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What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

triplebyte.com

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Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#41

Post by stupidcar »

ska wrote: post #5

In my experience "Candidate X isn't a good cultural fit" has almost always been used as short had for either "I don't want us to hire them, but I can't articulate why in way I am comfortable with" or less often "What an asshole". I don't think I've ever been part of a conversation about "cultural fit" that wasn't swimming in bullshit, or at least wading in it.

On a handful of occasions, I've said "yes" to hiring somebody, despite having a nagging doubt about them, because they seemed to have the requisite technical experience and interviewed OK, and I didn't feel I could justify saying "no" on the basis of an intuition.

In almost every case, they've ended up later either demonstrating some unprofessional behavior, like having an abusive temper, or been revealed to be incompetent in some aspect of the job. And yet, I still wouldn't feel comfortable turning somebody down purely based on a gut feeling. It's made me pretty uncomfortable about participating in hiring process at all.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#42

Post by dsfyu404ed »

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…

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.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#43

Post by WalterSear »

ammon wrote: post #4
tyingq wrote: post #3

Interesting topic, but... "Among the 300 companies I spoke to, only 20% told me they engaged in screening for specific traits beyond soft skills." Not convinced self disclosure is the best way to determine what they actually screen for.

The conversations involved me asking them to talk through the details of their interview process and decision-making. I think there were good incentives for companies be honest (given the context of us matching engineers with them). I did the classification into types of screening after, based on my notes.

I'm still unclear why you would think that people would openly discuss their prejudicial biases when discussing their interview processes and decision making.

The behaviour isn't socially desirable, has potentially serious consequences for disclosure ("The Triplebyte people won't work with us because I told them my interview process begins by throwing out all resumes with funny sounding names."), and assumes that the people involved are aware of their behaviour.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#44

Post by longerthoughts »

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?

Totally agree. However, I will say anecdotally as a people manager that great additions to a team tend to bring new ideas and perspectives while simultaneously having something (values, perspectives, etc.) that anchors them to the existing group. If somebody deviates too far from the existing team it tends to cross a threshold from productive disruption to toxic conflict.

I kind of think of this in the context of material properties and teams having their own stiffness and strength. The higher the strength, the harder it is for imposed forces (i.e. challenging new perspectives and personalities) to cause team failure. The higher the stiffness, the more resistant to changing form under imposed forces. I assume high strength is universally preferred, but stiffness is a little more complicated; a high stiffness team ensures consistency but is difficult to alter and improve upon, whereas low stiffness enhances your ability to reshape and broaden team culture but also leaves it more sensitive to changes.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#45

Post by txcwpalpha »

theorique wrote: post #26
harryh wrote: post #15

I'm pretty suspicious about most conversations about culture fit: I think they are more smoke than fire. Especially in technology, where it's a seller's market for labor I don't think a lot of companies are actually screening on this criterion. Do they think you are smart and can do the work? Then companies are going to want to hire you with the possible exception of if they think you are a huge asshole or complete w…

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".

>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".

Agreed, but in my experience, "don't think we could stand working with this candidate" is much more than talking about assholes/weirdos. It's also the catch-all for things like "our team likes to go out to bars and clubs all the time, and you don't seem like you enjoy going out", or "we tell raunchy jokes at work and you seem like you would be offended by it and make us stop", or even "you seem like you're on the opposite side of the political spectrum than we are so we think we wouldn't want to work with you".

Hell, I've even seen teams at a consulting company (and seen HR defend such teams) reject candidates for being vegetarian, because the team thinks that there wouldn't be "culture fit" since the team likes going out for burgers and steak every week.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#46

Post by longerthoughts »

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:…

I'm on board with "asshole rejection screening" in place of "culture fit". Of course the flip-side of this is when a team of assholes rejects a non-asshole because they deem them incompatible, so perhaps we need to use the more general "asshole screening" for the sake of inclusiveness.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#47

Post by ahartmetz »

nradov wrote: post #31
LanceH wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big classifier I've seen that gets put under "cultural fit" is the "it's not my job" problem. A startup can't have people saying that, but big enterprise companies live by it. Some people just can't transition from one to the other. I've found in interviews that some people expect to do exactly what their credentials have prepared them for. At least for the places I've worked, that's insufficient for programming an…

My first job involving any real technical work was as a PC repair technician in a small independent store. One day the owner told one of the other technicians to empty the garbage can because it was overflowing and everyone else was busy. The other tech refused and went on some bullshit rant about how he was a computer technician, not a garbageman. That made a real impression on me and since then I've tried to pitch…

> I've tried to pitch in and do whatever needs doing regardless of whether it's in my explicit job description or not.

IME this is also how you have the most fun at work, provided that the "extra" tasks you take on aren't particularly unpleasant.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#48

Post by kthejoker2 »

Outside of "exhibits basic social grace and custom", culture to me is:

* Diversity of thought and multidisciplinary approach to problem solving * How you view teams, how you would organize a team you were going to be part of, what makes a good team * How you handle failure, defeat, and disappointment * How you handle difficult people and situations * Your communication style, especially for bad news * How you convince others to change * Your view on work life balance * Your attitude towards management and leadership styles * Your appetite for risk and entrepreneurship * Your dispute resolution tactics

There may be others... In any case you can address most of these for senior hires with simple SBO questioning.

For juniors you're probably best off just focusing on communication skills, working in teams, and challenging situations or failures.

Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit

#50

Post by stcredzero »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #42
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…

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 what are people paying tens of thousands of dollars a year to learn in college?

The stuff you use all the time in your job is largely arbitrary trivia. However, the knowledge referred to in the example given above are first principles. So your standards fall below the level of being able to apply first principles? I can see why people would want to weed people like that out.

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