On 4/10/13, I did my 7th interview for The Recruiting Animal’s Blog Talk Radio show. For about 15 minutes The Recruiting Animal & I discussed the relationship between cultural fit & diversity, & whether recruiters contribute to bias when trying to hire for fit. In addition to the podcast, below is additional information, via written correspondence between Animal & myself, regarding this topic. My segment of the show, 15 minutes, is here as an MP3. Also, the entire show can be found on the web here.

According to The Recruiting Animal: Corporate recruiters talk endlessly about the importance of cultural fit while their HR departments talk endlessly about diversity. The two ideas seem opposed to me. Fit says we want to hire people like ourselves & diversity says we want to hire people who are not like us — & it’s backed by law.

After show thoughts from The Recruiting Animal: As for the issue, I’m still confused. The answer most people chose today was that race, etc., does not rule out similarity of culture. But it seems to me that HR people assume that it does & that this is its advantage. They think it enhances the dominant white culture. So then, hiring for culture contradicts HR’s interpretations of diversity. They think race, ethnicity, religion = culture.
And they think diverse culture rather than mono culture is better for business.

From Chuck Krugel (addendum to the interview): The culture issue goes deeper than race, gender, religion, etc. I think that companies say that they hire for culture to find, instill or establish a certain set of behaviors among their employees & company; i.e., to establish a certain pattern of behavior at work. Also, employers hire for certain skills or abilities, but that could be exclusive of the behavior they desire. These skills or abilities include educational degrees, certifications & experiences.

The behavior I’m talking about can easily be confused with homogeneity among racial, gender, socioeconomic status & other classes, but really what employers are looking for are those employees who fit the company culture by manifesting the sought after behaviors. These behaviors could be excellent listening skills, being “one of the guys” at work, empathy, not questioning authority, ability to follow orders & communication.

Obviously, there’s a lot of overlap between these behaviors & skills & abilities, but the bottom line is that you can have a racially, ethnically or otherwise demographically diverse company, & still have one that’s more homogeneous in terms of personality types & behavior. Some practitioners believe that this homogeneity of behavior or personality types increases employee engagement & therefore increases profitability, while not discriminating on the basis of any of the protected classes. I tend to agree with this as long as the company can validate its need for those behaviors & personalities.

Response from The Recruiting Animal: But, here’s the problem as I see it. Goody goody HR people conflate cultural, intellectual, racial, ethnic, religious & gender diversity. They claim that if someone is Greek he is going to have a different culture & that this diversity always adds to the business process in a company dominated for example by WASPs. Intellectual diversity apart from racial, etc., diversity is completely ignored. The idea that culture clash causes friction is also ignored. The idea that ethnically diverse people are not culturally diverse solves the problem, but it contradicts the ideas of HR people that they are diverse and that diversity is good.