"Cultural fit" is just another name for racism, sexism, and ageism. Yeah, all of those things can be culture. Why should it be any less wrong to discriminate based on college attendance than on race?
What else is cultural fit? "Sorry, you don't fit our culture of being heterosexual here."
We're supposed to be adults. We're supposed to know how to get along and play nicely with others, regardless of how different we are from each other. This "cultural fit" line is bullshit apologia for real discrimination.
Yeah, with respect to cletus, what he stated aren't reasons, they're excuses. Let's do a little bit of search and replace and see how these statements read:
- Gender matters a lot in hiring. By this I mean a woman is much more likely to hire another woman in a field of qualified candidates. This isn't simply a form of nepotism as such. Two people from the same gender will share a larger common cultural base;
- The race the founders bring shapes the organization. Many startups are started by whites. It shouldn't surprise you that this biases the makeup of their workforces and what they look for;
We wouldn't accept either of the above as a valid excuse for poor hiring practices, even though both statement are true. In modern society we acknowledge that it's all too easy to hire people like oneself, deliberately or otherwise - this is why we go out of our way to minimize the effects of these biases in our hiring.
The tech industry on the other hand seems to celebrate it to the point where "cultural fit" is the core of hiring practice. A lot of the ridiculous Silicon Valley stereotypes come from the immense monoculture it runs.
I think that's invalid. If you find someone who's a great programmer, but obviously won't get alone with your teammates, then you definitely should not hire him. Team dynamics are as important than individual skill levels.
That might hold water if every company I've ever worked for hired much more than just self-diagnosed-with-Aspergers', white-guy assholes. I've never seen a group of programmers get along. "So-and-so should be fired/shouldn't be hired because we just don't get along" is not an acceptable excuse. Any other industry and your boss will tell you that you better learn to get along.
This is Kindergarten level issues here. You're supposed to know how to tie your own shoes and play nicely with others by the time you're 6 years old. Why do we continue to let the tech industry endorse childish behavior in the work environment?
EDIT: The one job I hated the most was the one where I was hired because I was a "good cultural fit". Turns out, they thought I was of the "culture" that enjoyed working free overtime. Nerf guns and free soda weren't enough to keep me in the office after 6pm, so I started to get squeezed out, culturally.
> Why do we continue to let the tech industry endorse childish behavior in the work environment?
Sometimes assholes are super-productive geniuses (note that there are more assholes who think they're a genius) so even if they don't get along with the rest of your team (or any humans, really) it's a tough tradeoff whether it's worth having them around.
You have to balance whether they're doing more harm than good to the overall endeavor. In our case, we have one very senior guy who's highly antisocial but absolutely a crack dev. We've given him an extremely flexible work-from-home arrangement. It works out well because we hardly see him, and he's happy communicating over email and just churning out code in his batcave or whatever.
Hey, so excellent example. There is no way that guy fits into anyone's culture, yet the company still made it work. The premise still stands, "not a cultural fit" is always code for discrimination.
I don't think it's that simple. At the trivial and obvious level, you need to speak a common language. But even if you're both speaking English, you can communicate much more effectively if you have a shared cultural background that you can both refer to.
Okay, language. Check. But at my last two positions, my closest work-partner was from Malaysia and Lebanon. Slight accents, but completely great to work with.
When I'm having trouble with something, the last person I want to help me figure out my problem is an exact clone of myself. I want people used to different tools and different ways of thinking.
that is an extremely macro level of culture that does not explain why there are so few women, hispanics, and african-americans in technology. They aren't that different of a culture. Certainly far less of a cultural difference than all of the H1Bs they're hiring.
You're not getting the point. All of you who keep parroting your master's "cultural fit" line are not seeing the lie for what it is worth. It's not about culture.
Cultural fit is not that important for short term hires (ie 6 month contract) because you basically need someone that has the ability to do short term wins. It's only when you look beyond ie 2 or so years when cultural fit (or lack of) becomes more prominent.
You're not going to know that until you've been working with the person for a while. You cannot possibly tell that from "culture". If you think you can, it means you're being prejudiced in some way.
> Why should it be any less wrong to discriminate based on college attendance than on race
This question can be asked of anything. Why should it be any less wrong to discriminate based on intelligence? Why should it be any less wrong to discriminate on skill set?
It isn't so much "wrong" to discriminate on race as it is stupid, because race has nothing to do with most jobs (unless you're interviewing to be the grand knight of the klu klux klan or something).
The same cannot be said of which college you attended. Going to Stanford or MIT may not be the best indicator of your potential, it may not even be particularly good, but it requires a certain amount of hard work, determination and intelligence to get into and graduate from good schools like these.
What else is cultural fit? "Sorry, you don't fit our culture of being heterosexual here."
We're supposed to be adults. We're supposed to know how to get along and play nicely with others, regardless of how different we are from each other. This "cultural fit" line is bullshit apologia for real discrimination.