To think employers shouldn’t hire on cultural fit

[Matleave22]

In my opinion, hiring on cultural fit is a really fast way to only hire ‘people like you’.

Surely a range of people with diverse outlooks and differing world views will make for a better and more powerful team! I think this ‘hiring on culture’ ideology inhibits diversity and inclusion.

What do you think? AIBU?

Do you also work in tech?

I'm less about cultural fit but way more "would I want to work alongside this person".

I wish I was hired to fit into their culture I swear I don't

Who hires based on culture?

On the basis that it can also quickly translate it to racial discrimination it obviously shouldn't be done.
Unfortunately it is also frequently done.

Depends on the size of the organisation and team. Whilst what you describe is ideal, in reality small teams struggle to manage a really diverse range of behaviour and thinking.

Company I used to work for went on a spree of hiring "people not like us". Unfortunately it was a staid old "it's always been done this way" type of place, and the fashionable, new ideas type people they employed either left pretty quickly, or were squashed into the existing molds.
There can be a balance, but it is hard to achieve.

As a recruiter it a yes and no answer here.

No, we shouldn't be blinded by same schools, background, accents etc

Yes, we should take account of how someone would fit into a team. For example we interviewed a bloke once who, on paper, should have made it to final round. But he was a knob! He was so rude to me, and completely spoke down to me. I was obviously 'just the recruiter' to him. He was also arrogant and rude to the interviewers. He was interviewed by 2 of the nicest men I've ever met. Both thought he was an arrogant tosser. You can't hire someone like that into a business that relies on people being able to build relationships.

Depends what you mean.

When we recruited for our team it was important to us that the new person fit our team dynamic.

The most qualified person would not have been a good fit for our team. We hired a less experienced person who would fit our team behaviour/personality wise.

every team needs it's share of lazy workshy twats - true diversity
is that the kind of cultural fit you mean?

Do you mean company culture?

If so then it’s pretty important imho.

I think when people talk about cultural fit they mean the culture of the company or organisation, not the culture of the people that work there. While it should always be possible to challenge a company’s culture (for being sexist, aggressive, not hierarchical enough, too hierarchical etc), having one is not inherently a problem, indeed it helps people decide whether they want to work there or not and helps competitors differentiate themselves, but it is important that hirers don’t make assumptions about whether someone could fit into an organisation’s culture based upon preconceptions about their race, religion, sex etc. Companies also need to give thought to their culture and whether it is working both for the people that work there and for the health of the business. And, yes, it is also good practice to see whether parts of the company’s culture are putting off parts of the community for whatever reason and seeing if something can be done to address that so as not to lose a pool of talent.

Depends if you mean culture or values. Values are important to drive desired behaviours doesn't mean everyone is identikit.

Company culture - YABU

The persons culture (ie - their heritage) - YANBU

It’s the culture of the organisation.
Ie. Collaborative , innovative, hard working
Etc etc

Hiring witj those in mind don’t impact on the diversity of an organisation.

Depends what you mean by cultural fit, I think. If the culture is "we all know each other from the golf club" then of course YANBU. But if the culture is "we all care about our work and will do what needs doing to make this project go well even if it's not technically our job" then hiring someone who is rigidly process driven and uncomfortable trying new things is going to make everyone miserable. My team is the latter type, we all feel this way about work and so we work well together despite having a very wide variety of backgrounds.

Interviews are a two way process, its also good for candidates to see if they'd like to work with the team/dept/company. You spend more time with your colleagues sometimes than your family, its good to see what you could be getting into.

@sbhydrogen

I'm less about cultural fit but way more "would I want to work alongside this person".

I think this is often what is meant by 'cultural fit'

It's more complicated than that. It shouldn't become something that leads to hiring "people like us", whatever that looks like (tech bros being the most notorious one) but yes, part of hiring should be a thoughtful consideration of whether you need a person who fits in the org culture or even a person who disrupts it a bit and how each candidate might fit in that culture. It's no good hiring someone with the right skills and experiences if they just can't operate in the way the company does.

What Lancelot said. The "cultural fit" phrase doesn't mean "hire the same ethnicity and school as the interviewer" it's "hire someone who'll flourish and augment the existing company culture"

A shit company with shit managers may treat it as the former, but they're shit.

My company really values diversity of thinking and personality, but people have to be incredibly resilient and fast paced. I know really good people who wouldn’t work out in the place I work. You can be extrovert, introvert, funny, quiet, liberal or conservative- no problem, but if you aren’t determined, adaptable and resilient you won’t survive.

We spend a lot of time in the recruitment process being very up front about this

Describe what you mean personally by cultural fit.

Though I do agree with OP, people can disguise their biases quite well behind the front is using 'company culture' as an excuse,

For example, a job that employs mainly middle age white guys is kore likely to give the job to a similar middle age white guy in many instances - as that person is likely 'company culture'/ more likely too 'fit in' which I think is wrong.

Well when we talk about culture fit its company culture so yes, it's super important and so YABU.

Let's say that I work in an organisation where we value transparency, team work and thoughtful leadership and we hire someone who believes in micro-managing and competition amongst team members.
That person could be a super expert in their role, still that would be a terrible hire.

I hire people, my team is extremely diverse, in nationalities, ethnicities, background, career path, expertise and style, yet we all uphold the same core values.

I don't care if Piotr loves ballet, if Michelle spends her days at the gym and if Renata's kink is to read books about archeology, what I'm interested in is whether I can provide the environment for Piotr, Michelle, Renata and more to thrive.

@orangejuicer

Who hires based on culture?

This. I've done recruiting for over 10 years and I don't even know what "cultural fit" means. We hire on job ability. We'd eventually go bust if we didn't.