Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/opinion/sunday/guess-who-doesnt-fit-in-at-work.html

by clebio • 11 years ago

122 131 11 years ago

nytimes.com

DevPad2• 11 years ago

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).

nileshtrivedi• 11 years ago

And be able to communicate well in a shared language - most likely English.

harperlee• 11 years ago

Good point. Not knowing english well enough is a good technical barrier. I've been working on a project in english for the past two months, and although I speak and write sufficiently good and fluently, I still see a huge distance in front of me. I can't think, express and discuss so easily. It's like I've slept badly for some days. It's frustratingly. And it takes time to overcome, so any test period that you have with a candidate won't be enough for that to be overcome (not that I propose hiring people for a couple of years to see whether their english levels improve, mind you)

EliRivers8• 11 years ago

Our "cultural fit" was just about: Be a Hacker.

Why did you put "cultural fit" in quotes? Your criterion is just as poorly defined as everyone else's "cultural fit" criteria and, just like theirs, acts as a way to simply exclude people because they're not like you.

savanaly• 11 years ago

I believe using quotes like he did is shorthand to indicate that you think the term is illegitimate and a bit silly, so you may be in agreement with him.

lordnacho5• 11 years ago

"Be a hacker" is not cultural though. It's skill.

He's saying they are just using skill as a criterion.

raindev3• 11 years ago

"Guys" is an exclusive label.

setitimer• 11 years ago

Triggered!

chapium• 11 years ago

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.

s_kilk• 11 years ago

Usually, but it depends on cultural context.

For example, where I'm from (West Ireland), the term "Lads" is often used for everyone regardless of gender. One might hear a lady say she's "Going out with the lads" when describing a night out, with even a mostly female group of companions.

Basically, we should try to not use language which excludes others, but in some cases the person is actually using gender-neutral language from their culture and does not intend to exclude anyone.

voidz• 11 years ago

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...

earljwagner2• 11 years ago

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.

EliRivers8• 11 years ago

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.

earljwagner2• 11 years ago

What dimensions of difference do you look for?

dataker• 11 years ago

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.

lordnacho5• 11 years ago

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.

lordnacho5• 11 years ago

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.

scrrr• 11 years ago

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

ak395• 11 years ago

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?

andrewchoi3• 11 years ago

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.

BurningFrog• 11 years ago

You send the kids to Stanford so their ares will be the ones licked by syciphants.

paragpatelone2• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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?

ak395• 11 years ago

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.

paragpatelone2• 11 years ago

The competitor that his hiring the best people in terms of skills and values (values that aligned with the companies core values); given everything else is equal will be much better off.

defen• 11 years ago

I agree with the point being made, but that story sounds made up. It ticks all the boxes, in a way that real-life stories rarely do.

mgkimsal• 11 years ago

" it can impart personal bias that are not at all beneficial to the company."

Beyond lip service, most people are more concerned with their own dept or team vs the entire company.

arenaninja2• 11 years ago

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.

mreiland• 11 years ago

Yep, I've always believes that there are times when you find yourself in a place you shouldn't be in. It isn't their fault and it isn't your fault, just different people who don't mesh and it's best to admit to it and walk away.

The cultural fit thing can be important in that a negative nancy can seriously cause problems in a group, to the point of people leaving due to getting such a negative view of management/business over time from the constant negativity.

It's a hard thing because there are definitely people you don't want to hire due to 'fit', but it's so hard to get it even fairly right.

jrs2354• 11 years ago

a negative nancy can seriously cause problems in a group

I consider a negative Nate an attitude issue not a cultural fit issue. If I picked up on a negative attitude during ht interview, the candidate probably won't be offered the position.

ovi256• 11 years ago

Talking about a hobby as if you still do it, in order to get the job and provide for your family, is not a lie anyone sane would say matters. Next time, don't sweat it.

skrebbel• 11 years ago

Seriously? You'd take a job that requires that you lie about your personal life?

arenaninja2• 11 years ago

Thanks. I'm aware it's always an option, but I've been lucky so far to never be in a position where I need that job.

The greater implication of my post, IMO, is that as I age I'm more experienced but less attractive to some employers solely based on my age. I already look about five years older than I am, so perhaps my career will be much more short-lived than I anticipate and I will have no say in it. That actually terrifies me.

spacemanmatt3• 11 years ago

Sure, we all know how to get the job. That doesn't make the expectation or the question less specious.

WalterSear3• 11 years ago

I guess I'm insane, then.

jrs2354• 11 years ago

Here's a comment from an Ask HN I started pertaining to hiring: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760639

I think it addresses the issue of not getting an offer because the existing team doesn't connect on as private/personal level.

SixSigma• 11 years ago

until we discovered the changes he had made to how things were stored in the database without considering the full implications.

sounds like he found the faults in your infrastructure, you should be thanking him

xaybey2• 11 years ago

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.

waterlesscloud• 11 years ago

"Hopefully you follow it up with some personal detail that distinguishes you from a robot."

