Just like in social situations you can judge anyone pretty well in the first 5 minutes of a phone conversation, see if they will "click" with your team - hell you can almost do that just by looking at their open source (how they think/design). I don't need a high school coding exam and a 2 hour panel interview to see if someone is a "cultural fit".
While that may be, it doesn't mean cultural fit is only used in those cases.
There is a vast difference between someone who cares about doing their job well and someone who does their job. And 'cultural fit' will be used to describe that. Are you the type of person to put in your own time to advance your knowledge, or do you require the company to pay to keep you up to speed on the latest advances. I've seen both types of people.
And the former is more valuable than the latter. And the former generally won't want to work with the latter, either. Granted, the former will cost more than the latter, as he brings more value to the table.
You can argue the merits of 'cultural fit', but it's not just a word used to hide sexism, racism, and prejudice in the hiring process. And, personally, I think it's important because I want to enjoy the people I work with.
I like this as a definition of cultural fit. I have worked a place where I felt like the only guy who cared about his job, and it was suffocating, similarly, I have seen the one guy who is just doing his job in a team of those to love to do their job well, and he was like a ball and chain.
Perhaps we need to stop using "cultural fit", as a replacement for "professionalism". When I think about "cultural fit", I think, "what do I like, and does this person like it too?" When I ask myself and others, "is this person a professional", I think, "do they exhibit: passion, discipline, dedication, drive, and care in their work, skills, and interactions with everyone?" I would rather tell HR, "not as professional about his craft as we like to see", than a wishy-washy, "not a good cultural fit". The first sounds like we are professionals who treat ourselves, our craft, and others with respect, the second like a frat house blackballing a pledge because he doesn't like the same beer we all do.
There is so little of a difference between those sorts of person that they are frequently the exact same person except on different days or in different working environments.
Where is that line?
Looking at something dumb, like TDD. Is it okay to hire someone who doesn't "believe in TDD" when the rest of us practice strict TDD? Somehow, almost certainly based on nurture of past jobs/mentors/failures (we all like to think it is nature, pfft) all developers look at the same facts of TDD, and yet some are on this side, some are on that side. TDD is an arbitrary bar. May as well be favorite color. But, when the house painting team is 15 guys who like red and so we only paint red houses, but you like blue... Maybe they just are not a good "cultural fit". Shrug. Would that one blue person "poison" the team? On the one hand, that blue person might open us up to new opportunities, get us to start doing both kinds of houses. Maybe they just end up fighting with everyone all the time, "CAN'T YOU SEE RED IS THE BEST WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" And so cultural fit seems like a way of saying, "people similar enough to our average skill to not make anyone mad, and similar enough to an average of our shared backstory so as to have basically the same conclusions about the Big Issues as we do: TDD, FP/OO, Pairing, NoSQL/SQL, IDE/Editor, languages, what goes on the Big Issues list, etc.
But in all that, aren't we really just saying, "I want to hang out with people like me"?
This reminds me: I think I've yet to see a tech company where the default assumption is that you're a teetotaler. Why do y'all SV-ites insist on taking me out to consume (legal) mind-altering drugs?
Further reading (The “Leaf blowers for stamp collectors” thread): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6373983
I'm sure that's the case in rare circumstances. The phrase 'cultural fit' is fairly common here in the UK but I agree it may be taken a bit too literally elsewhere. The cultural fit I'm referring to is attitude, work ethic, maturity, etc.
I don't need a high school coding exam and a 2 hour panel interview to see if someone is a "cultural fit".
Completely agree. I can't see how that scenario could give anyone an appropriate insight into a persons character. As explained in other comments below, a relaxed, two way conversation in a comfortable environment is one of the few ways of establishing how well a candidate would adapt to life at your company.
(FWIW, those two guys have turned out to be truly awesome developers).
