What makes a candidate “a good fit”? How much weight should you give a candidate for being “a good fit”? Does hiring “for fit” perpetuate discrimination in favor of people who look like you, think like you, share your socio-economic background?

I read an exchange on LinkedIn the other day where someone posted that she had met someone at an event, clicked with her, realized how much they had in common, hired her, and was thrilled with her performance. I’m not sure what her point was – maybe, don’t overthink hiring, go with your gut? I dunno, I wasn’t reading very carefully. And then someone else commented on the post basically saying that she also used to hire like that but then she realized that she had ended up with a team that all thought like her, and the lack of diversity was diminishing their effectiveness; so she changed her hiring practices.

That got me thinking – is there any time that “hiring for fit” is a good idea? 

The Disadvantages of Hiring for Fit

When hiring “for fit” means that you hire someone because you feel an immediate connection, that they have a lot of things in common with you or your team, that they are exactly who you had in mind when you posted the job – you might want to think again.

Studies have shown that a team with a variety of life experience and ways of experiencing the world solves problems faster and more creatively than a team that thinks and has experienced the world in the same way. Why? Because people who are the same can only go as far and as fast as the strongest member of the team; but people who are different challenge each other’s assumptions and come up with new ways of doing things that exceed what the strongest member of the team would come up with.

At one time, I led a team of four project managers, all very different people. One was the organization and tool champ, able to analyze and adjust thousands of tickets at a glance. Another was certified in all aspects of project management and could quote the PMBOK by heart. A third one excelled at holding team members accountable for meeting dates – something about their approach made people meet deadlines without argument. The last was super-gentle with people who were just learning project management, helping them translate complex concepts into everyday actionable steps. When we planned things together, their different foci helped them come up with novel solutions that they, individually, would not have developed.

So if someone grew up in a different place, in a different culture, maybe they look/sound/dress differently than you, they don’t know the people you know, didn’t go to a top school, come from a different industry, or maybe they have a neurodiversity that makes them think differently than the rest of your team – that could be just what your team needs to shake up their approach.

Is It Ever Right to Consider “Fit”?

I came up with several times when you might want to consider “fit”:

“The only person I need to know here is my boss”

A new product VP said that when I ran into him and tried to introduce him to the two people with me, one of whom would ensure that his products made it through the supply chain, and the other of whom would ensure that his products would have the right home once they arrived in-store. He wasn’t interested in meeting these mere women, who were mere directors. This VP also told me one August that, unlike the other VPs, he didn’t feel a need to visit the distribution center and review, with the supply chain and logistics leaders, how his product was being set up and prioritized for the peak shipping season. At an organization that prized cross-functional partnerships, this guy was clearly not a good organizational fit, and it affected his performance.

The Carpool Porsche

When an adjacent team was downsized, a well-liked copy writer was transferred to the Internal Comms team. The copy writer was a Porsche of a writer, expert at structure, grammar, punctuation, etc., and more than happy to mentor other communicators on the team on improving their writing skills. Within a year, she left. While the manager was sorry to lose her skills, what the team really needed were people who could quickly assess whether the content provided by the stakeholders accurately reflected the processes and priorities that the employees faced each day and how to fix it if it didn’t; and who could recognize when and how to use the comms tools to give a communication more or less emphasis, depending on its strategic alignment. The team didn’t need a Porsche; they needed a sport utility who could carry a carpool. The Porsche wasn’t a good fit for the needs of the team.

It’s All About Me

New guy was clearly insecure. When the cross-functional team went around the “room” quickly introducing themselves, everyone else said three sentences that included their names, their roles, and how they supported the project but New Guy spoke for a solid five minutes, recapping 25 years of experience and name-dropping the major brands he had been associated with. On that call, and every call after, he had to have the first word, the last word, and – given the opportunity – every word in between, telling the team things they already knew. At a flat organization, where everyone worked together and all voices were important, his approach fell flat and impeded progress. Not a good fit.

A Bad Fit for the Employee’s Needs

Back before WFH was accepted as much as it is today, a young man’s regional supervisor recommended him for a job in the national office, a move that put him on an accelerated career path with a higher pay scale. He lasted less than a month: what he hadn’t revealed was that he was caregiving for his elderly mother who lived with him. Working locally had allowed him to spend more time at home with mom; a job that commuted 2+ hours each way was not a good fit for his needs, based on his life-situation.

So, yes, there are a few times when “fit” is important. But it’s less about the immediate connection you feel with someone, and more about their attitude about getting along with others, whether their skills fill a gap on the team, and whether they’ve really thought about whether the job is what they really need right now.¹

What do you think? Do you hire for fit? Where do you think it makes sense to hire for “fit”?

1. I asked a young bookseller once what he thought of his new job and he hesitated and then spat out, Books are heavy! If you fantasize about working in a bookstore someday, keep that in mind. I always used to joke that Oprah could recommend the Bookseller Diet – walking around the store all day, carrying piles of books, moving books from top shelves to bottom shelves and vice versa. I didn’t realize how much exercise I was getting until I moved to a desk job and had to plan time to exercise. ↩︎