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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

#411

Post by debt »

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…

Yeah you don’t understand business.

Code quality is vastly, vastly overestimated.

Many very powerful systems that you rely on everyday to do even the most basic of shit, contains some of the most well-tested, battle-hardened shitty code you can’t even imagine.

Writing “good, high quality code” is intangibly, unquantifiably expensive.

Sounds like you’ve only worked on very small projects.

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

#412

Post by metaobject »

user5994461 wrote: post #272
whatshisface wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My universal advice to graduating CS students is, "no matter what your current code quality/dev speed balance is, your boss will think you're polishing too much."

Second advice. If you want to pretend that quality matters, move to aerospace, finance, or any critical systems. Third advice. It's not enough to fix bug, everyone MUST know that you fixed that weird bug that customers were complaining about for years and noone could understand the cause.

And make sure to record it so that at the end of your yearly review cycle, and before the raises are decided, you can remind your upper management of your notable accomplishments.

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

#413

Post by Thinpad »

"Used responsibly, age-based targeting for employment purposes is an accepted industry practice and for good reason: it helps employers recruit and people of all ages find work," said Rob Goldman, a Facebook vice president.

Rob if you are reading this you sound like an idiot. What were you thinking before uttering those words. Please do all of us a favor quit that VP role you are definitely not a leader material :).

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

#414

Post by Bahamut »

emodendroket wrote: post #249
lurr wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to work with you on anything, as I strongly suspect your attitude extends well beyond javascript.

You think having preferences, and being aware of them, and avoiding environments not in line with them, makes him a bad prospective co-worker?

Having preferences is one thing, but being judgmental/presumptuous towards people working in that realm & using slang with a clear derogatory bent to describe them for something that does not inherently relate to morals is another.

It’s a sign of a bad attitude.

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

#416

Post by andai »

avs733 wrote: post #326
QuackingJimbo wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are a few places where this is not true Where?

https://www.fastcompany.com/28121/they-write-right-stuff

> That’s the culture: the on-board shuttle group produces grown-up software, and the way they do it is by being grown-ups. It may not be sexy, it may not be a coding ego-trip — but it is the future of software. When you’re ready to take the next step — when you have to write perfect software instead of software that’s just good enough — then it’s time to grow up.

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

#417

Post by katastic »

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…

I'll tell you right now. There is ABSOLUTELY discrimination against older workers. Even though most workers these days don't stay at companies for more than 5-10 years, if a worker is "too old" they think they'll be too hard to train, or "just looking to retire"--even if the length of time is the same.

My father is the pinnacle of excellence and professionalism as a plant engineer. Everything that got me ahead of my fellow students and into a Ph.D. program, I owe to his teaching and critical thinking. He walks into a building and immediately notices things that can be improved and will save them money. (And he's not a jerk about it, either.) He worked for a company for 25 years, and others almost as long. And ever since that 2008 recession? He's been out of a job. His plant got bought out and sold off. They kept him on longer than anyone else because he was one of the best employees they had--but the company eventually went away.

And now? Nobody will hire him even with countless references from management to coworkers. "He's too old." And one recruiter literally told him that.

Imagine how depressing that must be, to work your ass off your whole life and doing "the right thing", putting in 110%, going into work at 3 AM because "the line is down!" and what's he got to show for all that extra work? A dwindling savings account that was supposed to be for retirement, and countless rejections from companies who wouldn't know a good employee if it smacked them in the dick.

That's not how you treat the people who literally built the infrastructure you grew up on. It's reprehensible. And I cannot, for the life of me, understand why anyone (with a brain) would really care about age when all that matters is: "Can you make me money?"

Someone may say, "Well, they can pay a junior engineer less money." Yeah, and a junior engineer is going to have less experience reducing costs, and improving reliability. There's a reason we pay experienced engineers more. Because they add more value for a unit time. It's not like we just go "Oh, you're older now. So here's some more money."

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

#418

Post by outworlder »

hackits wrote: post #176
ryanmarsh wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If billions of computers become vulnerable to malicious actors and a few hundred or thousand people suffer dramatic personal damages, well that's a nice and quiet problem which will be quickly forgotten in the 24-hour news cycle. This. I do development coaching and training. I’m totally burned out because my job doesn’t matter. These companies don’t care. They hire me to “increase code quality” but that ends up being…

I think you've nailed it on the head but haven't realized why you've nailed it on the head. `Why? These things have real consequences.` To a business they see software/engineers as a expense. The whole focus as a business is to provide a service that people are will to pay more than it costs to provide said service. Everything else doesn't matter, what does matter for a business is $$$$$ and making sure business does…

> Get out of your cube and go and meet CEO's and CIO

Oh right.

Good luck even ATTEMPTING to arrange a meeting with a Fortune company's CEO. "Who from what department again?". Worse yet if it not even your company's CEO.

Maybe, if you are lucky, you can get to skip a level or too. Software engineers are usually very far removed from the top leadership.

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

#419

Post by btilly »

exelius wrote: post #394
btilly wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I STRONGLY disagree. My experience is that programmers who become "architects" and are only responsible for design and code review tend to go downhill in their skills. It SEEMS like an efficient way to use experienced people, but it is actually an anti-pattern. Their tendency is to develop ideas that sound good but don't work well in practice, and there is no direct way to correct the mistake. (Any time it doesn't wo…

I mean; that’s fine. I wouldn’t want that job either — it’s why I got an MBA, got out of the tech side and now actually have power over hires/fires and product direction. But unless you’re directly bringing revenue in the door, you are a cost item to be cut. As soon as they can find someone cheaper, they will.

Don't worry, I'm OK.

Lots of companies are smart enough to figure out that it is cheaper to hire competent people than to accept the boneheaded mistakes that the cheapest warm body would make.

Besides, the ones that don't figure it out are no fun to work at. Who wants to be on the side that's bound to lose in the long run?

I just wish that they did less collateral damage on their way down.

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

#420

Post by outworlder »

raz32dust wrote: post #140
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…

Knowledge in the software industry tends to get outdated much faster than in other industries. While there are timeless software engineering practices that are good and evergreen, about 70% of my knowledge today will be outdated in 5 years. This is not true of other industries. Sure, other professionals need to keep themselves updated as well. But the percentage of knowledge that a bridge architect needs to update is…

The kind of knowledge that gets obsolete is replaced by stuff that's very similar.

Doesn't matter if it is a new language, framework or whatnot. There have been very few advances in our field, stuff changes incrementally. So you have seen everything before, it just has a different twist. You can pick this crap up in a fraction of time, as the concepts are already internalized.

... Unless, that is, if you used to call yourself "X developer", for whatever value of X. Then you are unidimensional, and screwed.

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