Hiring as Cultural Matching
2012/11/28 by Lauren A. Rivera · 1,204 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Business #Economic growth #Economics #Elite #Gender Diversity and Inequality #Interpersonal communication #Labour economics #Law #Marketing #Matching (statistics) #Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy #Political science #Productivity #Psychology #Public relations #Salient #Scholarship #Service (business) #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Social psychology #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1177/0003122412463213
published in American Sociological Review 77(6), 999-1022 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2012/11/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Abstract
This article presents culture as a vehicle of labor market sorting. Providing a case study of hiring in elite professional service firms, I investigate the often suggested but heretofore empirically unexamined hypothesis that cultural similarities between employers and job candidates matter for employers’ hiring decisions. Drawing from 120 interviews with employers as well as participant observation of a hiring committee, I argue that hiring is more than just a process of skills sorting; it is also a process of cultural matching between candidates, evaluators, and firms. Employers sought candidates who were not only competent but also culturally similar to themselves in terms of leisure pursuits, experiences, and self-presentation styles. Concerns about shared culture were highly salient to employers and often outweighed concerns about absolute productivity. I unpack the interpersonal processes through which cultural similarities affected candidate evaluation in elite firms and provide the first empirical demonstration that shared culture—particularly in the form of lifestyle markers—matters for employer hiring. I conclude by discussing the implications for scholarship on culture, inequality, and labor markets.
Citations
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