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A new research paper finds employers tend to favor job candidates they want to hang out with.
Chances are, you’ll never see a job listing like this: Help (and friend) wanted — Must share common interests and be fun to spend time with.
But a research paper released Thursday finds that when it comes to choosing job candidates, employers place a heavy emphasis on finding people who are similar to them, and whose company they enjoy.
Lauren Rivera, an assistant professor of management and organizations at Northwestern University, spent two years interviewing people who were hiring entry-level candidates for several elite law, investment and consulting firms.
She found that the companies did give considerable weight to whether the candidates were qualified for the job, including looking at things like which university they graduated from, what grades they earned and their knowledge of the field.
But she was surprised to find how much importance they placed on finding candidates who were a good “cultural fit” for the company. That often meant things like sharing a common interest in certain sports or extracurricular activities, or just being the type of person you’d be content to go on a business trip with.
As one consultant she interviewed put it:
“It seems like we’re always at work. We work nights; we work weekends; we are pretty much in the office or traveling. It’s way more fun if the people around you are your friends.”
Rivera also gave evaluators mock resumes listing certain extracurricular activities. She found that some evaluators accepted, or rejected, candidates based on things totally unrelated to job experience and qualifications, such as whether they’d played squash or lacrosse.
Of course, it makes sense that people will hire people that they like. But Rivera said she was surprised by how openly people talked about recruiting candidates in the same terms they might use to discuss finding friends or even romantic partners.
“I expected people to be a bit more guarded, but I think it’s taken for granted (that this is) part of the industry: I need to be able to get along with you,” she said.
There are clear upsides to hiring people you like, because you are more likely to get along with them and work well together. But Rivera noted that, especially at the elite firms she was focused on, the shared interests and extracurricular activities also often signaled a middle- to upper middle-class upbringing.
“There is definitely a bias concern, and I think class bias is definitely an issue,” she said.
She thinks that people from lower economic classes or more diverse backgrounds might be excluded from those jobs simply because they didn’t do certain extracurricular activities, or didn’t know to put them on their resumes.
“Firms can miss out on great people,” she said.
Rivera said other highly technical industries, such as engineering or neuroscience, may place less importance on finding co-workers they like and more on the skills needed to do the job. But she does think that in any industry, part of selection process is going to involve looking for people you get along with.
The findings of Rivera’s research didn’t come as a surprise to Comila Shahani-Denning, an associate professor of industrial and organizational psychology at Hofstra University.
Shahani-Denning has done research on how being attractive can affect people’s chances of getting jobs or commanding higher salaries. She’s currently looking at how LinkedIn and other social media sites are affecting hiring decisions.
Because employers are looking for good cultural fits, jobseekers should be especially careful about the photos they post on sites like LinkedIn, and about the extracurricular activities they list and the groups they belong to. Those things can help you make a connection with an employer, but they can also exclude you from a potential job.
Shahani-Denning also cautioned that by hiring candidates similar to their current staff, employers miss out on people who might bring different perspectives or experiences to the workplace.
“My feeling is that although it’s an attractive kind of tool to use, it can be dangerous,” she said.
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Educational discrimination! A lot of jobs including ones in the government need no college education but are only filled with the college educated. This is because the people doing the hiring want to hire one of their own kind and not people they perceive as less intelligent.
I look at a person's experience and work history more than I do their education.
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It's an easy way of weeding out many applicants.
If you really want to get a job done...You put people together that clash. The work get's done in record time and you can sit back and watch the fireworks!
You're benefits are:
The work completed in record time.
You had a great day enjoying the fireworks and knowing you made some people's day like a day in hell and if they do not come back, you can hire more smucks for less the next day and you do not have to pay insurance costs, pay for Holidays or vacations.
This my friend is Company profits you reap that make it possible to take a trip to the Bahama's and enjoy!
