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Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

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Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#291

Post by user5994461 »

sidlls wrote: post #228
oceanghost wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we just be honest? Us older folks won't build things we know doesn't work against synthetic deadlines, then work overtime to fix what we knew wasn't going to work in the first place, while taking the blame politically. Engineering has in my lifetime become "unwinnable." I'm either not "a team player" or "being negative" for planning for reasonable failure scenarios. Then politically I still take the heat when the…

Engineers aren't blameless, here. In fact they're at least as much the problem as "bad employers". Constantly seeking to use the latest shiny tech toy whether it's appropriate or not (e.g. "Big Data" tools to run stuff on a few GB of data) is a thing, especially in the Bay Area. It leads to a bunch of people with a small amount of shallow experience in a large number of soon-to-be-deprecated technologies. Few want to…

>>> Also, that the product is 10% better/more stable/whatever frequently does not translate into even a 10% increase in sales.

It's quite common for things to generate or save money. Sadly, most engineers won't bother counting the results related to their work.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#292

Post by oceanghost »

sidlls wrote: post #228
oceanghost wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we just be honest? Us older folks won't build things we know doesn't work against synthetic deadlines, then work overtime to fix what we knew wasn't going to work in the first place, while taking the blame politically. Engineering has in my lifetime become "unwinnable." I'm either not "a team player" or "being negative" for planning for reasonable failure scenarios. Then politically I still take the heat when the…

Engineers aren't blameless, here. In fact they're at least as much the problem as "bad employers". Constantly seeking to use the latest shiny tech toy whether it's appropriate or not (e.g. "Big Data" tools to run stuff on a few GB of data) is a thing, especially in the Bay Area. It leads to a bunch of people with a small amount of shallow experience in a large number of soon-to-be-deprecated technologies. Few want to…

I agree, but this is essentially a tragedy of the commons problem being exploited by management.

Keeping up with new technologies is essentially a proxy question for, "How much free time do you have that I might exploit later?"

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#293

Post by user5994461 »

vitno wrote: post #225
racer-v wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it).

I was once hired for a C++ position _because_ I hated on C++ during the interview.

C++ is the exception. You can't be senior without despising all the intricacies of the language.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#294

Post by wwweston »

sgustard wrote: post #168
combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

They are discriminating against age, not experience. A 25-year-old with 10 years of experience (elite teen hacker!) is far more attractive than a 50-year-old with 10 years of experience (second-career washout).

I'd be surprised if the average 50yo applicant seeking a development job was a second-career "washout" (whatever the word washout means for someone who actually has managed to stay working in any career for a decade). In fact, I'd guess that among 50yo applicants, more of them were teen hackers and have 30+ years of software development experience than have <10 years of experience, though perhaps the median might be more like 20+.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#295

Post by sheeshkebab »

tracker1 wrote: post #240
lorenzq wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If that older Unix or C++ programmer doesn't have a strong bias against Javascript, functional programming, new es6/es7 concepts, and web appliactions in general, then sure. I see many of these types of people even on HN with biases though. Age shouldn't be used as a catch all filter, but I can see how it might be faster to screen those who have been too content to stick to their tools without catching up to industry…

I've been building web applications for over two decades... I love most of the newer tooling over anything I had even a decade ago. Though I do prefer React+* over Angular. I've kept up, some things I love, somethings I frankly use sparingly... that said, I'm definitely biased. I'm more likely to ride on the bleeding edge (Node 8, Webpack 3, Babel 7) than most. I am afraid though, in under a decade it will be an uphi…

There is only so far you can go competing with teenagers in node/js space - pick a different tech stack for the future.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#296

Post by user5994461 »

didibus wrote: post #276
che_shirecat wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

highly skilled professions like law, medicine don't have a problem with age discrimination, because of the marginally significant positive correlation between years of experience and results. these fields also weed out the incompetent early. there's plenty of well-paid >50 software engineers out there who have no problem finding work, because they've made a mark in some way throughout their careers in the field or ha…

Though there's been some research recently showing that younger doctors are better, because they're aware of the latest research. I wonder if that's going to lead to some ageism in medicine because of that.

Not a chance. The amount of doctors has a hard limit fixed by regulations, there will always be work for all of them and at good wages.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#297

Post by emodendroket »

dreamfactored wrote: post #282
emodendroket wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Call me cynical, but I am always surprised when people sincerely appeal to "agile/scrum values" of team autonomy or whatever to contest management diktats because, like... isn't it totally predictable that that part will be ignored whenever it is inconvenient?

Agile is like dieting, simple but hard and requiring a lot of discipline. Very very few companies are any good at it but done well, it's a complete transformation.

I think it's more like a cult, where it's supposed to solve all your problems and any problem you identify with it just proves you aren't doing it right.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#298

Post by user5994461 »

inetknght wrote: post #233
racer-v wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My advice to graybeards: when somebody is excited about a new technology XYZ, don't say "oh, we did that 20 years ago and called it ABC". It annoys people, because generally XYZ has important differences that prevent ABC from being a drop-in replacement. Instead you can say "that reminds me of a similar concept we used to implement using ABC", and quietly appreciate that you got a leg up in understanding because of y…

When XYZ is just ABC with additional layers on top which kills performance and/or security...

And then you quote the drawbacks of ABC and it turns out that the interviewer has the same issues with XYZ because it's trying to do the same things. Now he hates you because he really believed in XYZ, maybe wrote it himself.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#299

Post by Consultant32452 »

iak8god wrote: post #49
loeg wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> because I figured people over a certain age probably wouldn't know the technologies I was looking for This is precisely the kind of age discrimination the law is intended to prevent.

Yep. I was hoping that sentence would end with "because I figured people over a certain age probably wouldn't be interested in entry-level positions ," and I was prepared to think that was an interesting point.

Why would that be any less discriminatory?
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