Having a 'chemistry check' with future colleagues as part of the job interview process - AIBU?

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My employer has recently started incorporating a 'chemistry check' as part of the final stages of the interview process. This is for the entry-level graduate positions. It's a hybrid role where we work in teams, so it is important to be someone who can generally get along well with others and work as a team.

However, I really don't like the idea, but I'm not sure if I'm thinking too much into it. The company is very middle-class full of Oxbridge graduates (not me) and to me this 'chemistry check' almost seems designed to keep it that way, it doesn't feel very inclusive.

AIBU or is this becoming a standard part of recruitment now?

This is called "team fit" and another way to discriminate against people who don't look and sound like them.
Only if the process does indeed discriminate against those people. You're making a massive assumption that they will.. If they are exploring whether the candidates' values and qualities are a good match then it's not a bad thing.

Funny thing is diverse teams actually produce better work and higher profits for a company.
Indeed (although the same research says it can take longer for diverse teams to gel, but once they do it will produce superior results).

I would make a big fuss and tell your bosses that they are likely to be sued under the Equality Act if they go ahead with this bs.
The candidate would have to be able to prove that they were discriminated against for reasons related to a protected characteristic. If they haven't demonstrated a good fit with eg values of the organisation, or didn't act with commitment and integrity during the process (or whatever criteria they are assessing on), and a fair decision has been made on that basis, the Equality Act wouldn't help them . Unless of course they could prove that someone who was an equally poor fit was hired.
Rather than make 'a big fuss' and saying 'they will be sued', OP could. make a professional approach to an appropriate manager, express their concerns about the potential for discrimination. Ask to understand more about how the process will be executed and ask what safeguards are in place to ensure it's not an opportunity to appoint people who all 'look and sound the same.'
It might be that there is cause for concern. But it may well not. OP doesn't seem to know enough about it yet. Many organisations who are very committed to diversity and inclusion use these sorts of approaches successfully without using it as another vehicle for discrimination.

I think the OP is right to voice her concerns , but needs to understand more about the process before going in all guns blazing shouting about the Equality Act. In my experience most people who do this or suggest others do this. don't understand the legislation well enough, and that does their own credibility no favours whatsoever.

Please name the company so I can make sure to avoid them. After an offer sure, but before? Applicants will say anything to pretend to fit in. The potential for bias/discrimination is huge, and it's a massive waste of applicants' time.

It sounds very old-fashioned actually - many workplaces used to do similar, but called it "trial by sherry"!

It applies where I work, and is done before formal interviews. I personally think it wastes a lot of time for not much benefit, as candidates only meet one team member and around 80-90% go through to the next round but am happy to be told I’m a Luddite.

Not at all, a great team gets along well and usually have differing opinions and strengths so they complement each other. The only people who are anti this are the ones who struggle to get on with others and they are the ones you want to weed out. Nothing worse than someone with two right skills that no one can stand, worked with many of those.

Hardly. You don't need to do this to ascertain that, if that was your goal you'd be able to eliminate those people in the first interview

Is there any decent evidence of this "diverse team" format making more money for the company? Please share it would be great to share with my colleagues!

It isn’t common in all sectors but I have heard of it in others. It doesn’t sound very inclusive at all but in the long term it may be beneficial for the candidates in not wasting their time.

There would likely be an excuse from the company as to why the candidate didn’t pass probation and wasn’t being afforded a permanent contract if the chemistry didn’t fit anyway.

We did something similar in my previous team, and it was received very positively.

The candidates would meet the team (2-3 ppl) for 30 min at the end of their assessment center. It was an informal chat rather than a formal interview or "check", and the candidates usually used this opportunity to ask questions about the role/company/team that they didn't feel they could ask HR or the hiring manager.

For us it was a way to flag anyone that would clearly clash with the team - usually those with ego issues ignoring us completely or spending that time bragging.

I'm not sure how people here interpret this kind of meeting as "conscious discrimination". Surely this is all about your company culture, how they frame the meeting and how they brief you. Any type of interview can be biased and discriminatory if that's what the hiring manager or company wants.

Loads of consultancy companies have done reports on it

https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters

https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/the-numbers-dont-lie-diverse-workforces-make-companies-more-money-2020-07-30

https://www.forbes.com/sites/annapowers/2018/06/27/a-study-finds-that-diverse-companies-produce-19-more-revenue/amp/

Is there an HR team? I would take your concerns to them re: diversity as this is terrible practice.

Are they a big firm/known brand? If so I'd leak it to a business journalist tbh. This kind of insidious stuff needs getting rid of.

@Berklilly I had very similar in my job application. Just a final round of meeting a few more people from the team, not just those I'd be reporting to, having an informal chat, making sure we got well enough. We're a fairly diverse team, and I certainly don't fit the mold for a stereotypical software dev, but I got the job.

