked" and "unwanted" out of jobs. The author
acknowledges this, yet still sees fit to add advice for using cultural fit;
that weakens the article a bit, but not much.

The reality is "cultural fit" should never be used to make decisions. It is
never right, either as a predictor of performance or ethically. Companies and
interviewers already have an incredibly difficult time figuring out ways in
which to judge qualifications, even when standard tests and procedures are
available. To add in this nonsensical idea of "cultural fit," something that
can't be measured, quantified, qualified, or identified, and to make that a
selection criteria for applicants not only shirks the duty to hire the most
qualified, but gives the company and interviewers an unchallengeable way to
reject applicants, an option that otherwise would--and should--be illegal.

tldr: Cultural fit is discrimination, it __cannot __predict job performance or
any otherwise meaningful information related to a candidate 's skills and
abilities, and should be illegal as its only use is to deny qualified
applicants jobs they qualify for.

~~~
MarcusVorenus
Cultural fit can definitely impact performance. Imagine a luddite working for
a biotechnology company, or an anarchist working for the government, or a
muslim working for an atheist non-profit. These people would never find the
motivation to perform better than the absolute minimum required to keep their
jobs because their goals and the goals of the organization are complete
opposites. They could even go as far as sabotaging the performance of others
by creating a toxic work environment.

~~~
joesmo
Not necessarily. There are plenty of Muslims who could help an atheist non
profit by maintaining their professionalism. Likewise for your other examples.
By assuming that they will let their beliefs sabotage their work, you're
judging a whole group by the potential actions of zero or more people. That's
just discrimination against people with these various beliefs without proof.
By this line of reasoning you could say that Catholics should never be hired
at planned parenthood because they will sabotage it. Total load of bull shit
and exactly the reason "cultural fit" should be illegal. It's just plain
discrimination.

~~~
MarcusVorenus
They can be professional all they like but if they only have money as a
motivator to work at a place they hate then they'll just be poor performers.
They won't have the energy to do more than the bare minimum. Motivation is
just not something that you can command at will.

~~~
wolfgke
> if they only have money as a motivator to work at a place they hate then
> they'll just be poor performers. They won't have the energy to do more than
> the bare minimum.

Source?

~~~
MarcusVorenus
Common sense.

------
scrrr
Best reason to visit a top school. So you become more similar to the people
running the country.

~~~
ak39
Ouch.

Even if what you say could be true, is it a good thing to send our kids to
institutions of learning so that they can become arse-licking sycophants? Is
that even a conscious decision in parenting?

~~~
andrewchoi
Speaking as a lower-income student who went to an Ivy League university,
appearing more similar to those in power is an entirely different thing than
becoming an "arse-licking sycophant".

I'd argue that going to a so-called "elite" institution is more akin to
learning a language by immersion.

~~~
ionforce
There was a whole article about this recently... I forget where, probably the
NY Times. Have you read it? Quite illuminating for me. Didn't even realize
there was this whole issue/culture about being low-income + Ivy.

~~~
andrewchoi
I have; it was a very solid portrait of one portion of the low-income/high-
achieving cohort.

What most of these articles fail to mention is that there are three aspects to
the traditional socioeconomic diversity narrative: low income, race/ethnicity,
and familial educational achievement. As an Asian American whose parents both
had PhDs, I've been in the unique position of having only one of the three
factors affecting me.

------
kator
I hire for Attitude and Aptitude.

If you have a crappy attitude I can't do anything to help you there.

If you have the aptitude and your attitude is positive, can-do, willing to
learn, we can teach you anything you need to know or you can learn it on the
job.

I too worry that "Cultural Fit" is becoming the new "don't like them" excuse
of the day. I try hard to hire people who think about problems differently
than myself or other members of my team. My hope is to get as many angles as
possible to see problems from so we together as a team can find solutions that
might not have been obvious if each of us has a homogeneous view driven by
some bogus "cultural fit".

What I know about my life is I was born with almost none of the skills I
leverage every day. From the ability to walk and talk, I've had to learn it
all. I feel focusing too much on fit and skills is like judging a baby on how
cute it is. Basically useless.

~~~
culturalshit
Cultural Fit is, in fact, routinely used to make discriminatory choices that
aren't rooted in anything related to what it takes to succeed.

Worse, people like Peter Thiel and Max Levchin celebrate this and encourage
other startups not to hire women and not to hire men who are even slightly
different than themselves. These are influential people and they're
purposefully using their influence to make the world a dramatically worse
place. You might think I'm exaggerating, but I'm actually understating the
amount of discrimination that they encourage.

Good cultural fit is about being able to perform on the team. But most SV
cultural fit is about being able to party with the team. It's a different
thing.

