[russelluresti]

I'm not sure I agree with the "team fit" thing. I get his point - most people don't understand what team fit is or can't separate it from personal bias. But here's my counter-argument.

Every company and team has different core values. "Team fit" means matching company and team values. For example, I work on educational software for teacher and students. My definition of "team fit" (for this particular team/company) is that the person care about improving quality of education. If you're applying just because you need a job but don't care about what it is we're making, I don't care about any of the other criteria listed in this article - I'm not hiring you. You may be smart, able to learn, and a great communicator - but you don't care about what we're building so you don't have the same core values as the rest of the company and team.

This is what "team fit" means - not what they look like, what they do in their off time, or anything else; "team fit" is "do they personally value the same things we value as a team"?

If you value transparency and collaboration and they prefer to work as a lone gunman, they're not a team fit. If you value rapid iteration and user feedback and they don't want to release anything until it's 100% perfect in their eyes, they're not a team fit. So on and so forth with the examples.

[potatolicious]

So don't call it "team fit" or any such vague terms. The problem with these generalities is that they can be (and are often) used to hide personal biases and discrimination.

You work on educational software for teachers and students, so evaluate your candidates based on clear, specific complaints. It's not "bad team fit", it's "this candidate doesn't care about education software".

Eliminate these vague generalities in favor of specifics. This is useful for yourself and your team, since people are forced to be more introspective when they must be articulate about why they dislike someone.

"Bad fit" is a cop-out that allows people to dismiss others without having to issue specific complaints that might cause their brain to go "wow, these words make me sound like a dick".

[watwut]

Most people are fully able to work in both 100% done and release flawed but soon scenarios. Most people simply adjust to company they work in just fine. Almost all are also can work in both team and lone gunman settings - although they will have preference there.

Unless you are very careful, you can select out very good candidates basically based on how companies they previously worked in performed in those scenarios.

[russelluresti]

There's a difference between what you CAN do and what you VALUE doing. Yes, people can put up with conditions they find undesirable, but they'll be unhappy and cause others working with them to be unhappy as well.

[walshemj]

Also what is often ignored is teams need a range of personality types I found the Belbin tests fascinating.

When I did it my top role was plant and the course leader assumed I worked at BT Labs which was flattering (US equivalent would be Bell Labs).