We Stopped Hiring for Culture Fit and Started Hiring for Culture Add - Here's Why It Made Us a Better Team
A straight-talk perspective from Digitally Next
The Honest Confession First
For a while, "culture fit" was one of our favourite hiring phrases.
We used it with good intentions. We wanted people who'd gel with the team, who'd vibe in standups, who wouldn't clash with how we worked. On paper, it sounded like we were protecting something worth protecting.
What we were actually doing - and it took us longer than we'd like to admit to see this - was hiring the same person, repeatedly, in slightly different packaging.
Same communication style. Same professional background. Same instinctive reactions to briefs. Same blind spots.
And a team full of people who agree with each other isn't a strong team. It's a comfortable one. There's a difference.
What "Culture Fit" Was Really Screening For
Here's the uncomfortable truth about culture fit as a hiring filter: it's almost impossible to apply without bias creeping in.
When a hiring manager says "I'm not sure they're the right fit," what they often mean - without realising it - is: they're not like us.
Different energy in the room. Different way of framing ideas. Different background, different references, different instincts about what good work looks like.
None of those are red flags. In a creative agency, most of them are assets.
Culture fit, applied uncritically, doesn't protect your culture. It calcifies it.
What Culture Add Actually Means
Culture add isn't the opposite of culture fit. It's a more honest version of the same question.
Instead of asking "will this person slot into how we already work?" - you ask "what will this person bring that we don't already have?"
It's the difference between hiring to maintain and hiring to evolve.
A culture add hire might challenge how you run a briefing. They might have a reference point your team has never heard of. They might push back on a creative direction in a way that initially feels uncomfortable and turns out to be exactly right.
They share your values. They just don't share your defaults. And that distinction is everything.
What Changed When We Made the Shift
We won't romanticise it - the shift wasn't seamless.
Early on, some culture add hires created friction. Meetings got longer because more perspectives were in the room. Creative reviews got more contested. A few decisions that used to take twenty minutes started taking forty.
And then something shifted.
The work got sharper. Client presentations started landing differently because someone in the room had flagged a blind spot before the deck went out. Campaigns started reaching audiences we'd previously talked at rather than with. Internal debates that used to feel uncomfortable started feeling like the most valuable part of the process.
The friction wasn't a problem to manage. It was the signal that something real was happening.
The Criteria We Actually Hire On Now
Dropping culture fit didn't mean dropping standards. It meant getting more precise about what our standards actually are.
We now hire on:
Shared values, not shared style: Do they care about doing honest, effective work? Do they take accountability seriously? Do they treat people well? Those things are non-negotiable.
Intellectual honesty: Can they disagree without making it personal? Can they change their mind when the evidence shifts? Can they say "I got that wrong" without it being a crisis?
Curiosity that shows up in the work: Not just interest in marketing or advertising, but genuine curiosity about people, culture, behaviour. The kind that makes you better at this job without being told to improve.
Comfort with discomfort: Culture add hires bring new energy. That requires a team willing to be challenged. We look for people who find that energising, not threatening - on both sides of the hire.
What We Ask in Interviews Now
We retired questions like "describe your ideal team environment" because they just prompt people to perform the answer they think we want.
We replaced them with:
- "Tell us about a time you disagreed with a decision that went ahead anyway. What did you do with that?"
- "What's something you believe about this industry that most people in it would push back on?"
- "What have you changed your mind about in the last year, professionally?"
These aren't trick questions. They're designed to surface intellectual honesty, self-awareness, and genuine perspective - the things that make a culture add hire actually additive.
What This Means If You're Applying to Digitally Next
We are not looking for someone who fits a mould.
We're looking for someone who has a point of view, owns it, and is still genuinely open to being wrong. Someone who will make us think differently about a brief, a client problem, or how we run a meeting.
If you've been told you're "a lot" or "too opinionated" or "not the right vibe" somewhere else, we'd genuinely like to hear from you.
The team we're building isn't a mirror. It's a mosaic.
Frequently Asked Questions
Culture fit asks whether a candidate will slot into how a team already works - often defaulting to familiarity and similarity as proxies for compatibility. Culture add asks what a candidate brings that the team doesn't already have. The distinction matters because culture fit, applied without scrutiny, tends to homogenise teams over time, while culture add hiring builds teams with diverse perspectives, instincts, and references - which directly improves the quality of creative and strategic work.
No, it means getting more precise about what your standards actually are. Culture add hiring separates non-negotiable values (accountability, intellectual honesty, quality of work, how people treat each other) from stylistic preferences (communication style, personality type, shared background). The bar doesn't drop; it gets more clearly defined. You stop filtering for sameness and start filtering for substance.
Culture fit as a filter is increasingly recognised as a driver of unconscious bias in hiring. When interviewers assess 'fit,' they often unconsciously favour candidates who remind them of themselves or their existing team - in background, communication style, or cultural references. This quietly excludes capable candidates and leads to teams that are comfortable but not necessarily effective. Research consistently shows that cognitively and experientially diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones on complex, creative problems - exactly the kind agencies deal with daily.
At Digitally Next, culture is defined by values, not aesthetics. We hire people who take honest work seriously, hold themselves accountable, stay genuinely curious, and can disagree without making it personal. Everything else - work style, personality, background, perspective - we actively want to vary. Our interview process is designed to surface intellectual honesty and real point of view, not to find candidates who perform the 'right' version of enthusiasm for the role.