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What the hell kind of difference does it make if the candidate is boring? Can he do the job? I don't go to work to be entertained. As far as being passionate about the job, most people work to put food on the table. If someone talks about how much he loves his job, chances are he's blowing sunshine up your ass. Again, can the candidate do the job?
This cultural fit crap pisses me off.
Actually passion about life is the criteria. Not about work. The company culture is a bit "freaks and geeks." So people do get asked "what do you like?" Because they actually try to incorporate that into the work environment and work perks.
The "likes" range from Rock climbing, cooking, hiking, bicycling, sports, community activism, food, reading and tons of other mainstream and non-mainstream stuff.
I am puzzled by people who care about nothing personally and professionally.
but in a technically-oriented workplace like mine, it would be a bad idea to value personality over competence. We'd never get any work done!
Just to clarify, I wasn't suggesting to value personality over competence. What I was saying is that if you have enough competent applicants then you absolutely should value personality in addition to competence.
I was also saying that personality is a good reason to not hire someone even if they are technically competent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by statisticsnerd
What the hell kind of difference does it make if the candidate is boring?
This cultural fit crap pisses me off.
Spoken from experience?
It makes all the difference. Happy employees do good work and don't spend their day on job boards looking for a new job. If you hire someone who doesn't fit into the existing team then you can easily send the whole team out the door with one bad hire. People don't quit companies, they quit managers. If the manager doesn't have enough insight in what kind of person will work well with the existing people then there's bound to be trouble.
Just being able to do the job is not enough, unless your job is a solo gig of some sort where you literally never have to work with anyone else.
Passion about life? Rock climbing, cooking, and sports? That has absolutely nothing to do with performance of the job. Quite frankly, it sounds like your company is run by a bunch of morons.
Passion about life? Rock climbing, cooking, and sports? That has absolutely nothing to do with performance of the job. Quite frankly, it sounds like your company is run by a bunch of morons.
Why are you so angry?
If/when you create your own company you can run it any which way you like. Berating someone else over how they choose to structure their workplace is unreasonable. The primary purpose of a business is to make profit. If they have found a way to make that work by hiring a specific type of person then what's it to you?
You wouldn't fit into such an environment, but the solution to that is to not apply to it, or not accept the job if you get an offer. The solution isn't for them to change their business model.
I went on an interview recently and learned from the manager conducting the interview that they were looking for someone they could control, manipulate, and overall screw over. Some companies do what they want, keep in mind they aren't the only company in town, take yourself to a much better environment.
If I were the manager and applied that criteria to my coworkers, I doubt I would have hired most of them. And I would have missed out on some good workers.
I'm a strong introvert, so I don't consider it an important component of work to make friends and socialize. I admit that it's nice to have people that are fun to be around in the workplace, but in a technically-oriented workplace like mine, it would be a bad idea to value personality over competence. We'd never get any work done!
Maybe it makes sense for certain kinds of workplaces to value personality over competence, but I just have trouble imagining places like that being very productive.
Me too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by statisticsnerd
What the hell kind of difference does it make if the candidate is boring? Can he do the job? I don't go to work to be entertained. As far as being passionate about the job, most people work to put food on the table. If someone talks about how much he loves his job, chances are he's blowing sunshine up your ass. Again, can the candidate do the job?
This cultural fit crap pisses me off.
I agree.
When I used to interview people (and had veto power over who got hired), when I considered "cultural fit," this is what I considered:
If the candidate's first language is not English, are they able to speak and communicate clearly and fluently so everyone can understand them?
Does the candidate take criticism well? (I tried this out by critiquing their answers on the coding test we gave)
Is the candidate uptight/easily offended?
Is the candidate racist/sexist?
We had a diverse team, and I'll be honest; whenever we interviewed Indian men, they sent me (a white girl) in there to see how he responded to me. My "role" was to be assertive and a little negative. If we were interviewing white, east Asian, or Hispanic candidates (male or female), we sent my black manager in. If we were interviewing women, I was sent in along with one of my more loquacious older male colleagues. Indian women were the wild card; they didn't seem to respond negatively to anyone, though most of them lacked assertiveness.
Keys to fitting in on my team were:
A lack of racism/sexism; we were a diverse group
Lack of homophobia; many managers and other employees were homosexual
Positive assertiveness and confidence
An ability to accept constructive criticism
Laid back/not easily offended; there was a lot of swearing in the office and sometimes off-color humor
You didn't have to be chatty, funny, or otherwise entertaining. We hired "boring" people all the time who fit the above criteria.
What the hell kind of difference does it make if the candidate is boring? Can he do the job? I don't go to work to be entertained. As far as being passionate about the job, most people work to put food on the table. If someone talks about how much he loves his job, chances are he's blowing sunshine up your ass. Again, can the candidate do the job?
The "likes" range from Rock climbing, cooking, hiking, bicycling, sports, community activism, food, reading and tons of other mainstream and non-mainstream stuff.
What kind of job do you work where this is important?
Quote:
Originally Posted by RarelyRelocating
It makes all the difference. Happy employees do good work and don't spend their day on job boards looking for a new job. If you hire someone who doesn't fit into the existing team then you can easily send the whole team out the door with one bad hire. People don't quit companies, they quit managers. If the manager doesn't have enough insight in what kind of person will work well with the existing people then there's bound to be trouble.
Just being able to do the job is not enough, unless your job is a solo gig of some sort where you literally never have to work with anyone else.
I don't socialize with the people in my work group at all. But that doesn't mean I'm grumpy or unable to work on a team. I get along with everyone just fine and am a great team player.
I guess it's just a strange concept to me that I have to share interests or passions with fellow co-workers in order to be productive.
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