He mentioned having a family. That pretty much means he's not a robot.

informatimago• 11 years ago

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.

rayiner3• 11 years ago

I hate the hobbies question in interviews. I work 60 hours a week and have a toddler. My hobby is sleeping. What the hell else else do you want from me?

spacemanmatt3• 11 years ago

I have a life that I put down hobbies for. It would be unfair to call my kids, my love life, social events with friends, and keeping up with my necessary life (bills, laundry, groceries, etc.) hobbies. But that's all I have time for, after I hold down a regular job. It's just plain ignorant for younger teams to expect a rockstar in AND out of the office.

kaa2102• 11 years ago

I was interviewing Java developers for Booz Allen when I rant into a candidate that was super-smart but had no hobbies except for coding in his spare time.

I thought it was a negative because the hiring managers and recruiters were pressing for a well-rounded person with "hobbies" and interests outside of work. However, the team lead for Java developers considered the super-focus on coding a plus.

In retrospect, all of these different factors were just subjective and not a good way to evaluate candidates potential effectiveness on the job.

IvyMike2• 11 years ago

It's tough on an interview to get a feel for how a person is in day-to-day conversation. So the interviewers are looking for areas of common interest to talk about. If they are young, they may have a limited repertoire of topics that usually work; if you shut down all of their ideas for conversation, I hope you at least tried to come up with some topics of your own. Otherwise, you won't have a conversation, and they won't get a feel for you, and that's a bad thing.

I don't know if you've ever actually said "I don't have hobbies" in an interview, but that could likely come off as negative. Your hobbies are your kids, or your house, or reading, or cooking, or watching TV, or whatever you do with your time at home. And all of those are at least something that might start a conversation, which is the whole point. Hell, even saying "I used to play PC games, here are the classics I liked" could be a conversation starter.

reagency• 11 years ago

Thank you for illustrating what is wrong with "culture fit". There is no need to require candidates to be buds with the team. " maturity" "Professionalism" used to be a virtue that adults aspired to, until young adults decided to hack the system and turn the "Good ol' boys" club into a "good youn' boys" club.

rayiner3• 11 years ago

Kids and house aren't hobbies. They're responsibilities.

Animats• 11 years ago

If beer is an interview subject, the "brogrammer" culture has gotten out of hand. Now what, the three-martini lunch of the 1950s? (See "Mad Men".) No wonder we see so much crap code.

jarjoura• 11 years ago

Not to sound insulting, though this might be, but without knowing more details I'm going to assume you're failing at the soft interview questions. In an industry where creativity is just as important as engineering knowledge, it's absolutely critical that you nail your soft interview questions.

Don't be afraid or insulted by them, OWN them. Spend time this weekend thinking about what exactly your hobbies are. You definitely have them, even if it's spending time cleaning up baby mess. Think about things that bring a smile to your face and can project to others what your passions are in life.

Never lie and it bothers me that some replies below mention that as an option. However, do MARKET yourself.

The reason these interviewers are mentioning craft-beer to you is because they're trying to get inside your head and see what makes you tick. Beer is an easy way in SF to connect with a lot of people. So yea, no one cares you don't like beer, and I know plenty of people don't drink at all. I promise that that's not why you're not getting an offer. :)

MDCore• 11 years ago

I would disagree that they are soft questions and just say that they're just bad and useless questions. The expectation tends to be that the candidate takes whatever is thrown at them, and in practice it does make a little sense: once you're in the interview, you're in the interview. But here, commenting on a forum, I'd rather push back and ask interviewers to stop asking questions that don't achieve anything useful, and won't achieve the insights they might imagine.

So instead of soft questions asking about hobbies, and excluding all the many examples of people families, why not talk about interesting on-the-job experiences? As one example. Interviewing well is a tough gig, but that's no excuse for continuing to do it poorly.

simonebrunozzi• 11 years ago

I would immediately hire you - just based on what I read. Seriously. I hate stereotypes, and not allowing people to differ from the average. I also don't drink alcohol, and I don't watch TV or sports. Every time someone says something cryptic I assume it's baseball-related, and I'm right about 40% of the time.

Jasper_• 11 years ago

Well, you're just doing the same exact thing. Instead of hiring someone who might watch a bit of baseball or grab a beer every once in a while, you'd prefer to hire someone just like you. That's still not good.

curiously• 11 years ago

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

mhurron• 11 years ago

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.

kaitai2• 11 years ago

Utah, apparently.

https://medium.com/culture-club/a-black-man-walks-into-silic...

dvirsky2• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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.

dvirsky2• 11 years ago

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.

kator2• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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• 11 years ago

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

jrs2354• 11 years ago

I would love to get your input on this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9760203

kator2• 11 years ago

Interview them all and get as many people on your team as possible to talk to them.

At the end of the day the most important decision a company can make is about hiring.

The second is about firing.

Do the math, which one has a better ROI?

kaitai2• 11 years ago

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?

hagmonk• 11 years ago

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?

joesmo5• 11 years ago

"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.

MarcusVorenus3• 11 years ago

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.

joesmo5• 11 years ago

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.

WalterSear3• 11 years ago

Funny. It's the main thing I look for when I'm interveiwing companies that I'm looking to work for.

joesmo5• 11 years ago

Nothing wrong with that. When you're interviewing, you can use any criteria you like because you're not denying people (except yourself, which is your right) jobs they're qualified for based on random, often discriminatory information.

samstave• 11 years ago

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.

tsmith• 11 years ago

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).

Joky• 11 years ago

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!

thenerdfiles• 11 years ago

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.

lexcorvus• 11 years ago

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.

Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

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