Why Companies Hire for Comfort and Fire for Performance

Two candidates sit across from you in final-round interviews for the same role.

The first candidate answers questions with precision. They have a track record of results in similar positions. References confirm they consistently exceed targets. During the case study, they demonstrate exactly the problem-solving approach your team needs. But something feels off. The conversation doesn't flow. You can't quite picture them at team drinks.

The second candidate is less polished on paper. Their answers meander. The case study response is adequate, not exceptional. But you click. They went to your alma mater. They're into the same podcasts. The conversation feels easy. You find yourself thinking: "This person would fit right in."

Which one gets the offer?

If you're like most hiring managers, you choose the second candidate. You rationalize it as "culture fit." After all, teams work better when people gel, right?

Here's the uncomfortable truth: you just hired for comfort and will likely evaluate for performance. These are not the same criteria.

Real hiring is rarely this clean-cut. Most decisions involve trade-offs. But the pattern holds: we weight social comfort more heavily than we admit.

This isn't a hiring mistake. It's strategic misalignment.

What we SAY we're selecting for (capability, results, innovation) doesn't match what we ACTUALLY select for (comfort, familiarity, ease). We hire based on one set of criteria. We fire (or lose people) based on an entirely different set.

In my work with tech companies across gaming, SaaS, and web3, I see this paradox play out repeatedly. Companies invest heavily in defining their values, building their employer brand, and optimizing their interview process. Yet they consistently make the same mistake: confusing social comfort with job performance.

Until we align these, hiring will continue to fail.

What "Culture Fit" Actually Measures

Let's be precise about what we're assessing when we invoke "culture fit."

Social comfort When interviewers say someone is a "good fit," they typically mean the candidate's presence feels comfortable. The conversation flows naturally. There are no awkward silences. The candidate laughs at your jokes.

Behavioral familiarity Fit often translates to "behaves like us." Same communication style. Similar body language. Comparable energy levels. If your team is full of extroverts, the quiet candidate who thinks before speaking suddenly becomes "not a culture fit."

Demographic similarity Research from Northwestern's Lauren Rivera found that hiring managers consistently interpreted "fit" as sharing background markers with candidates. Bonding over college crew, vacation spots, or restaurants became evidence of fit. Sharing a passion for client service or teamwork was not.

Affinity bias Our brains are hardwired to prefer people who remind us of ourselves. It's a cognitive shortcut that helped early humans identify friend from foe. In modern hiring, it helps us exclude qualified candidates who don't match our demographic profile.

Notice what's missing: any measure of whether they'll actually perform the job well.

The typical culture fit interview (would I grab a beer with them?) has weak predictive power for job performance. You're measuring likability, not capability. Research on unstructured interviews consistently shows this. When we rely on "fit" as assessed through casual conversation, we're predicting comfort, not competence.

While certain cultural elements like values alignment do correlate with retention (Schneider's Attraction-Selection-Attrition framework shows this), that's not what most "culture fit" interviews measure. They measure whether someone shares your communication style, your background, your approach. That's homogeneity, not values alignment.

Most companies never test whether their "culture fit" assessments actually predict performance. They assume the correlation exists. It usually doesn't.

The Cost of the Paradox

The culture fit paradox doesn't just lead to bad hires. It systematically undermines organizational performance in ways most companies never recognize.

Homogeneous teams deliver worse outcomes When everyone thinks alike, blind spots multiply. McKinsey tracked over a thousand companies and found a correlation: diverse leadership and outperformance. Correlation doesn't prove causation (successful companies might have resources to invest in diversity), but the pattern is consistent across industries and geographies. The effect persists even after controlling for company size and market position

Why? Diverse teams process information more carefully, consider a broader range of alternatives, and make better decisions. Katherine Phillips's research demonstrates that the mere presence of diversity makes people work harder. When teams expect diverse perspectives, they prepare more thoroughly, anticipate alternative viewpoints, and process information more carefully. Heterogeneous groups scrutinize their assumptions more rigorously than homogeneous groups because they can't rely on shared understanding. 

The friction of difference produces better thinking in knowledge work and innovation tasks. The research is strong here. But boundary conditions exist: diversity benefits are largest in complex problem-solving, weaker in pure execution roles. And poorly managed diversity can increase conflict without the performance gain. Task conflict (disagreeing about the work) improves decisions. Relationship conflict (personal friction) kills teams. The same diversity that makes you smarter can also create burnout if you lack psychological safety to channel it productively.

High performers leave When companies hire for fit, they often get people who mesh well socially but lack the skills to excel. Or they get high performers who don't "fit" and eventually leave. Benjamin Schneider's Attraction-Selection-Attrition framework explains this dynamic: organizations naturally select people similar to existing members, and those who don't fit eventually exit. The result is a talent monoculture.

