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A subculture that requires you to have a specific skill...
Any skill. There are bio-hackers. Lock-hackers. Engine-hackers. Clothing-hackers. On and on and on. The skill has become irrelevant. Just any skill. Attitude and style is now what makes it "hacker".
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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.
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.
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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.
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...
so if you don't fit, what options are available to you?
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 eyebro…
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.
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.
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
"Be a hacker" is not cultural though. It's skill. He's saying they are just using skill as a criterion.
"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?
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).
"Guys" is an exclusive label.
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.