Several years ago, right here on HN, a Google employee expressed shock that candidates wouldn't bother to open the "red book" and review before showing up for an interview at Google. I had no idea what the "red book" was. Turns out that it's a particular algorithms textbook used by several top universities. That poster was so wrapped up in a particular culture that he was using colloquial slang to refer to expectations.
That's about the same time I realized tech hiring is almost entirely about cultural bias. Watching coworkers talk about rejected candidates as if they were morons for simply having a slightly different approach to, say, OOP architecture, further convinced me of this.
In my experience, "culture fit", as cited in post-interview discussion, was almost purely code for ageism. Meanwhile, most of the supposedly technical stuff was really culture.
That's about the same time I realized tech hiring is almost entirely about cultural bias. Watching coworkers talk about rejected candidates as if they were morons for simply having a slightly different approach to, say, OOP architecture, further convinced me of this.
In my experience, "culture fit", as cited in post-interview discussion, was almost purely code for ageism. Meanwhile, most of the supposedly technical stuff was really culture.