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Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

nytimes.com

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Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#91

Post by hagmonk »

I wholeheartedly agree with the need to make cultural fit bigger than just "happy hour" fit, but primarily on moral grounds. I haven't seen strong data to make a technical case here.

Do we observe discrepancies between company performance that are correlated with diversity? They say this is observable at the team level in controlled studies, but at the macro level do we see it?

Put another way, if diversity was a strong influence on success, why do elite institutions in banking and tech not appear to exhibit much of it?

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#92

Post by ak39 »

IshKebab wrote: post #83
skrebbel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You'd take a job that requires that you lie about your personal life?

No job requires you to lie about your personal life, but if they're willing to give you credit for a lie that doesn't matter at all - why the hell not? Although having said that, judging you so much on your "fit" is a pretty big red flag.

It may not matter to them at all, but shouldn't it matter to you?

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#93

Post by notNow »

mc32 wrote: post #66
notNow wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I ask what's your objection to drinking beer? The reason I ask because some people abstain for religious reasons and I seriously don't relish the company of fundie folks around me because from experience over time they won't settle for exercising just their own rights but till they impose or restrict other people's rights or make them at least feel very uncomfortable in the workplace.

Some people have alcohol allergies, wheat allergies, some people don't enjoy the taste and some don't drink for health reasons. There are probably other reasons too, including some religious. But don't underestimate people's odd personality showing thru after drinking. Never the less, I can't fathom drinking being the necessary glue to keep a team cohesive.

Drinking beer should not be the glue to any team. It is not about drinking alcohol either. It's about smoking out unfit candidates when it is inexpensive to do so and religious fanatics/fundies come at the very top of the list.

The skills and expertise of a candidate have to be pretty convincing for me to overlook the fundamentalism part and the troubles that they might bring onboard.

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#94

Post by notNow »

skrebbel wrote: post #52
ovi256 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about a hobby as if you still do it, in order to get the job and provide for your family, is not a lie anyone sane would say matters. Next time, don't sweat it.

Seriously? You'd take a job that requires that you lie about your personal life?

With this stance, you and the OP are uncompromising on this issue which can be viewed as good or bad depending on context but I think in this case it's very unfavorable.

Everyone has hobbies just take the time to think about it and you will come up with something better than "none" which is not really exciting to hear and might send the wrong signal to the recruiter that you are not interested enough in the opening position.

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#95

Post by joesmo »

"Cultural fit" is just another form of discrimination, a currently legal alternative to racism, sexism, and other forms of illegal discrimination in the US to keep the "unliked" and "unwanted" out of jobs. The author acknowledges this, yet still sees fit to add advice for using cultural fit; that weakens the article a bit, but not much.

The reality is "cultural fit" should never be used to make decisions. It is never right, either as a predictor of performance or ethically. Companies and interviewers already have an incredibly difficult time figuring out ways in which to judge qualifications, even when standard tests and procedures are available. To add in this nonsensical idea of "cultural fit," something that can't be measured, quantified, qualified, or identified, and to make that a selection criteria for applicants not only shirks the duty to hire the most qualified, but gives the company and interviewers an unchallengeable way to reject applicants, an option that otherwise would--and should--be illegal.

tldr: Cultural fit is discrimination, it cannot predict job performance or any otherwise meaningful information related to a candidate's skills and abilities, and should be illegal as its only use is to deny qualified applicants jobs they qualify for.

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#96

Post by rayiner »

xaybey wrote: post #71
arenaninja wrote: post #24

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…

I understand not drinking and not playing video games, but saying that you have no hobbies would be pretty weird in an interview. They're just trying to get to know you. Hopefully you follow it up with some personal detail that distinguishes you from a robot.

I hate the hobbies question in interviews. I work 60 hours a week and have a toddler. My hobby is sleeping. What the hell else else do you want from me?

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#97

Post by reagency »

IvyMike wrote: post #77
arenaninja wrote: post #24

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…

It's tough on an interview to get a feel for how a person is in day-to-day conversation. So the interviewers are looking for areas of common interest to talk about. If they are young, they may have a limited repertoire of topics that usually work; if you shut down all of their ideas for conversation, I hope you at least tried to come up with some topics of your own. Otherwise, you won't have a conversation, and they…

Thank you for illustrating what is wrong with "culture fit". There is no need to require candidates to be buds with the team. " maturity" "Professionalism" used to be a virtue that adults aspired to, until young adults decided to hack the system and turn the "Good ol' boys" club into a "good youn' boys" club.

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#98

Post by samstave »

I was once let go from a company for "just not being a good fit" after landing them a successful contract with bigTechCo here in the bay area and earning them over $1mm in services.

Further, they had showed me that my bonus was going to be over $27K one three separate occasions, then they let me go before having to pay me the bonus because I had to be actually employed there to receive my share of the money earned from me doing 100% of the work.

People should not be able to be fired for "not being a good fit" they should have concrete documented issues on which to fire someone.

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#99

Post by joesmo »

notNow wrote: post #58
arenaninja wrote: post #24

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…

May I ask what's your objection to drinking beer? The reason I ask because some people abstain for religious reasons and I seriously don't relish the company of fundie folks around me because from experience over time they won't settle for exercising just their own rights but till they impose or restrict other people's rights or make them at least feel very uncomfortable in the workplace.

I've never experienced that from people that don't drink--whatever their reason--but even if I did, I'd prefer it to working with alcoholics and companies that encourage alcoholism. Out of more than a dozen or so places in SF and Silicon Valley I've worked, every single one had booze on premises except for one. One company even had booze on premises despite its parent company explicitly forbidding it (they were fully owned at the time). This bias against people who don't drink is quite great and has even led me and others to have a drink from time to time just to fit in or try to land a job. It's stupidity like this that could be avoided if "cultural fit," "attitude," and other bullshit, unquantifiable, unrelated to job performance reasons of judgement were made illegal like blatant discrimination already is.

Re: Guess Who Doesn’t Fit in at Work

#100

Post by throwaway118376 »

notNow wrote: post #93
mc32 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people have alcohol allergies, wheat allergies, some people don't enjoy the taste and some don't drink for health reasons. There are probably other reasons too, including some religious. But don't underestimate people's odd personality showing thru after drinking. Never the less, I can't fathom drinking being the necessary glue to keep a team cohesive.

Drinking beer should not be the glue to any team. It is not about drinking alcohol either. It's about smoking out unfit candidates when it is inexpensive to do so and religious fanatics/fundies come at the very top of the list. The skills and expertise of a candidate have to be pretty convincing for me to overlook the fundamentalism part and the troubles that they might bring onboard.

> it's about smoking out unfit candidates [ ... ]

> The skills and expertise of a candidate have to be pretty convincing for me to overlook the fundamentalism part and the troubles that they might bring onboard.

You're aware that discriminating based on religion is illegal, right? Not just "oh, that's not very nice, let's not do that" or "hey, it would be cool to build a world with more tolerance for X", but literally, "the law of the United States prohibits us from discriminating against a person due to this". (And if you're in another country, substitute your country, and the law is likely similar.)

For the record, I'm not religious at all. I'm a pretty reasonable guy in general and I subscribe to rational thought and give folks the benefit of the doubt where I can.

But I'm going to take a hard line here. You're doing something that's really fucked up, and you show a basic lack of respect for other human beings by insisting they fall in line with your way of thought (alcohol and religion both, in this case, but your comment history makes me even sadder), and you show a basic lack of respect for the way we have set up society to let people live their lives the way they want.

If you're ever involved in a hiring decision, please go kindly fuck yourself.

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