The good news for founders who aren't bigoted assholes is that this means
there's less competition for diverse talent, and if you can help those folks
know that they'll feel welcome in your office, they'll be knocking at your
door.

~~~
clebio
I'd possibly agree with you, but, can you give references for the allegations
about Thiel and Levchin?

------
dvirsky
I think the key is to define within the company, what the cultural values are,
and then talk about how to check if a person is aligned with them or not.

At the company I work for, we value creativity, independence and taking
ownership and responsibility of one's work. It sounds generic but it's not -
people who like structured workplaces and process, just wither and don't
succeed. So we try to assess that in interviews, and we took the time actually
define what are our values (it goes way beyond this example).

Over time we became better at this, and it actually contributed more
heterogeneous hires. Since you don't have to assess people on your personal
chemistry and how much they're like you personally - you have better tools do
do that. This approach opened the door to people who fit with the work
culture, even though they're not similar to the core "social DNA" of the team,
and that's just fine, it works well for everyone.

~~~
rev_bird
This strikes me as striving for "cultural fit" at a company that actually
_knows_ what its culture is, or at least what it wants its culture to be. That
could genuinely help -- but the actual _list_ seems like the important part.
Without the list, it's just finding somebody everyone wants to be friends
with.

~~~
dvirsky
Yep, I guess finding someone everyone likes and is similar socially to the
team - is a rough approximation, before you defined what your culture actually
is or should be.

BTW when we sat down and defined it, we tried conveying this to the whole team
because not everyone was aligned with those values. One or two people actually
came forward after that in private, and said something like "I get what you
want from the team, I don't think I can find myself in this culture, and I
think it's better for both sides that I leave". I have huge respect for that.

------
lordnacho
The examples in the articles are obviously bad choices though. Cultural fit
should be about work behaviour, not what you do in your free time. Whether
someone likes sports or whiskey shouldn't matter.

Whether they prefer to have large meetings vs one-on-ones is the kind of thing
you want to know, but it's probably not a great idea to prioritize that over
actual ability.

------
Joky
In my opinion "cultural fit" is important, but it has to be about _work_
culture. For instance: are you comfortable with code reviews (or lack of
thereof), coding standards, how are you positioning yourself with respect to
pressure, etc. I overlooked this when joining my current team and I'm already
thinking about finding a new place to land!

------
hagmonk
I wholeheartedly agree with the need to make cultural fit bigger than just
"happy hour" fit, but primarily on moral grounds. I haven't seen strong data
to make a technical case here.

Do we observe discrepancies between company performance that are correlated
with diversity? They say this is observable at the team level in controlled
studies, but at the macro level do we see it?

Put another way, if diversity was a strong influence on success, why do elite
institutions in banking and tech not appear to exhibit much of it?

------
tsmith
Hiring for cultural fit is just laziness, and interviewers should stop using
it as a "metric".

Assessing for ability is extremely difficult - in the case of programming
positions, technical interview processes either suffer from a large number of
false negatives (e.g. the "Google filter") or a large number of false
positives (e.g. "this person doesn't know how to write a for loop; how did
they get hired?").

Per the article, most interviewers interpret "cultural fit" as "personal fit"
\- how well do you like the interviewee? The example heuristics (going out for
a beer with the candidate, spending a snowy night in an airport together, etc)
have very little to do with company culture and very much to do with answering
the question: _" Do I like this person?"_.

Any 4 year old can tell when they like somebody. It's one of the easiest
things in the world for a human being to assess.

Technical ability, on the other hand, is one of the hardest things in the
world for human beings to asses, at least in the context of an interview.
Assessing for "cultural fit" \- which on the face of it makes perfect sense as
a hiring metric - devolves into a way to avoid doing something difficult
(assess technical ability) by doing something easy (assess personal affinity).

------
dataker
For most high-exec types, cultural fit is one of the only excuses to justify
their position and achievements.

The technical barriers for these jobs are very small, but as corporations have
a self-reinforcing cronyist culture, "acting and being part of the wolves" is
the most important thing.

Not only will qualified people not get a chance, but many sectors end up
collapsing or getting stuck. For example, for a decent "banker", it wouldnt be
hard to predict events in 07-09.

~~~
lordnacho
This is exactly right. Corporations are pyramids, where each rung feeds the
higher rung. Consequently, there are plenty of people with the right
experience for each promotion. Who gets that promotion? Well, since it
generally doesn't matter, it's decided politically.

------
samstave
I was once let go from a company for "just not being a good fit" after landing
them a successful contract with bigTechCo here in the bay area and earning
them over $1mm in services.

Further, they had showed me that my bonus was going to be over $27K one three
separate occasions, then they let me go before having to pay me the bonus
because I had to be actually employed there to receive my share of the money
earned from me doing 100% of the work.

People should not be able to be fired for "not being a good fit" they should
have concrete documented issues on which to fire someone.

------
kaitai
This sentence:

"Crucially, though, for these gatekeepers, fit was not about a match with
organizational values. It was about personal fit."

For all of you defending hiring on fit, which fit are you thinking about?

------
earljwagner
I think of my work in terms of seeing unexplored areas to go with software
(e.g. support self-insight or personal growth). I prefer to work with people
having a similar perspective and aesthetic sensibility. A lot of the examples
in this article seemed absurd to me - fit or misfit because of your preferred
sports teams?

As a Myers-Briggs "intuitive", maybe I "fit" with people having a similar
outlook and values, while "sensory" folks fit with people who've had similar
experiences and hobbies. I wonder if similarities in this dimension dominates
the other MBTI dimensions in accounting for fit (e.g.
introversion/extroversion, thinking/feeling, perceiving/judging).