The person that can keep their nose in their own buis. will be easy for anyone to get along with. Unfortunately, management is more anxious to hire those they can show off; have sex with; introduce to outside friends; party with in their management group. But then when hiring for the 'middle- and lower-end' positions, they then hire the average kiss-ass who cannot live their own life that they always brag about, while the management has a good time with their coddling. So the whole office/store/factory always has to work on edge with a bunch of screwy drama that even the management does not even really care about.
All of this, including the article, shows that the problem with the American economy is not money, or employers would be much more concerned about the ability of the whole work place to just get the job done.
They may as well report a scientist has discovered the sun rises in the east ! This is not news. Many successful small businesses have been hiring family and friends since the dawn of time. People you can trust and get along with are important to the business as well as making the human experience worthwhile. When people who can't trust each other are forced to work with each other, one must submit to the other or there is fighting and chaos. IF one submits there will be peace and productivity for a while but eventually that arrangement cannot be sustained. Rules must come in to control the situation. The rules cause costs to go up which theatens competiveness. So it is obvious on many counts that it is better to hire people who share your values, outlook, logic, ethics, skills, etc. Intelligent people of diverse background can be productive and friendly - if they want to. But when they decide one can lord it over the other their situation breaks down. The job suffers.
IReadyou I have seen your scenario played out many times. And if the management is inept, not all bad situations ever break down and can even go on for years.
The fact is, under adept management, such situations seldom get out of hand. Which brings up anonther point. Instead of human resources worrying to death about every single hire - may be the focus needs to be on hiring better managers. My view is supported by the poor service records of many companies around now.
I only hire very good looking women.
It's a balance of both. Someone needs to be capable and have a positive attitude. Cultural fit is extremely important. When you have that the team excels and everyone's performance is elevated. One brilliant jerk can screw up the whole works. I love the posts favoring the most person that is really great at the job. How do they know? Each situation is different.
@Concerned - You're a horrible manager and will peter out in middle management somewhere being crappy at your job.
FGH. I agree witrh you. HR and all the rules they bring in are often destructive. Better to have fewer rules but quality management personnel, able to hire, train and fire as needed. Respect for each other and good manners are the foundation management skills are built on. Let employees who cause trouble or fail to perform deal with unemployment. That goes for managers. Everybody has to answer to somebody. IF you own the company you have to answer to your customers. Unless business has been socialized - which may be the case and requires another discussion.
A person fitting into the companies philosophy and fitting in with others to me ranks a little hire than the job requirements. Most people can learn to do any job. Making personalities fit together is a little harder.
The way to make different personalities work together is to have good company policies. If you are afraid of diversity then you should have never been a manager.
I don't think she meant a non-diverse company just one where people get along. It really is a good idea because if you have one worker that is continually clashing with all the others, are they worth keeping? No, not really. What if they are good at their job? No, not really. This is mostly because they won't collaborate very well with others which reduces overall productivity. Also, many things are learned by various people and if people don't share their experiences, often two (or many more) employees waste a lot of time figuring out the same thing. This is way more likely if people on the team don't like each other because they won't talk.
No one is anti-diversity, though. I know I love working with people from other countries just as long as they're not a dick.
Lisa, you must not work in the pharmaceutical development field. :-)
I have to disagree with the idea that involvement in sports has no relation to working - playing something like hockey or lacrosse indicates an understanding of teamwork, while something like tennis indicates more personal motivation. I think those things are very relevant to potential job performance.
? No one said anything about sports.
Collaboration is important in any knowledge work. I suppose in just about all jobs actually.
To hire a person who you think that you will get along with over ability is asking for trouble. So many people fudge the way that they come off on paper and in an interview. They are often not what they appear to be. These people can do real harm to the organization if they are not fully prepared to add to the viability of its existance. If a hire is really good, you may find that you will like them a lot as time progresses. Everyone will be better off for it.
Your comments are true and we all know from experience that there are a lot of people who are phonies that kiss up to the boss.Those are usually the lazy and unskilled employees.
