Don’t Hire For Culture Fit

You’ve probably heard the advice: “Don’t hire for skills; hire for culture fit.”

If someone is a good fit for your company culture, you can train them on the skills they need. But the reverse isn’t always true. No matter how much training you give them, you can’t really change someone’s personality. 

Thus, a series of books, articles, and interviews with company founders and human resource officers began. They discussed how they added a “culture fit” interview to the stages of their hiring process.

The Problem in Hiring for Culture Fit

At its worst, hiring for culture fit can become a barrier to achieving diversity in your organization. At its best, it’s still a way for hiring managers to get a little lazy and choose candidates they “click” with over more qualified options.

When it comes to diversity, cultural fit doesn’t automatically mean the hiring process will be discriminatory. 

But when you ask most managers (and even employees) what it means to find someone who “fits the culture,” you’ll likely get a lot of variations of the “beer test.” Is this person someone we’d want to go grab a beer with? 

That sounds great, except we all have unconscious bias at play. 

The Outcome of Bias

We may be self-aware enough to filter out gender, race, and ethnicity biases, but biases against those who disagree with us—those with cognitive diversity—are equally hard to keep in check.

That leads to more and more new hires who look more and more like existing employees.

But even if you can adjust for diversity, hiring for culture fit leads managers to favor candidates who are of “like mind” and see the world (and the company) the way they do. They lean toward candidates they agree with often, not candidates who make them uncomfortable by challenging their assumptions. 

That’s a recipe for a leadership disaster. 

A Better Alternative

As a manager, you want a diverse team of people who know how to leverage friction and disagreement to improve decision-making and avoid groupthink. You want someone who pushes back on you, even in the interview, but who does so respectfully.

That’s hard to do when you emphasize culture fit. So, instead of culture, look for respectful dissent. 

Look for the people who make you uncomfortable because they challenge your assumptions. You don’t have to hire curmudgeons or people who are constantly negative. But you do want to find people who stretch your thinking. If they do so in the interview, they’ll do so on the job.

So, don’t hire for culture fit; hire for respectful dissent.

The Cost of Hiring for Culture Fit

Whenever we hire staff or employees based on culture fit, we limit ourselves. We put up a barrier to our success by focusing on culture fit instead of hiring talent and skills.

This leads to the risk of creating a homogenous team that shares the same interests (which is good) but also has similar experiences and thoughts (which is not so good!).

There is no diversity, hence no innovation, as probably no one will stand up to challenge the status quo. Diverse individuals on the team bring in better problem-solving ideas and innovation. You get multiple perspectives stemming from their experiences, skills, and expertise.

Hiring for culture fit will, in fact, limit innovation and put your company in a cycle of mediocrity.

High Turnover Due to Groupthink

If the work is entirely focused on culture fit, many of the employees who do not associate with the norms will feel alienated and not feel like they belong to the place. 

Once they feel their opinions are not valued or welcomed, they will feel discouraged from sharing their ideas. The impacts are so extensive that they may even decide to leave the organization. 

People will feel disengaged and discouraged from expressing their ideas for fear of rejection or other consequences. Your organization will suffer from high turnover rates in the future, which will increase your recruitment costs, and you won’t be able to retain institutional knowledge either.

Missed Talent Opportunities

When you hire managers or leaders who promote the culture fit idea, they will reject potential candidates at the recruitment stage. This will exclude much of the talent pool at the initial stage only, which may otherwise have brought extensive skills or diverse ideas for the company.

So, you’ll be letting go of unconventional problem-solving ideas or other unique,  innovative approaches.

When you reject these individuals, you are at a higher risk of losing the people who would bring growth, overcome the organization’s unique challenges, and bring innovative strategies you need to stand out in the long run.

Tips to Identify Respectful Dissent During Interviews

There are ways to find the right individuals during the hiring phase. Begin by designing the interview questions to see how well the candidates can handle challenges or disagreements.

Scenario Based Questions

Ask your candidates how they will handle a particular situation in which they disagree with a manager. Give them a situation in which they can describe how they will respectfully challenge an idea.

Ask them about their approach, assess it, and see what impact it will have on the outcome. This will allow you to assess their ability to communicate the disagreement constructively.

Challenge Assumptions

Give your candidate a company practice or policy and let them openly criticize it. Ask them if we were to change it, how that would be, and why would they do it.

This way, you can assess their critical thinking skills and how well they can communicate their ideas.

Observe the Communication Style

Give close attention to your candidate’s tone, choice of words, and body language. Look for signs to see if they can communicate what they are thinking clearly and confidently without being aggressive or aggressive. 

Wrap Up

When you hire for culture fit, it will seem like you are building a strong team. But there’s a flip side: it also limits diversity, creativity, and innovation, which will be harmful in the long run.

So, focus on bringing together a blend of different cultures and fresh perspectives. Welcome employees who challenge the norms; only this way will you be able to build a culture of growth and respectful dissent.