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What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

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Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#51

Post by lovich »

stcredzero wrote: post #38
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s still hard to know what this means. For example, all the senior engineers I currently work with are great at telling a story about how they look to hire based on talent, self-awareness, critical thinking, and many soft skills, and that the technical particulars are only incidental guideposts. Then they proceed to ask candidates to derive a card shuffling algorithm on a whiteboard in 30 minutes and fail them from…

Then they proceed to ask candidates to derive a card shuffling algorithm on a whiteboard in 30 minutes and fail them from the interview if the running time complexity would be too high or if they can’t mathematically prove the result would be a uniform draw from the space of permutations of the cards. For a company that runs an online game server, let's say, this really isn't that high a bar. I know off the top of my…

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch.

Unless you have a super targeted problem space that interviewing employees know about, then you are doing about as well as drawing a random problem from a hat.

Most developers I know just brush on as many algorithms as they can remember when they are going to interview for a new job. Then they just go through interviews until they find a company that manages to pick an algorithm out of the ones they memorized. This is a giant waste of effort to create a system that is effectively a lottery if you can get past the, admittedly large, bump of being able to understand any comp sci algorithms

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#52

Post by BadassFractal »

uhhhhhhh wrote: post #29

In my experience, "Culture fit" has always been the cover for "toxic" workplaces where sexism, bullying and worse run rampant. If everyone acts professional then chances are you'll figure out how to work together. If you're unable to act professional then chances are the new hire isn't the problem, you are.

The candidate can also be toxic and unprofessional, this is a two-way street. What if the company doesn't want to bring "sexism, bullying and worse" into the group?

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#53

Post by anon743987 »

tvanantwerp wrote: post #14
elvinyung wrote: post #2

I was at a talk by Emily Chang about her new book Brotopia , and she raised a really good question: why frame it in terms of culture fit , as if culture is something pristine to be preserved? Why not think of it as culture addition , that is, in terms of trying to assess how much one can bring to the table?

If a person can add to a culture, then a person could also subtract from a culture. Getting the wrong people on the bus can be very damaging to a company. This is not to say that companies always do a good job at selecting people for addition rather than subtraction. Any place that could be deemed a "brotopia" is likely bad at building positive culture--I know I wouldn't want to work there. But still, different peopl…

I moved from "brotopia" to "non-brotopia" and I felt that it was a step down culturally.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#54

Post by grandmczeb »

kgilpin wrote: post #37

I'm in agreement with other commenters here that "culture fit" usually feels like a euphemism for something else. I think what it's really about is explained here in the article: "A single toxic employee who is a bad fit for the existing culture can tank the morale and productivity of an entire team. " So, is there really more to "culture fit" than the No Asshole Rule (1)? If not, can we start calling it what it is:…

Having been a mediator for many peer/co-worker conflicts, I've come to believe that "true" assholes (in the sense of someone who is fundamentally mean and entitled) are way more rare than people admit. On the other hand, it's not rare at all that a person can be considered an asshole by one group but work well in another. A large part of culture fit is about minimizing these personality conflicts.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#55

Post by dbt00 »

I found the Uber comments interesting. As someone on the other side of the table from Uber recruiting, I always figured a huge part of their hiring problem is that it was obvious from the early stages that Uber was run by and populated by a huge percentage of assholes, and people who had the sensitivity to understand that and the desire and choices available to avoid doing so would. Thus, the asshole primacy was maintained.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#57

Post by stcredzero »

lovich wrote: post #51
stcredzero wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then they proceed to ask candidates to derive a card shuffling algorithm on a whiteboard in 30 minutes and fail them from the interview if the running time complexity would be too high or if they can’t mathematically prove the result would be a uniform draw from the space of permutations of the cards. For a company that runs an online game server, let's say, this really isn't that high a bar. I know off the top of my…

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch. Unless you have a super targeted problem space that interviewing employees know about, then you are doing about as well as drawing a rand…

The problem space for computer science algorithms is gigantic and many of these companies testing for this knowledge then immediately throw new engineers onto line of business CRUD apps and bug fixes, which rarely have the engineer implementing any of these algorithms from scratch.

A programmer worth his salt should retain enough 1st principles knowledge to not create a O(n^3) bottleneck in production or otherwise stay out of trouble.

Unless you have a super targeted problem space that interviewing employees know about

Often the specific skills are mentioned up front. It doesn't have to be that targeted, either.

Most developers I know just brush on as many algorithms as they can remember when they are going to interview for a new job. Then they just go through interviews until they find a company that manages to pick an algorithm out of the ones they memorized.

This speaks more to bad interviewing. It certainly does not mean that such knowledge being worthless and arbitrary. What you want in a candidate, generally speaking, is someone who can actually apply knowledge. What you are describing above is just regurgitation.

http://v.cx/2010/04/feynman-brazil-education

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#58

Post by atomi »

bjornlouser wrote: post #56

Good culture fit is when we ask an employee to do something and they do it. A bad fit is someone who occasionally says no. A toxic employee occasionally says no and explains why they won't.

I've always thought being meek and obedient was part and parcel of working for someone else.

But I think being a good culture fit is a bit more than that.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#59

Post by seppin »

harryh wrote: post #32
theorique wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, culture fit is exactly that - a nice way of saying that the candidate was "a huge asshole or complete weirdo." It's shorthand for "I think they could probably do the work, but I don't think that I/we could actually stand working with this particular candidate".

Ya. Are you a sports loving bro? I don't care. Are you an arty hipster? I don't care. Are you a birkenstock wearing vegan nature lover? I don't care. Do you yell at people when you get upset over minor disagreements? Well that's gonna be a problem....

Well you covered every possible person one can meet in SF..

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#60

Post by watwut »

grandmczeb wrote: post #54
kgilpin wrote: post #37

I'm in agreement with other commenters here that "culture fit" usually feels like a euphemism for something else. I think what it's really about is explained here in the article: "A single toxic employee who is a bad fit for the existing culture can tank the morale and productivity of an entire team. " So, is there really more to "culture fit" than the No Asshole Rule (1)? If not, can we start calling it what it is:…

Having been a mediator for many peer/co-worker conflicts, I've come to believe that "true" assholes (in the sense of someone who is fundamentally mean and entitled) are way more rare than people admit. On the other hand, it's not rare at all that a person can be considered an asshole by one group but work well in another. A large part of culture fit is about minimizing these personality conflicts.

If too many people are in conflict with existing culture, then maybe the culture itself is a problem.
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