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What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

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Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#81

Post by fipple »

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:…

Hehe... maybe the Uber parallel is they were afraid to hire a non asshole due to fear of diluting their asshole culture.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#82

Post by hueving »

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:…

Asshole is mainly just a word for someone who doesn't fit your culture though. Being direct is seen as being an asshole in some cultures and being indirect is seen as being an asshole in others.

Despite the vagueness of it, "culture fit" is making sure that you won't be considered an asshole by the existing team.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#83

Post by mlthoughts2018 »

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…

Even a seasoned expert who literally writes card shuffling software would have a difficult time writing a well-explained solution on a whiteboard in 30 minutes.

Most candidates we interview have a combination of CS degrees, statistics degrees or experience, and are prepped ahead of time with some materials about the general type of question we might ask, and around 90% of them are rejected for failing to solve this question. Around 50% are given extremely poor ratings, like not even getting any type of coherent solution, even inefficient and not handling corner cases.

This is what I mean about myopia.

30 minutes is barely enough time for anyone to sketch a solution to any algorithmic problem, even if they are experienced and fully comfortable with the question’s subject matter.

This process just filters out candidates who are perfectly capable of solving the problem as a form of severe risk aversion against possibly hiring someone who lacks sufficient technical skills.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#84

Post by acheron »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #12

> A company is its employees. This is a bit nit-picky, but I find it distracting when an article leads with a statement that strikes me as grossly inaccurate. Because if the rest of the article hinges on the accuracy of that opening statement, I'm likely to regret having spent time reading the article. Clarification: The reason I'm skeptical of that particular opening statement is AFAIK U.S. corporations can have ass…

"I've been saying for years that employees are our most valuable asset. It turns out that I was wrong. Money is our most valuable asset. Employees are ninth."

-Dilbert's PHB

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#85

Post by hueving »

DoofusOfDeath wrote: post #35
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…

> For example, all the senior engineers I may be wrong, but it sounds like you're using hyperbole in two ways here: (a) you make a statement about all the senior engineers you know, and (b) that statement makes a rather extreme claim about how they evaluate candidates. I think using hyperbole is a mistake in this conversation because we're interested specifically in how common and how intense these phenomena are. (I…

It's definitely not hyperbole, that's literally how companies like Google hire. Do an algorithm dance and get rejected/accepted based on that.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#87

Post by grandmczeb »

watwut wrote: post #60
grandmczeb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What counts as "too many"? Different groups have different needs when it comes to cohesiveness. It's up to company leadership to balance that requirement with openness/ease of hiring/etc.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#88

Post by hueving »

stcredzero wrote: post #50
dsfyu404ed wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it's weeding out all the people who promptly forgot all the stuff they could just google because they didn't regularly use it in their last job.

If someone is going to be so prompt and complete at forgetting everything, then they may not have a tickling awareness that something might be up when the occasion to apply 1st principles knowledge does arise. Seriously, if the algorithmic complexity of a shuffling algorithm is going to be a challenge, why even have a degree!? If someone is so good with the forgetting that they can't even apply "n choose m," just wha…

>algorithmic complexity of a shuffling algorithm is going to be a challenge, why even have a degree!?

Because complexity analysis is a tiny part of a CS degree. A huge wing of our CS grad department focused on type theory and PL in general and could easily screw up a complexity analysis quiz like that because it's irrelevant to their day-to-day research/work.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#89

Post by some_account »

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:…

50 year old programmer in the middle of an open office with 25 year olds bouncing balls around, playing loud music - bad culture fit.

Foreign middle aged man who can't speak the language very good in an environment where native language is important - not a good culture fit.

Female 25 year old in a group of 50 year old men who mostly wants to relax at work and are a bit awkward around young women - bad culture fit.

Very outspoken social person who enjoys partying in the middle of senior bank personalities who are extremely detail oriented and introverted - bad culture fit.

Just saying there is a lot of bad culture fits. It can be age, gender, race, personality and even appearance. Bad culture fit is everywhere. It's just not something we talk about very openly because it's not socially accepted. So we hide it under other reasons.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#90

Post by rmason »

My experience about 'culture fit' was that it was a code word for ageism. Sometimes they'd be even more direct if I pushed back. This wasn't at the end of a 45 minute interview, it was in the first five minutes after I'd already passed the technical review. Might not be true in every instance, but I absolutely cringe when I hear that phrase.
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