The first time I was on a hiring committee, I was excited. I made a spreadsheet of the qualities we were looking for, meticulously balanced a rubric for interviews and applications, and did everything I could to ensure that the process was as fair and impartial as possible.
We ended up with the best sort of problem—a handful of truly exceptional applicants who were all ranked similarly. I came into the final decision meeting ready with my bullet points of objective pros and cons for each candidate and expected to find others doing the same.
Instead, the conversation quickly became about who would fit in the best.
My team at the time was incredibly similar—all middle-aged, white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied women who were married with children. They hung out after work and even vacationed together regularly. By all counts, I was the closest thing to any sort of “diversity” that we had as a single, childless 20-something who was both queer and neurodivergent.
When we began discussing our top candidates, they tossed the rubrics out the window. Suddenly, it wasn’t about past experience or impressive interview answers but about which person seemed like they could seamlessly step into the role and blend into the team. It wasn’t about who could bring new ways of thinking and challenge us but about who wouldn’t create waves.
Let’s be clear—at that point in the process, there was genuinely no wrong answer. I truly believe that anyone from that final pool would have been a fantastic employee, and the person we hired was exceptional in their own right. What troubled me wasn’t who we hired, but how. My team had an incredible opportunity to expand its point of view, but instead, they clung as tightly as possible to maintaining the status quo.
What does being a good culture fit mean, and where did it come from?
Put simply, the idea that someone is a good culture fit is another way to say that they will seamlessly blend in with existing company communication patterns, behaviors and structures. They’re the people that you want to grab a beer with after work or could see yourself becoming casual friends with without much effort.
The idea of hiring someone who is a good culture fit for your team or company may have come largely from 1989 and 1991 papers by Jennifer A. Chatman. In these, Chatman showed that new hires whose values closely aligned with the company tend to stay longer and are more satisfied in their role. Since then, the idea has been used to justify everything from personality tests as indicators of success to full-on discriminatory practices.
Interestingly, Chatman’s latest findings suggest that culture fit isn’t fixed. In 2023, she collaborated with Richard Lu, Amir Goldberg and Sameer Srivastava on a study that showed that culture fit is a concept that one can learn, so it’s not exclusively an intangible quality that an applicant either does or doesn’t have from the start.
The problem with looking for a candidate who you could grab a beer with
Diverse workforces are often more profitable and productive than those that are homogenous, and leaning on ideas like finding a culture fit while hiring can actually lead to discriminatory hiring decisions. Looking for a culture fit can mean creating an environment where everyone doesn’t just look the same—they think the same, too. A strict culture fit might mean that every person hired has a similar personality and similar interests, which is more likely to create an army of “yes men” than a team of innovators.
This isn’t just a problem for those with marginalized identities—though it absolutely impacts them more than most. Under the guise of looking for a culture fit, a hiring manager may not hire an introvert because they weren’t interested in attending team happy hours, and someone who smiles a lot might lose out to someone who is more stoic, even if personality has nothing to do with the job.
Yes, it’s often easy to get along with people who are alike, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. For instance, on my team—where everyone looked and thought the same—no one ever challenged the status quo. This led to questionable business practices, big issues being swept under the rug and a final product that was often stale and uninspired.
Expand your team’s potential by looking for a “culture add” instead
My favorite team that I worked with was also the best one for the company itself. Our business partners nicknamed us the “dream team” because we were always on time (or early) with our projects, asked big questions up front and consistently brought innovative, fresh product ideas to the table.
However, the reason we worked together wasn’t because we all thought alike—it was because we all thought quite a bit differently. Some of the best work of my career happened on this team because we constantly challenged one another to strive for the absolute best in everything we did. Where some of us excelled at pacing work and keeping deadlines, others were great at pushing us to consider what was possible outside of strict project requirements.
Rather than hiring a person to fit into your company’s culture, you’re better off finding someone who can add something new. Seeking a “culture add” means looking for a person whose skills, personality, point of view, background and more are different from those of the people already on the team. It means finding someone who can help your company’s culture expand and evolve rather than expecting them to conform to what already exists.
Create fair and mutually beneficial hiring practices
When figuring out where to start, it can help to make a list of what you think your company’s culture already does well and where it could use some work. As you’re hiring, keep an eye on which applicants bring something new to the mix, whether it’s ideas, working styles, conflict resolution techniques or something else.
Creating fair, mutually beneficial hiring practices means being truly open to anyone who can do the work, even if they aren’t anything like you might have pictured when posting the role. It starts with understanding that an applicant may bring something to the table that you never expected—and that the best employees often do.
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