Hiring as Cultural Matching

Abstract

This article presents culture as a vehicle of labor market sorting. Providing a case study of hiring in elite professional service firms, I investigate the often suggested but heretofore empirically unexamined hypothesis that cultural similarities between employers and job candidates matter for employers' hiring decisions. Drawing from 120 interviews with employers as well as participant observation of a hiring committee, I argue that hiring is more than just a process of skills sorting; it is also a process of cultural matching between candidates, evaluators, and firms. Employers sought candidates who were not only competent but also culturally similar to themselves in terms of leisure pursuits, experiences, and self-presentation styles. Concerns about shared culture were highly salient to employers and often outweighed concerns about absolute productivity. I unpack the interpersonal processes through which cultural similarities affected candidate evaluation in elite firms and provide the first empirical demonstration that shared culture-particularly in the form of lifestyle markers-matters for employer hiring. I conclude by discussing the implications for scholarship on culture, inequality, and labor markets.

The Dream Is Over: The Crisis of Clark Kerr’s California Idea of Higher Education

“…Weber, Max 29,38 Western Europe 4,31,34,54,56,59,65,68,82,85,89,92,93,94,95,96,99,103,111,114,128 World Class Universities 52,[71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][73][74][75][76]77,78,83,84,108 World War I 4,12 World War II 2,3,15 Yale University 42,43,45,54,102,138,163 …”

“…Concerns about shared culture were highly salient to employers and often outweighed concerns about absolute productivity. " 79 Cultural similarities operate as "more than just sources of liking; they are also fundamental bases on which we evaluate merit, " states Rivera.…”

Recruitment Strategies, Matrices, and Techniques Used in Hiring Veterans

“…When matching an applicant to a job, human resource managers possess an awareness of the applicant's social identity (Gholston, 2015). This is important because social identity theory highlights issues such as bias and stereotyping during the interview process (Rivera, 2012). Stereotypes and bias can influence the human resource manager's hiring decision without the person's knowledge (Gholston, 2015).…”

“…Using social identity can assist hiring managers in the hiring and recruiting of veterans to eliminate the barriers in veterans' employability and development diversity in the workplace. Diversity training involves initiatives designed to aid in positive interpersonal interactions across social identity groups in reducing discrimination and bias toward various groups (Rivera, 2012). P5 noted, "I have never had a veteran apply."…”

Missing the tide? Workplace cultural differences as a barrier to seafarer mobility in the U.S. workboat and sail training sectors

“…To help understand such an environment, we refer to the substantial body of research that describes employer hiring practices and the psychology of job-seeking and hiring in white-collar contexts, which share some similarities regarding idiosyncratic culture and selective hiring (Coverdill and Finlay 1998;Sekiguchi 2004;Sekiguchi and Huber 2011;Rivera 2012). Rivera (2012), for example, presents the hiring process as 'cultural matching (1006)' between employer and employee based upon markers of perceived cultural similarity. This concept applies well to our study, as both the sail training and workboat sectors possess rich traditions borne from the rigors of the seafaring lifestyle and the demands of the work.…”