Any research on this? Seems like a worthwhile question.

~~~
EliRivers
When interviewing, one of things I deliberately look for is people who are
_not_ like the current team. People who are _not_ a "cultural fit", whatever
that even means.

I need people with different ideas, different experience; people who will
approach the problems in a different way, fill in the blind spots and
vulnerabilities the current team has.

There's a trade-off to be made, sure, but professional adults can work
together with people that are not the same as them, and a team composed of
people who think differently and have different approaches and different
experience is far more advantageous than a team of people who all think and
work in the same way.

~~~
earljwagner
What dimensions of difference do you look for?

~~~
EliRivers
Some examples off the top of my head:

Desktop applications experience vs. embedded software experience

(I say "vs"; I don't mean they're opposed, but that someone with a lot of
experience in one of those will think about things in a different way to
someone with experience in the other; it's a spectrum along such a dimension).

Pure software experience vs. designer/seller of hardware+software

Computer Science degree vs. other technical degree (Maths, Physics,
Engineering)

Technical degree vs. arts degree

Degree vs. on-the-job/self-taught

Experience in big megacorps vs. experience in small companies

Experience in established companies vs. experience in new businesses or
startups

Experienced vs. inexperienced (this one is more broadly "life " experience,
and it could roughly translate to older vs. younger, but it's not quite that
simple)

Consumer apps experience vs. business-to-business

Mobile devices experience vs. supercomputer number-crunching

And so on. More, I expect.

So, for example, if I had a team of Computer Science graduates, I might wonder
if they're all thinking about problems through the lens of their classes on
algorithms and data-structures and so forth, and maybe a mathematician would
think about these same problems in a different way.

If I had a team with a lot of people from global defence industry megacorps
used to spending a decade on a project and ensuring that all reqts are solid
up front, I might think that someone from a startup might bring a different
approach to the software life-cycle (and, of course, vice-versa).

Adding another person to a team who thinks the same just gives me more of the
same. If I want to make fewer mistakes and have more novel ideas, I need to
fill in gaps. Not every gap, and there's always a balance, but a professional
adult can work effectively with people who are not the same as them. I'm not
hiring in the hopes of creating a group of people who really like each other.

------
lexcorvus
The obvious solution is complete freedom of association. (To the extent that
"fit" doesn't help companies succeed, it is its own punishment.) But this
would make for a short article. It would also make for simple laws, and would
prevent busybodies from making other company's hiring practices their
business. But we couldn't have that—not in the Land of the Free.

------
voidz
I don't fit in! Then again, I am a genuine feminist, which to me means I am
happy to let the missus (who does fit in) focus on her career, which she
prefers anyway, while I, as a dad, stay at home and parent the kid(s).
Feminism, f* yeah!

All I can do now is wait until they're old enough to learn a thing or two
about computers if they are so inclined...

------
DevPad
How about remote teams?

At previous startup we had guys from: Germany, Russia, US, Romania, Brasil,
Ukraine, Philippines.

Our "cultural fit" was just about: Be a Hacker (innovative, open-minded).

~~~
raindev
"Guys" is an exclusive label.

~~~
chapium
It all depends on context. "I'm going to go hang out with the guys." yes,
exclusive. "Hey guys, I'm going to work." not exclusive. Try focusing on the
meaning being conveyed and not the glyphs representing it.

~~~
raindev
I don't think the issue is as simple as that. Here is more on the topic:
[https://subfictional.com/2012/07/02/language-matters-stop-
us...](https://subfictional.com/2012/07/02/language-matters-stop-using-guys-
to-address-mix-gender-groups/)

~~~
ta92929
The strangest part of that article is this:

    
    
      I understand how ingrained the “guys” habit might be for 
      some of you. It was for me. After several months of 
      concerted, conscious effort, I still slip and say it on oc-
      casion.
    

So even the author herself used the word with completely gender neutral
intent, but then she insists that others can't. It's like she's looking for
reasons to be offended.

~~~
grkvlt
Not really. She is _conciously_ trying _not_ to use it, and admits to
accidentally slipping up when she reverts to unconciously choosing biased
terms. She seems to want others to do the same thing, and think about the
words they are using, and their potential impact, which is a Good Thing
generally.

------
thenerdfiles
I'm often hired exactly because I do not "fit" within the culture, but because
I am apparently African American, it becomes important to trial a litmus test.

I think "culture fit" is generally opportunity for both sides to determine if
their brands of humor are compatible.

If you cannot laugh with your coworkers, why work there?

A large part of the "human-centric" modality of web design, for instance,
involves writing less code and solving human needs. If you do not have
hobbies, etc., why participate in what is inherently a social activity? You
are writing code for humans, and humans are likely those wherein you will
craft and discover solutions.

------
curiously
so if you don't fit, what options are available to you?

~~~
mhurron
Find a company that doesn't work to exclude you? I wouldn't say I fit
anywhere, but I'm not unemployed.

I also don't remember questions about anything outside of work during the
interview either.

