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Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

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Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#101

Post by afpx »

DavidWoof wrote: post #89
afpx wrote: post #2

Excellent news! Up until age 39, I was never not given an offer after interviewing. Now after 40, my offer rate has dropped to 1 in 14. So much for the claims that there is a shortage in tech. So crazy.

I'm a programmer in my late 50s. While age discrimination is real, and I certainly have my share of "not a culture fit" and "overqualified" rejections over the past 10 years, if you're getting rejected over 90% of the time then I strongly suspect the problem isn't age discrimination. It's much more likely that your skills are out of date or you've gained some bad interviewing habits that you should examine. If people…

No way. Sorry to be blunt. Sure, my speed has decreased a little. But, I make better decisions which saves orders more time. And, my skills are still solidly top 15-20%. I know most modern databases, Java, Scala, Python, JavaScript, Angular, React ... the list goes on. I only claim to be an expert in things I’m actually an expert in.

To be fair, I do try to interview at interesting companies. So, that could be the problem. Maybe, it’s easier in IT or government contractors. But, I’d be pretty depressed.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#102

Post by dvtrn »

DavidWoof wrote: post #89
afpx wrote: post #2

Excellent news! Up until age 39, I was never not given an offer after interviewing. Now after 40, my offer rate has dropped to 1 in 14. So much for the claims that there is a shortage in tech. So crazy.

I'm a programmer in my late 50s. While age discrimination is real, and I certainly have my share of "not a culture fit" and "overqualified" rejections over the past 10 years, if you're getting rejected over 90% of the time then I strongly suspect the problem isn't age discrimination. It's much more likely that your skills are out of date or you've gained some bad interviewing habits that you should examine. If people…

"Overqualified" has got to be the softest insult you can throw at a job seeker. It ostensibly says "we aren't secure in ourselves as employers to challenge our workers to produce great work, nor do we value original thought, so we'd rather hire drones that don't rattle the cage".

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#103

Post by drakonka »

yathroaway wrote: post #35
p0nce wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Readers: what's your exit strategy? You probably need one.

Management

I just rejected a path to management a couple of months ago after trying a lead role for a few months and deciding it's not a good fit for what I want to do. I really hope I didn't screw myself over for the future, but on the other hand if the only way I'll have a future in this industry when I get older is in management roles I don't like I may as well move on to something else at that point.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#104

Post by lclarkmichalek »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #62
notacoward wrote: post #52

As a 53-year-old Facebook employee, I find the part about Facebook doing this for their own hiring a bit odd. To the extent that anyone has ever reacted to my age with anything other than mild surprise, people generally seem quite glad to see something besides another fresh 20-something face and to hear the voice of long experience. Then again, I didn't come in via a Facebook ad. Maybe companies use different methods…

I don't know. I was recommended to a specific domain-specialized role in Facebook by someone with a long tenure inside the company, and after the recommendation, I was just auto-routed into the standard, crappy candidate pipeline like everyone else, told I'd have to do whatever 6-month rotation bootcamp, asked why I didn't have a bunch of Javascript experience. It certainly felt like they make an effort to pedantical…

So everyone in the same role goes through the same interview, and everyone in the same role goes through the same 6 week bootcamp. The aim, as I understand it, is to avoid talk like 'that person was hired into team X, they must suck at Y' or 'org X is easy to get in to, I wouldn't want to work with someone who was hired into it', and to allow more internal mobility without the need to reinterview. I can join any team for my role without needing to interview again, which reduces the friction a lot.

With that said, sorry you had a bad experience :/ The Javascript question does sound misplaced.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#105

Post by B0btheBuilder »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #67
agotterer wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of reasons I’ve seen for ageism in startups are cost and “not a culture fit”. Cost I understand, but I believe more experienced people end up being cheaper in the long run when you account for speed, correctness, and long term maintainability. The culture piece stems from the “would I get a beer with this person” and will he/she work as “hard” as a younger candidate with less responsibilities. Startups need to s…

Startups aren’t going to change. The goal should be to marginalize their influence and effects on tech hiring. They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do.

>They are simply not important enough (by hiring volume) to carry the weight they currently do.

