The Culture Fit Question

If you have interviewed an candidate for software engineer/developer role chances are you have ask or been asked: “Is this candidate a good culture fit?”

It is important to be aware how we may unconsciously be applying biases and discriminating against candidates under the guise of “Culture Fit”. Some seemingly innocent, but dangerously wrong explanations of “Culture Fit” I have heard from people:

• Would I want to to be friends with this person?
• Would I want to have a beer with this person?
• Is this person fun to work with?

When laid out like this, you could see how someone who is asked “Is this candidate a good culture fit?” might unconsciously be discriminating. A step to help eliminate this unconscious bias is to ask about culture fit in a more specific way:

• “Does this candidate fit in with our culture of continual learning”
• “Does this candidate fit in with our culture of collaboration”
• “Does this candidate fit in with our culture of simplicity”
• “Does this candidate fit in with our culture of ownership”
• “Does this candidate fit in with our culture of (insert your shared team value here)”