Recent research from Harvard Business Review found that gender-diverse teams maintain integrity under pressure better than homogeneous teams. When stakes are high, diverse teams keep their cognitive resources sharp and vigilant. They challenge each other's assumptions rather than falling into groupthink. Homogeneous teams, meanwhile, take shortcuts that feel efficient but lead to blind spots.

Systematic bias becomes entrenched Culture fit serves as a euphemism for excluding people who don't share our background. Wharton's Katherine Klein puts it bluntly: "While we invoke cultural fit as a reason to hire someone, it is far more common to use it to not hire someone. People can't tell you what aspect of the culture they are worried about."

The hiring manager who passed on the technically superior candidate at the start of this article? They just perpetuated whatever demographic characteristics already dominate their team. If the team is mostly male, mostly white, mostly from elite universities, that profile will persist. Not because those characteristics predict performance, but because they feel familiar.

Performance problems emerge later Here's the cruelest part of the paradox: the person you hired for comfort will eventually be evaluated on performance. Six months in, when they're not hitting targets, the social comfort that got them hired provides no protection. You're left with a poor performer you liked during interviews and a nagging sense that you should have known better.

Why We Fall Into This Trap

If culture fit predicts so little and costs so much, why do we keep using it?

Affinity bias is hardwired We like people like us. It feels safe. Decades of social psychology research confirms this. Similarity attraction is a fundamental human tendency. Fighting it requires deliberate system design, not just good intentions.

Discomfort feels like risk When someone makes us uncomfortable (asks challenging questions, has a different communication style, comes from an unfamiliar background), our brain codes that as potential threat. We rationalize it as "not a good fit" when what we really mean is "this person makes me work harder to communicate."

Hiring is high-stakes A bad hire costs money, time, team morale. When the pressure is on, we default to what feels safe. And what feels safe is someone like us. Extensive research on decision-making under uncertainty shows this pattern.

"Fit" is easy to assess Do I feel comfortable with them? Yes or no. Instant answer. Competencies? Those require structured assessment, behavioral interviewing, work samples. That's harder. So we take the shortcut. We optimize for what's easy to measure, not what matters.

This is why the culture fit paradox persists. The psychology driving it is strong. Breaking it requires more than awareness. It requires systems.

Breaking the Paradox: The Shopify Alternative

In 2017, Shopify made a deliberate shift. Instead of asking "would they fit?" they started asking "what would they add?"

They called it "culture contribution" or "culture add." The premise: instead of hiring people who match your existing culture, hire people who will expand it.

For several years, this approach appeared to work. The company grew rapidly. Innovation metrics stayed strong. They became known as one of tech's more diverse employers.

Then, in early 2025, Shopify dismantled most DEI programs.

Why?

Multiple pressures converged: cost cuts (tech winter lingering), political climate (post-2024 U.S. election anti-DEI wave), and leadership decisions (CEO Tobi Lütke's vocal shift toward meritocracy absolutism). 

Did they also drift from "hire people who add value" to "hit diversity targets"? Likely. When frameworks become compliance exercises, they break. Whether metric drift was the primary driver or one factor among many, the lesson stands: frameworks without sustained commitment fail.

Here's what the original framework got right:

The Values-Competency-Add Framework

1. Values Alignment (Non-Negotiable)

Define what your actual values are. Not the poster on the wall. The real values. The principles that, if violated, would make someone fundamentally incompatible with your organization.

For Shopify, this included things like craftsmanship, iteration, merchant focus. These were assessed explicitly. If someone didn't align on core values, they weren't hired, regardless of how much they might "add."

This is different from "culture fit." Values are explicit, behavioral, and actually matter for how work gets done. "Fit" is vague, subjective, and often codes for "like us."

A warning: values interviews are where "fit" sneaks back in wearing a costume. "We move fast and break things" has filtered out anyone over 35 or with family obligations for decades. Values must be defined behaviorally (what specific actions demonstrate this?) and with contra-traits (what do we explicitly NOT tolerate?) or they become another similarity screen dressed up as principle.

2. Competencies (What Predicts Performance)

Can they actually do the job? Not "have they worked at impressive companies?" but "can they demonstrate the specific capabilities this role requires?"

This means structured behavioral interviewing. Work samples. Simulations. The selection methods that IO psychology research consistently shows predict job performance.

Most companies skip this. They see someone from Google and assume competence. That's credential assessment, not competency assessment.

