Amazon stands out among the tech giants with the most distinctive behavioral values (LPs*). They are used for both recruiting, decision making and career advancements. Amazon provides a strong counter example to the thesis of this article.
What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
71–80 of 233 posts
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and regurgitation is what tech interviews these days optimize for in selecting candidates. Regurgitation is not simply repeating the technical components verbatim, by the way. It includes rote rehearsal of a believable way to present (i.e. fake) working it out from scratch.
Hell, if an interviewee understands enough to be able to convincingly fake working things out, they're already way ahead of a lot of other candidates. I've seen people faking such things badly. In general, they can spout off about the "happy path," but they can't tell you how the implementation can go wrong and what to do about it. When I was a grad student TA, I told people not to cheat. If you don't know enough to…
I think you might be underestimating how big the "interview prep" industry is or how it works. The people "faking" it in this way likely actually know much less than someone who honestly struggles to come up with a poorly performing brute force solution and they practice the soft skills necessary to prevent the interview from ever getting to the point where you're asking questions about where the implementation can go wrong that aren't also on their script.
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#73I'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 think someone can be toxic and tank morale and productivity for an entire team without being an asshole. E.g. a distrust of upper management bordering on paranoia.
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#74Earlier 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.
Maybe, but cultures are relative. If a small subset of the population, 'assholes' prefer to work in an environment with other 'assholes' is it a bad thing that some companies nurture an 'asshole' culture? Provided nothing crosses the bounds of a federally protected class ofc.
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#75Earlier 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 is sincerely not hyperbole. My company has 12 principal engineers including me, and in the meeting where we discuss interviewing and hiring, the anecdote I described above is literally the standard of discourse.
I can’t be certain that the same would have applied to all senior engineers in other companies where I previously worked. But I did interact with dozens of other senior engineers over the years and it’s a remarkably constant phenomenon.
It’s not surprising either. We all like to tell ourselves stories about how we embody the best ideals that a broader community espouses, even when the reality of our day to day behavior is different.
That is why I chose the term myopia. I think it’s a symptom of the tech world wishing to be associated with generally progressive human values, but that where the rubber meets the road, the implied values of tech orgs are no better or no more exemplary of positive human values than any other field of business.
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#76Earlier 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".
>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…
I’m glad at least someone can use specific examples. These are the kinds of reasons that come to mind when explaining what a “cultural fit” rejection is about. It’s not that the candidate is an asshole or toxic. It’s that he’s not enough like the interviewers.
I once had in interviewer ask me what I thought about going to football games as team building events (this was not a job that had anything to do with sports). I knew where that job opportunity was going...
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#77"I don't want to spend 8 hours a day with this person" is a perfectly good reason not to hire someone.
Yes. On the other hand, "I don't want to hang with this person after work" or "we choose different ways to relax" are extremely poor reasons.
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "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" Either that or "I don't want us to hire them, but I can't say why because it would be against the law." "Culture fit" has mostly become a loophole for anti-discrimination laws.
"Culture fit" has mostly become a loophole for anti-discrimination laws. Is this just gut feel, or based on actual data? Because it sounds contrary to the survey results described in the article.
I mean, no one is going to come right out and say, "We don't hire the Irish" in such a survey.
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#79I'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".
In my experience, it seems to be 'is this person cool or not, given what I think is cool?' or 'does he have the same political inclinations as I do?'
WeWork has banned meat from their meals - you can't even submit an invoice for a meal containing meat. This is not so obvious discrimination for the 'type of person' they want at the company; 'Veganism' is pretty strongly correlated with a bunch of values, including political.
'Cultural fit' is a very slippery slope and though I guess WeWork has the right to make such assertions ... I think it's unfair and wrong. I could easily live with that kind of rule, but I just wouldn't want to work for a company that had such a rule.
Re: What Companies Mean by Culture Fit
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hell, if an interviewee understands enough to be able to convincingly fake working things out, they're already way ahead of a lot of other candidates. I've seen people faking such things badly. In general, they can spout off about the "happy path," but they can't tell you how the implementation can go wrong and what to do about it. When I was a grad student TA, I told people not to cheat. If you don't know enough to…
I think you might be underestimating how big the "interview prep" industry is or how it works. The people "faking" it in this way likely actually know much less than someone who honestly struggles to come up with a poorly performing brute force solution and they practice the soft skills necessary to prevent the interview from ever getting to the point where you're asking questions about where the implementation can g…
The people "faking" it in this way likely actually know much less than someone who honestly struggles to come up with a poorly performing brute force solution
My office scores the people with the brute force solution higher than the others, so long as they know the time/space complexity.
they practice the soft skills necessary to prevent the interview from ever getting to the point where you're asking questions about where the implementation can go wrong that aren't also on their script
Oh yeah. That sounds familiar. Not getting to the part where they can answer questions about where the implementation can go wrong counts against them.