SO would you hire some one that calls every one a scum bag and that they are worthless and rips peoples underwear off better because he can replace a motor in 5 hours?
Auto 101 - why do you think that if you hire the person who is best for the job, they will automatically be a jerk? How about hiring the all around best person for the job - including personality and skills?
Auto 101, just because someone does not look/act/think like you does not mean that they are a scum bag. You are the kind of manager that keeps work from being meaningful as a group activity since you apparently prefer kiss-asses.
Yes, many people (I think most) fudge on paper.
We have had a couple of duds in my office. They don't get their work done, clients complain about them and they don't get along with the rest of the staff.
Fortunately, three of them have left voluntarily. I went through the old files and found their resumes and documentation from their interviews. They did indeed come across as stellar choices.
On the other hand, one of our best employees was sent to us as a temp from another department. She had interviewed for our office a couple of times but was never chosen; she didn't interview well. When her temporary status ended, we moved mountains to get her full time permanent.
This could help explain why rich people and employers have more friends than poor people. If you want to get ahead in life, being friends with a rich person or an employer will be more likely to get you a decent job.
Rich people actually are afraid that people only like them for their money so they actually have less friends than those at the other socio-economic level.I believe that you are confusing politicians with wealthy business owners.
I would say that maybe the upper middle class people (not rich) seem to have more friends because they can afford to go out for drinks and dinner with friends, so it is more visible.
Sally Lu, it's a shame that it was not always this way. Once upon a time.
Actually, I believe poorer people have more friends. They also seem to be more easily entertained.
When people have wealth and power they have to be more careful about who they get close to.
this is not true, I've hired tons of people and hanging out with them never entered my mind. Prior experience and personality are tops with me, then education.
You are gold.
Right... personality is important. That's what liking to hang out with someone basically is. If your people get along together, they'll work better together. Education can be pretty important too depending on the field. For factory work I would say it's irrelevant. If you're going to be working in IT or health care for instance, it's very important.
Hiring people who you would like to hang out with and not consider their skills is a company waiting to fail.Your employees are not your friends.You hire a person for their job skills and or experience because that is what you are paying them for.If you want friends to hang out with go out and be social with others.
When I post a help wanted ad, I tell them they must have a sense of humor. I work a bazillion hours, and I'm just not going to work will a sour face, no matter how good they are at what they do.
When I interview, I really look at their employment history. Multiple short term employment situations spell trouble to me, and then I pick apart their references.
I could really care less if they play squash, or eat squash. By the time I'm done interviewing someone I have a pretty good gut feeling one way or the other.
My last question has to do with how they answer about felony arrests, if any. Then I say this: "So I guess you're not an ax murderer" If they laugh, I laugh. If they don't I call my sources who check out such things....
Multiple jobs on a resume in an economy such as this is common place today. I would not want to work with you and your small minded bias.
32 - I have a tremendous sense of humor and could not imagine working for someone like you. So everyone that doesn't laugh at your inane joke gets investigated as an ax murderer?
32 - I dig that. People are too uptight in the office these days. It just makes work dreadful.
I do the same thing from the other side of the table. I will find out who is interviewing me and look them up online to see what they're like. Then I play to their interests. It's really never let me down. Although, I am def not a kiss ass, if we have something in common I make sure to mention it (they don't know I know, so it seems natural).
In reality you need to consider both.
I don't hire because I like them but I won't hire if I don't like them...I've also decided that big mouthed reichwingers are terrible employees so I've replaced them the past 4 years with more enlightened employees...profits up 100% since
Rick - Reich in German refers to an empire of kingdom. Recht is the German word for right. Maybe they were unproductive because working for a left wing nut job like you drove them crazy. See I can be just as bigoted and obnoxious as you.
@Joe - That's what he's talking about. Right wingers tend to get all up in arms and argue with everyone because very few people agree with them. I would wager they tend to be type a personalities. While they're driven, they tend to be abrasive and not know how to keep their fists down when talking about anything.