I don't think having a chemistry check is a bad thing in itself, although I can see the possibility of it being abused and used to discriminate if management aren't careful. I think it depends very much on the implementation.

This is standard practice in my sector (legal) and we have a very diverse workforce.

From my experience it’s more about “is this person an arsehole who has pulled the wool over HR eyes”

I can remember one bloke who asked if he would be able to get a taxi to the nearest pub and back at lunchtime (greenfield site) as he couldn’t get through the day without two pints. A woman who had applied for a job in Finance who admitted she was terrified of numbers, and of course, the usual know it alls.

If you think it’s discrimination then you are effectively accusing your colleagues of being racist/sexist/homophobic. If that’s what you believe, I would be looking for another job.

YANBU these not incisive and are tokenism because staff views aren’t equal to panel views. if interview panel likes the person but the staff group don’t, the person still gets appointed. This has happened recently in my experience and has created bad feeling in the staff. why ask for their views if they won’t be acted on etc.

As a candidate with experience of having done these staff meets, straight after a formal panel interview they are awful and fake at a time you are already exhausted from the interview. Not informal however relaxed they are dressed up as and actually really a horrible experience and ambiguous to the candidate of how seriously to take them. Sets up a discomfort among a larger group of peers than the panel members in future if the job isn’t offered to you. That. Doesn’t help networks flourish. Companies could put off good candidates or alienate them for a future role that they would be a good fit for.

As a staff member I would resent being asked to be on one of these feedback groups. Put me on the interview panel, or don’t.

It's a good way to get buy in from the staff too as they're part of the process. I remember our preferred candidate turned out to be a complete dud and we then realised that it's not always easy to spot them!

having once joined a completely dysfunctional team, which became very evident very quickly, I think it can actually be a good thing.

i overlooked red flags in the interview process in my eagerness to get a job after a long gap. Seeing the team in situ might have further shown up the red flags. Instead, I accepted the job, and by lunchtime on my first day, I was regretting this bitterly.

We do this at our firm but don't call it a chemistry check. It's an opportunity for the candidate to meet some more of the team and vice versa. An opportunity for the candidate to ask questions and for us as interviewers to have an opinion from other team members on the candidate's fit with the team. Team dynamics is very important to us but that's not to say we want clones of our existing team members! I think it's very narrow minded to think all Oxford grads are the same!

Well, I'd have not accepted two jobs if I was given the opportunity to meet everyone. One I left after 1 day, the other one I hated after a week but stuck out for about 7-8 months.
I think it's a very good idea.

This is a good point. These types of checks may be valuable for the candidate to see if the company seems like somewhere they want to work. It can be really difficult to know and depending on the interview process this might not include much information about the working culture

I wouldn't do it as a recruiter, skills are far more important than fit. Diversity of thought is more welcomed in the workplace now than it was 15 years ago I think.

That's interesting as I have heard the opposite, that it is more important that someone fit in with the rest of the team rather than be hired based on skills. I have worked with some no doubt talented people but they were hopeless at getting along with others, and it really affects the workplace.

Agree with this 💯
I also find it odd that people are thinking 'fit' means the same, it doesn't.

I found this helped me too, I had one job interview where I met the rest of the team, it put me off completely. It goes both ways and is beneficial to both parties ime

I don't think looking at 'fit' is a bad thing. To me it can mean two things. Firstly does the candidate have skills that nicely round out the team. E.g. the team are good at X but have more limited skills in Y and the new candidate has Y in abundance so would suit the team well.

Secondly I do think meeting who you will be working with day in and day out is important. All you have to do is read the threads on here about personality clashes, introverts versus extroverts at work etc to see that fitting into a team is important for both the candidate and the team.

I really like to involve my team in recruitment and this is one great way to do it. It doesn’t have to mean that you are looking for people just like them, it’s not really to do with the diversity angle to be honest (I have that covered, I like to hire people whose skillset/experience overlaps with but is fundamentally different to the rest of the team).

I do team fit sessions because it allows all parties a chance to get to know each other. It’s good for the candidate in terms of knowing a little bit about some of their colleagues ahead of their first day, but it also gives the team a glimpse of the skills that are coming in. I can think of one occasion where the team session didn’t go so well and the candidate declined and in hindsight I had some reservations. Another example where I was a panel member but not the manager, the candidate was an arse, the team could see he was an arse, the manager hired anyway and had a big problem (it was definitely the candidate and not the team). If the manager had listened to the team things would have been very different.

in my mind the team session is about getting a feel for how the candidate interacts with others in a less formal and more realistic setting. I quite often send them for lunch together. In my mind it’s not another re-interview, it’s about knowing whether this person is polite, courteous, and going to value the existing team.

Informal meet up with staff AFTER offering the job sounds like a great idea