3. Culture Add (What You're Missing)

Explicit question: What perspective, experience, or skill does this person bring that we don't currently have?

Not "are they different?" but "what specific thing will they add that makes us better?"

This requires knowing what you're missing. Which requires honest assessment of your gaps. Which most teams never do.

Where Shopify (and Most Companies) Struggle

Implementation is hard. Training interviewers to assess "add" reliably is harder. And when you're stressed and need to fill a role yesterday, defaulting to "someone like us" is tempting.

Then someone introduces metrics to ensure consistency. Percentage targets. Diversity scorecards. Suddenly you're optimizing for the metrics, not the contribution. You're hiring to hit numbers, not to add value.

That's when it breaks. That's when you get backlash. That's when leadership rolls back programs because they've become about compliance, not capability.

The framework isn't wrong. The drift is.

The Diagnostic

Test yourself. Are you falling into the culture fit paradox?

The Beer Test: If "would I grab a beer with them?" is your PRIMARY criterion, you have the paradox. Some rapport matters for collaborative roles (genuine toxicity is real), but assess it structurally (can they give and receive feedback? handle disagreement?) not vibes-based (do they feel like us?).

The Homogeneity Test: Look at your last five hires. Do they share similar backgrounds? Similar communication styles? Similar demographics? If yes, you're selecting for similarity. That's culture fit, not culture add.

The Performance Test: Of your last five hires, how many would you call exceptional? If fewer than three, your selection criteria aren't predicting performance. You're selecting for something else. Probably comfort.

The Challenge Test: Do your recent hires regularly challenge team assumptions? Bring new perspectives? Make anyone slightly uncomfortable with good questions? If no, you've optimized for agreement. That's not what you said you wanted.

The hardest question: Are you willing to hire someone who makes you work harder to communicate with them, if they'll make the team better?

If the answer is no, you don't actually want high performers. You want comfortable performers. Which is fine, if you're honest about it. But don't be surprised when comfortable and capable don't correlate.

The Way Forward

The culture fit paradox exists because we're dishonest about what we're selecting for.

We say we want performance. We select for comfort. Then we're shocked when they don't align.

Breaking the paradox requires three things:

Honesty. Admit that "fit" makes you comfortable, not confident in performance. Admit that you're probably selecting for similarity. Admit that the current approach isn't working.

Explicit Criteria. Replace "fit" with specific, assessable criteria:

Values alignment (defined behaviorally, not vaguely)

Competencies (assessed through structured methods, not gut feel)

Culture add (explicit question about contribution, not just difference)

Sustained Focus. The framework requires discipline. When you're tired, default to comfort. When you're pressured, default to familiar. The system only works if you keep it focused on what matters: capability and contribution, not compliance and comfort.

What does sustained focus look like? Regular calibration. Every quarter, review your last five hires. Are they actually adding what you hoped? Did values, competency, and add all matter? If you're drifting toward just hitting diversity targets, or just hiring people you like, or just credential-checking, you'll see it in the pattern. Course-correct before it becomes culture.

Shopify showed this works. Then showed what happens when focus drifts. Both lessons matter.

High-performing teams aren't comfortable. They're aligned on values, selected for capability, and diverse in perspective. The friction produces better outcomes, if you design for it instead of avoiding it.

Stop hiring for fit. Start hiring for values, competencies, and what they'll add that you're missing.

The goal isn't to eliminate culture. It's to build better culture through intentional selection rather than unconscious replication. And when you inevitably discover you've overcorrected on one dimension, recalibrate rather than scrap everything. Shopify's mistake wasn't implementing culture add. It was abandoning years of progress instead of adjusting course.

The question isn't "Who are we?" It's "Who can we become?"

 

Yalin Consulting

anil@yalin.consulting

For Further Reading

Barrick, M. R. (2023). Cultural fit and person-organization dynamics in selection processes. Dissertation, University of Houston.

Carucci, R. (2024). "The hidden cost of culture fit in hiring." Forbes Leadership.

Phillips, K. W. (2014). "How diversity makes us smarter." Scientific American, 311(4), 43-47.

Rivera, L. A. (2012). "Hiring as cultural matching: The case of elite professional service firms." American Sociological Review, 77(6), 999-1022.

Schneider, B. (1987). "The people make the place." Personnel Psychology, 40(3), 437-453.

Schmidt, F. L., & Hunter, J. E. (1998). "The validity and utility of selection methods in personnel psychology: Practical and theoretical implications of 85 years of research findings." Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 262-274.

McKinsey & Company. (2023). "Diversity wins: How inclusion matters." McKinsey Quarterly.

Harvard Business Review. (2016). "Why diverse teams are smarter." HBR Research.