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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

#431

Post by andrei_says_ »

mtpn wrote: post #302
eric_b wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you, and this is a hard lesson to learn. But I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. Software should really only be measured by the value it provides. If a terribly buggy piece of poorly written code still saves hundreds of man hours a week, it's a win. (Unit tests be damned) If that big ball of mud that's using 20 year old technology still prints a billion dollars a year - that's a win. (Microservic…

I’m a web developer in my spare time. I write little things that solve problems in my two day jobs, they haven’t tended to be pretty because often I’m learning as I go and when it works then it’s truly time to move on to the next problem, even though I now know enough to solve the old problem again more elegantly. I’m trying to use better practices and modern JS frameworks in new projects just for experience, even th…

Saying all this shows that 1. You care and 2. You know the difference.

I’d hire you.

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

#432

Post by angel_j »

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…

It's a managerial move; and most of these companies are still quite manager led; it's the reason for frameworks like Angular, which is a manager's tool, not a developers - the manager can replace one react developer with another, and stay the (fr)agile course;

There's probably a bunch of managerial bias as well about the type of person they can control easier; young eager dummies, or folk with experience who know better than be treated badly

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

#433

Post by extrapickles »

e40 wrote: post #207
MilnerRoute wrote: post #191

I want to believe these companies don't know it's illegal to discriminate based on age. Because the alternative is that they're intentionally discriminating -- and thinking they won't get caught, because the ads are only appearing on Facebook. But any government agency that's investigating this can obviously just to ask Facebook for the company's ad buys, and there's an irrefutable paper trail. (It can't be that hard…

I want to believe these companies don't know it's illegal to discriminate based on age. Are you serious? This is HR 101. There is no manager in the US that works for a company with an HR department (1 person is fine, that's all we have, and she's part time) could ever NOT know this.

In the US, an employer is even required to put up posters saying that its illegal to discriminate on age.

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

#434

Post by tarsinge »

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…

Yet my experience is that the issue comes from engineering a lot of times: fixing bugs is not fun, let’s rewrite everything because this time we learned from our errors, or just to use the new shiny framework. A buggy legacy code base that no one wants to touch or improve, and V2/New projects that of course completely fail to deliver in the end and the cycle repeats. Being in a customer team I try everyday to make Engineering care about non technical end users. My team and business might be responsible for some feature creep, but bad code quality comes from engineering practices.

Edit: to be more clear the discussion usually goes like this:

- Me: “where are we on fixing this bug? it’s been two years and customers are still complaining”

- Engineering: “we can’t touch at this component it’s a mess but we are rewriting it, this bug will no longer exists and it’ll be so much powerful, just wait a few month”

We all know how it ends. And when business pressure comes because it failed to deliver it’s all “business is evil we need more time to do great software!”

What we really need is senior and experienced engineers IMHO

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

#435

Post by bdcravens »

itronitron wrote: post #400
leggomylibro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly. Well, iOS11 needs to ship on its annual schedule, non-negotiable. And the SVP will really complain if I ask for more money this quarter. So, cheap it is. If a bridge falls down, it's really obvious and people die. If bill…

In my experience, worse work typically gets done a lot more slowly than good work.

I don't think they mean slow development. Rather, overall rate - all other things equal, someone who insists on no more than a 40 hour week will accomplish less than someone willing to work 60-80 based on whatever metric you use (KLOC, story points, etc)

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

#437

Post by synotna »

joe_the_user wrote: post #407
Terr_ wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Software should really only be measured by the value it provides. The problem is when the "negative value" is externalized leading to false evaluations. "Oops, so sorry we leaked all your social security numbers. Our bad."

Yes, the "software should really only be measured by the value it provides" attitucde is kind of the key problem we're facing in a whole lot fields. Because it's not really the value overall the software provides that's being talked about but the instantaneous, immediately visible payoff to a single consumer that software, the people or that consumables are getting judged by. If the software is going to result in tro…

It's up to regulation - self or government imposed - to factor externalities in, change society and/or change the law

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

#438

Post by vfc1 »

The best way to avoid this altogether is to start your own Internet business way before hitting 50. Why would you still want to be working for someone else at that age?

Being an employee is not the only way to earn a living, internet entrepreneurship is a very realistic alternative, and a much better life in general.

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

#439

Post by k3liutZu »

bdcravens wrote: post #435
itronitron wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, worse work typically gets done a lot more slowly than good work.

I don't think they mean slow development. Rather, overall rate - all other things equal, someone who insists on no more than a 40 hour week will accomplish less than someone willing to work 60-80 based on whatever metric you use (KLOC, story points, etc)

I think his argument still applies to an "overall" metric.

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

#440

Post by asmosoinio »

leggomylibro wrote: post #76
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…

It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly. Well, iOS11 needs to ship on its annual schedule, non-negotiable. And the SVP will really complain if I ask for more money this quarter. So, cheap it is. If a bridge falls down, it's really obvious and people die. If bill…

> It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly.

But in my experience, this is not true AT ALL. More experienced people might work less hours, but will produce the actual end results much quicker - both in hours and in calendar time.

Especially when considering that less experienced devs will (on the average) cause more bugs and worse code structure - in the long run this causes a ton of extra work. In my opinion that is the main difference that easily makes someone a "10x" or a "100x" developer.

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