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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

#131

Post by bcoates »

Simon_says wrote: post #3
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.

This is something different. The suit is not claiming that there's discrimination in the hiring processes, but in who sees the ads for the jobs in the first place. Should it be illegal to advertise a job or housing in Black Enterprise magazine, because the readers are overwhelmingly African American? Or illegal to advertise in the Wall Street Journal because they're not?

I don't know if the rules are different in employment, but yes, selective advertising in newspapers with different demographics is considered evidence of "steering"/discrimination in housing. (in California)

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

#132

Post by john_moscow »

galieos_ghost wrote: post #112
shawnfratis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Sorry to say this, but get used, as I have, to getting flooded with employment offers that might as well have a note on the bottom that says "all are welcome to apply-EXCEPT YOU." Why they bother to waste resources to send these out is beyond me, unless they are just sadistic.

Boggles my mind that companies do this. I'm just out of college and am amazed by the depth of knowledge older programmers have. A lot of them can find bugs on an almost instinctive level . I think it might come down to founders being insecure around older engineers who probably won't be afraid to call them out on dumb decisions and won't be as likely to drink the hpye kool-aid because they've seen it all before. Seem…

There's a serious problem with the current economic cycle that basically makes technical expertise and efficiency irrelevant to the ways companies make money nowadays. It's a nasty thing to admit to yourself, but unless you do, you risk ending up exactly like that - no hire despite perfect technical skills due to unspoken reasons you didn't catch.

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

#133

Post by ASalazarMX »

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".

I guess you could hire an overqualified employee as a favor, because he really seems to need the job. He will be happy for a few months until he finds something better. It's up to you.

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

#134

Post by xamuel »

afpx wrote: post #101
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…

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 pr…

Maybe people are worried you'll rock the boat with all those technologies you list. If the group has settled on using React, the last thing they want is someone constantly trying to convert them to Angular.

Another possibility is you don't know those things as well as you think. When you say React do you mean React v.16? Does that include webpack, and if so, which version? If you're claiming to be an expert on all those things, it would make me skeptical. I bet you'd have better results if you focused on a few technologies you unambiguously ARE an expert at, and list the other things as footnotes.

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

#135

Post by cannonedhamster »

seattle_spring wrote: post #51
forgottenpass wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I get your point. Are you implying that trashtalking hip design trends is grounds for age discrimination? Or that older employees give an amount of pushback on design decisions that makes them literally unhirable? I can trashtalk the design on everything I've directly worked on more accurately and damningly than things I read about online that seem like bad ideas. And I do. Do you think because I find f…

The fact that everyone who's offended by the post is claiming that React is a "hip design trend" kind of reinforces the point, doesn't it?

By their very nature almost every single JS library is a hip design trend. The fact that there are so many JS libraries as to warrant a Wikipedia page should prove that point. Most libraries have a specific use case they excel at, but the hype surrounding them usually is more than the usefulness of the library. Claiming that React isn't trendy is kind of like claiming BTRFS isn't trendy. It's being developed and used by Facebook. ReactOS can use it. At the end of the day it will still be niche until it either becomes bloated to provide more usefulness a la JQuery or stops being trendy and just does what it does.

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

#136

Post by dgudkov »

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".

It may also mean that the employer has reasons to believe that the candidate is well aware of his/her skill level and will treat this job as temporary while looking for a higher position in another company.

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

#137

Post by nunya213 »

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.

Shouldn't you be in management by now?

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

#138

Post by cannonedhamster »

ohyes wrote: post #86
notacoward wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Zuck was a jerk in 2007. I suspect even he would admit that. To be fair, though, I was an even bigger jerk at that age and still am.

He was a jerk in 2007, he still is, but he was one then too. Heck, he was probably a jerk in 2003 too.

This reminds me of a Mitch Hedberg joke.

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

#139

Post by zepto »

tyrust wrote: post #116
afpx wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

Resistance to constructive criticism is a potential no-hire signal.

Resistance to inaccurate feedback is essential to autonomous growth.

Institutional certainty in the accuracy of feedback is a red flag for cult behavior in organizations.

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