Unforunately, they are. A large proportion of the tech industry is startups / small businesses. I'd be surprised if Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/Microsoft make up even 10% of tech workers.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#106

Post by StreamBright »

ams6110 wrote: post #57
ashelmire wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age discrimination in tech is dumb. I've got a dev 30 years my senior sitting across from me and I guarantee he will code circles around 90% of the devs on HN, and 100% of the new grads getting jobs at big tech (and will until he dies). He's got a huge amount of knowledge in programming, our domain (NLP), he's fast, thorough, and thoughtful. Honestly I don't get the obsession with recent grads. They are basically use…

> Honestly I don't get the obsession with recent grads. They will work more hours for less money. This is nothing new. My first job out of university in the early 1990s was for one of the "big" consulting firms. 50-60 hour work weeks were the norm. I made decent money (they paid overtime) especially for a first job, but I wouldn't do it at my age now with a family and kids.

One of the worst people I worked with was a guy who worked 12+ hours and his code was insanely complex for no good reason. He rewrote other people's code over night without any review. Because he was good friend with management he could get away with it. He created a 100.000 line ETL tool that I replaced with 1000 lines one, that also run 10-100 times faster. I did it while explained everything to all of the team members so everybody was onboard. I never work more than 8 hours and I am willing to be fired over this. I guess work more hours is not indication of any quality and people should not be judged based on this.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#107

Post by autokad »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #55
wmeredith wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they were targeting older workers as part of a diversity program?

Again, I'm not all that knowledgeable of the law, but I believe the intent of it is to oppose ageism in either direction. Shouldn't it be?

But what if there are demographics A, B, C, and D and C is under-represented in their workforce. I get why a company would want to target C. Whether that is right or wrong, I have mixed feelings on.

I can also see legitimate situations where you would not want to put adds in front of people who you have no intention of offering a position to. For instance, if you need to fill a Senior position, why show it to a fresh graduate or an internsip/co-op to someone with 10 years experience. again, I have mixed feelings but I can see why a company would want to do it

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#108

Post by afpx »

maxxxxx wrote: post #100
afpx wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No hyperbole. Seriously, I was as shocked as you are. It was a very humiliating experience. A few interesting things that I’ve experienced: - Companies tend to like me enough that they keep asking me back to “meet more people” - a very time-wasting process that often ends with silence (and no returned emails or calls) - When rejected from a particularly interesting company, I will sometimes offer to work for free or…

Definitely never offer to work for free or a reduced rate. It just shows that you are desperate and don't value yourself. If you want to work for free, give speeches or contribute to open source or write a book. There activities will get you respected by other people. Working for cheap makes you lose people's respect.

True. But, I was desperate.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#109

Post by reaperducer »

dvtrn wrote: post #102
DavidWoof wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a programmer in my late 50s. While age discrimination is real, and I certainly have my share of "not a culture fit" and "overqualified" rejections over the past 10 years, if you're getting rejected over 90% of the time then I strongly suspect the problem isn't age discrimination. It's much more likely that your skills are out of date or you've gained some bad interviewing habits that you should examine. If people…

"Overqualified" has got to be the softest insult you can throw at a job seeker. It ostensibly says "we aren't secure in ourselves as employers to challenge our workers to produce great work, nor do we value original thought, so we'd rather hire drones that don't rattle the cage".

In some industries it means, "You've got a ton of experience, and know this stuff inside and out. But we don't want to pay for someone who knows what they're doing."

As you stated, they're looking for inexperienced drones.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#110

Post by cannonedhamster »

philipov wrote: post #85
agotterer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is there a belief in this industry that working more hours == productivity? Arguably a more experienced developer could do the same work (if not better) in less hours. The right to not work 12 hours a Day shouldnt be something that is earned with age. If a team is consistently required to put in unreasonably long hours it’s either due to being understaffed or poor planning. Both are a recipe for disaster...

Because managers can measure hours, but they can't measure effectiveness.

Good managers can measure effectiveness. The problem is it's hard to quantify to higher ups, and even when you do quantify the data, it never beats the sales guy drinking with the boss and knowing the boss's taste in wo/men.
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