Want To Work For a Cool Tech Company? Hone Your Social Skills

jfruh writes Big companies like Google may need to fill seats with high-skilled workers, but smaller companies — which often fit the profile of the hip workplaces people dream of — still have the luxury of picking and choosing. That's why applicants' social skills and "cultural fit" are so important, which may shatter your dreams of tech as a clique-free meritocracy.

Comments

Want to work for a startup that fails?

[Anonymous Coward]

Want to work for a startup which is guaranteed to fail? Go look for employers who care more about having fun than getting shit done.
Don't like working with nerds and introverts? Then your tech business will fail.

Re:Want to work for a startup that fails?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nerds and introverts can have perfectly good social skills. Don't use your profession as an excuse to be a jerk.

"Culture Fit" is an excuse for discrimination

[ragethehotey]

Rich white frat boy "tech founders" like being around other rich white frat boys. Anyone that says otherwise, has never set foot in present day San Francisco.

Re:"Culture Fit" is an excuse for discrimination

[cayenne8]

Rich white frat boy "tech founders" like being around other rich white frat boys.

You had me at rich.

:)

But seriously...if they got rich by knowing enough tech to found and build a startup, what's your beef with them? And, of course, most people like to hang out, and associate with people that reflect the same traits and beliefs that they do, that's just human nature.

But if YOU are a flexible person, you should be able to get along with most anyone. Me? I went through high school and ran with many crowds. I hung out with the potheads in the parking lot, I knew a lot of the jocks and went to parties with all strata of kids, many of whom had FAR more money than my family did, but that didn't stop me from connecting and making friends of all types.

I found that working early jobs in the service industry helped....bus boy, waiter, bar tender, retail sales all helped me learn even more about how to work with people.

Same skills took me from there to college and later to my professional life. Know what? I still am able to generally speak with and deal with and even schmooze with folks of all types in the world.

Learn some people skills, and don't get so hung up on what other people are like. So what if it is a rich white frat guy.

Learn to deal with them and it might get you in the circles of people that are getting wealthier and help you do the same.

General applicability

[Sneftel]

Want to work in a decent, non-dead-end job, with the opportunity to advance your career and make a meaningful difference to the world? Learn to interact with people. Learn empathy, learn communications skills, learn to temper your urge towards condescension and dismissal. If you're a coder, it's 50% of your job, assuming you're doing your job right.

Re:I'll never be employed

[Buck Feta]

I like people well enough, but I'm a Morlock, not an Eloi. I want to get things done, not gab with your about the brats you spawned to replace yourself.

Right on, man! (or woman!). I like your personality type. I think it adds to the cultural diversity of a workplace. Many places I've worked have had the person who "tells it like it is", and mostly, unless they're overtly hostile, people appreciate someone like you and learn to get along. "That Bruce is such a grump." "I know - I showed him a picture of my kid and he said 'I don't care about your kid'. He's such a character!" Seriously, a team comprised of diverse personalities may even be more productive than a team of people who all just want to show eachother pictures of their kids all the time. Be productive and don't rock the boat - don't be someone you're not.

A what?

[smellsofbikes]

>your dreams of tech as a clique-free meritocracy

How is a meritocracy not just another type of clique?
How is hiring people for their excellent social skills not a meritocracy?
There are so many implicit values embedded in the statement that it becomes a declaration of an extremely specific type of workplace the submitter (or editor) wants and thinks everyone else should want as well. It's the equivalent of the guy without a knife asserting that the guy with the knife should drop it and fight like a man.