Ex-Apple recruiter: There's a dark side to 'culture fit' hiring

If you really sit down and think, what does ‘cultural fit’ constitute at your organisation, you might find that it rules out more than it lets in.

Rachel Bitte, Chief People Officer at recruiting software company, Jobvite believes there’s an unexpected dark side to the practice, which creates homogeneity at a firm.

“I think companies really have to be careful,” says Bitte, who has over 20 years of HR experience working at Apple and Intuit, to Business Insider. “What do you mean by a ‘fit’ for your company?”

Whilst hiring managers want to bring on people with the right mindset, their own definition of cultural fit can lead to a lack of diversity as unconscious biases seep in. “There are unconscious biases around, ‘Hey, this person went to the same university that I went to,'” Bitte says. “There’s a gender bias. There can be a race bias or a language barrier.”