That is a very broad generalization about 'right wingers'. Are all people on the left bleeding heart liberals?
Employers tend to hire people they'd like to hang out with
Might be true to some extent but a lot of hiring nowadays relies on impersonal methods (e.g. online applications & resume submissions).
Even if you make it through the interviewing process there's no guarantee you'll like the person who might hire you, though they might like you. Interviews are a two-way street.
This isn't new information, so in the order of least importance to most the following three criteria are ranked...(3) If the individual can satisfy the MINIMUM qualifications for the position, (2) is perceived to be a good fit to the existing cultural landscape (don't just look good, look/act like us), AND (1) you like them, that's the person who has a greater probability of getting hired.
Yep, liking you is most important because you're going to train and/or adapt the skill set of the new person anyway, assuming those things are true I just need to know if you could "fit in" with the existing culture...a hiring decision based on this premise can usually be justified if things don't pan out and an explanation is required.
In the decades when America was most prosperous, the 'cultural landscape' was not a concept. Those are also the decades that racism and sexism came under political scrutiny. Now that those things have been confronted legally, it is as if another group has just got to be able to find something, anything, to still be able to discriminate.
How's that discriminating? If you aren't likable (and believe me, it's not hard to be likable), you won't get very far anywhere. Generally the people that aren't likable are either arrogant, greedy, racist, something. People generally don't arbitrarily not like someone.
nolan-4517032 obviously noone will hire anyone who appears arrogant, greedy or racist. But who goes to an interview acting those ways?
This is not a problem of sorting out the worst from the rest of us. There are not that many among us who are scary and usually the scary ones are not going to stay hidden long. The problem that the article implies is that too many people judge others by the slightest infractions, and that is what is unethical.
I learned over 30 years ago that hiring people because I liked them is a pretty stupid thing to do. My criteria became a) can they do the job, b) are the available when I need them, and c) do I not dislike them. Overriding all that is the knowledge that I can be be friendly, but not friends, with the people I manage.
Apparently, some people are too immature to be able to understand that not having a strong dislike of someone does not necessarily mean that you have to absolutely love them.
Wow. Things have really changed. I was brought up to understand that your co-workers are not your friends and that you're not at work to socialize. I draw a thick line between my work life and my personal life with a permanent marker. I have worked with and for people I didn't like personally, but respected because they were so good at their jobs. The vast majority of my co-workers do not share my interest and I don't share theirs.
Agreed.
Exactly. The person that needs to take the workplace home is a fool.
What's really annoying is when you get into white collar jobs and they insist on having this after work meetings at bars and what not. It's like, I don't want to hang out, dude. We just spent 40 hours together.
Hiring someone in the hopes of becoming friends is a slippery slope. It will make things much more complicated down the road if you start to have problems. My philosophy is this: I hire employees, I don't adopt them.
And that employer who wants to be your buddy will stab you in the back if given the chance. Friendships at work is not really the best way to ensure you have a job. Don't poop where you eat. Safer that way.
People need to seperate the friendship from the job. I think management should be looking for people qualified for the job. That is what friends outside the job are for.
Really poor judgment to look for friends to hire. It puts the employee in a bind if the fact is they really don't like you much just needing a job.
Why is this a surprise?
Once the basic skill set is met, then most people will hire some one that is more like themselves then different. It's a VERY rare manager (especially in Middle Management) that is going to take a chance on any one that is too far from the established company norm.
No wonder it is so hard to get a job today!! I have hired people because they are competent, not because I need a friend.
This is a shocking and disturbing article. I look forward to retirement!
That is ridiculous. It is all about how you "sell" yourself to the company. The company is purchasing your human capital.
It maybe beside the point to mention this in these economic times, but periods have existed when in fact, it was the company that needed to sell it's 'capitol' to it's prospective employees.