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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

#571

Post by gdilla »

scarface74 wrote: post #518
asmosoinio wrote: post #440

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. 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 l…

And twitter became a successful (questionable) company with buggy code and the infamous "fail whale". You don't need good code, you sometimes just need shippable code to get by until the company executes on their exit strategy.

Hasn't Twitter racked up 2.5B in losses and yet to turn a profit (though reportedly close to doing it for the first time ever). 2.5B in losses for a platform you could build and scale for what, $10M now. Very questionably successful - some people got rich so yes, i suppose?

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

#572

Post by tigershark »

dorgo wrote: post #467
lemmings19 wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only ever heard one person ever mention KLOC's, and they were in their 60's nearly a decade ago. They were explaining how people were using it as a measurement of work done in the 80's, and what a terrible idea it was to measure throughput that way. You're the second person. When was the last time you encountered anyone using KLOC's (per 1k lines of code) as a measurement of work done? Are they working on mainfr…

I like to use LOCs to see at a glance the size of a project. A more complex business logic usually takes more LOCs to write it down. And I bet there is a strong correlation between LOCs and hours worked on a project which would make LOCs a good approximation of work done. Actually I should research it. Should be not too hard to find all the tickets for projects and compare the time logged to LOCs.

1) There is no fixed correlation between LOCs and business logic complexity. 2) there is actually an inverse correlation between LOCs and amount of work done. When I'm most productive I actually decrease the LOCs.

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

#573

Post by doktrin »

exelius wrote: post #560
doktrin wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As soon as they can find someone cheaper, they will. This applies to everyone everywhere, and particularly positions that anyone with basic language and reasoning skills can fill (PMs, MBA types, etc)

Naw, the MBA jobs are all about personal brand and networking. When you make the rules, they tend to benefit you.

> MBA jobs are all about personal brand and networking

No disagreement there. Just in my experience those jobs are either the first or second to go when things get tough - often because there's an MBA somewhere near the top who recognizes how replaceable all the rest are.

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

#574

Post by totalZero »

tmh79 wrote: post #15

I'm astonished that facebook is successfully able to pull the "we're a platform, its not our fault people are using it illegally" excuse here. There is a huge difference between allowing people to freely post content on places like FB, twitter, or Reddit, and selling access the attention of people that fit specific characteristics. How long until the tech giants are held accountable for willfully skirting decades of…

I can imagine two independent arguments that Facebook might use.

1. It is the responsibility of the advertiser to ensure that the advertisement is legal. Facebook is certainly not the employer, nor is it registered or defined as an employment agency, so by the language of the law [1] it does not meet the definition of an applicable party.

2. If the advertisement itself did not _indicate_ any preference based on age, then it may not have violated the law even if it was disseminated according to age.

The second argument is tenuous because (my understanding is that) users could click the ad to plainly see the targeting criteria, but displaying this is not the doing of the employer, which is the only entity to which the language of the law seems to apply.

[1] https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm "It shall be unlawful for an employer, labor organization, or employment agency to print or publish, or cause to be printed or published, any notice or advertisement relating to employment by such an employer or membership in or any classification or referral for employment by such a labor organi­zation, or relating to any classification or referral for employment by such an employment agency, indicating any preference, limitation, specification, or discrimination, based on age."

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

#575

Post by Broken_Hippo »

ec109685 wrote: post #280
mabbo wrote: post #93

> “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. No, that's... that's literally the opposite of 'helping people of all ages find work'.

Perhaps there are advertisements that work better for some age groups than others? So by targeting, they can deliver the right ad to the right user.

Yes, some advertising will likely work better for some age groups than others. It happens. It is a part of well thought out advertising.

The thing is that they weren't targeting the "right ad to the right user". It isn't like they were customizing ads to different groups hoping to increase their diversity. They were only targeting one group of people and excluding others upfront. No trying to show the ad to older folks nor investing in an ad for those folks. And even if you produce multiple ads targeting multiple ages, it is probably prudent to simply show them to everyone over 18 in the area you are advertising in - just to be on the safe side of the employment laws.

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

#576

Post by vasilipupkin »

BurningFrog wrote: post #422
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 think you're right, and I also think the age discrimination issue is overblown. Take this article. It says that some companies ("dozens") place some ads targeted at younger audiences. NOTHING indicates that it's a major trend or that they do this a lot. The article is written because of a legal issue. But if you only read the comments you get an impression of the streets filling up with discarded old ultracompetent…

My dad is 67 and his phone rings 5 times a day with recruiters begging him to take a call. He codes in c++, C sharp, python, you name it.

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

#577

Post by itsybitsyspider »

Beermotor wrote: post #568
itsybitsyspider wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, this page links to some studies on the topic of fluid vs. crystallized intelligence: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/fluid-and-... A lot of information can be found in psychological literature touching on Cognitive Psychology.

Ok so that answers the age question: a study found fluid intelligence starts to decline the 60s and 70s. I think OP's article is talking about people between the ages of 35 and 60 not being able to see ads. What is more likely is that more experienced workers have higher salary requirements and are less likely to work 90 hours a week.

Those studies don't necessarily give you a definite answer regarding age. Other studies suggest that it starts much earlier: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00016918679...

Salary and work-life balance expectations definitely play a huge role in this phenomena - I'm just pointing out that there might be other factors too - factors that people often reject up front because they feel uncomfortable with them.

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

#578

Post by vasilipupkin »

godzillabrennus wrote: post #424
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…

You can pay less in a salary on average to young people. They don’t challenge you. They don’t tend to need expensive healthcare benefits.

Sometimes, it's the opposite. A 67 year old developer with a pension from a previous job and grown kids doesn't need any benefits

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

#579

Post by egisspegis »

ehnto wrote: post #426
ryandrake wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The topic of your rant is something that it took me forever to accept as a software engineer. Nobody cares about quality. Your method is refactored to be super-fast and have no branches? Nobody cares. Elegant, re-usable architecture? Nobody cares. You've optimized an inner loop in assembly and increased speed by 30%? Nobody cares. Made it to zero compiler warnings? Nobody cares. No known crashers left in the bug trac…

I had the fortune to work at an agency that cared a whole lot, and tended to take on clients who had learned hard lessons from bad code written for the platform we worked in. Code quality matters and has tangible consequences in that niche, and it was awesome to work in that environment. I haven't worked anywhere like that previously, and I think the key factors that brought code quality to the forefront were: * Bugs…

That's a nice place to work in! How was this company doing? Would it be doing better just shipping "if it makes money - it's good enough" code?

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

#580

Post by vasilipupkin »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #210
sgustard wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

That's a false equivalency. They're more likely discriminating between a 25 year old with 3 years of experience, and a 50 year old with 20 years of experience.

Is there any evidence that companies discriminate between two people with exactly the same experience over the last 5 years, with one having additional 20 in something else ?
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