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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

#291

Post by SamReidHughes »

toephu2 wrote: post #271
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…

Can you speak to ageism at facebook? You must be quite rare there. Anecdotally speaking, whenever I visit the campus it definitely is a majority of 20-somethings walking around (or at least not many devs over the age of 40. I believe there are proportionally a lot more at Google).

If you grow a lot with people moving across the country to work where you're at, you'll be disproportionately young as a result.

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

#292

Post by dvtrn »

dgudkov wrote: post #136
dvtrn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

If an employer fears this and truly feels this way that should be a signal to look at what's going on in their workforce, where gaps exist, and how someone with an "overqualified" work background can help the company close those gaps. You get to evaluate someone without feeling slimy for asking interviewees to work for free, the employee gets valuable experience and increases their worth to you as an organization and it makes it easier to promote them or give them commensurate pay (which: if this is what it took to pay someone overqualified what they're worth to begin with, then you probably deserve to have that person leave).

Sorry if it sounds abrasive-coming from a long history of being tired of the shallow excuses employers have for disqualifying great candidates while simultaneously bemoaning a "talent shortage".

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

#293

Post by dvtrn »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #160
tremendo wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In which case the applicant's employment history would be a lot more relevant. As in, have they been job-hopping, historically "not-lasting" at a job? or do they commit to their work and see it through. If you're offering a decent job and pay fairly, there's no reason to assume an applicant will simply "not last" only because of them being "over-qualified", whatever that means.

I’ve personally applied for jobs I’ve been overqualified for with the intent of getting in the door and moving out of that position as fast as possible. That might be good for me, and good for the hiring organization, but I totally understand the hiring manager blowing me off, because I wouldn’t be filling his need, and in a couple months he’s back to sorting through resumes and doing interviews.

and in a couple months he’s back to sorting through resumes and doing interviews

So you're saying this person would...be doing their job like normal?

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

#294

Post by edikit »

It doesn't seem like the blame should fall on Facebook here, but rather the companies using Facebook's tools to age discriminate (assuming there is even blame to place at all).

Age-based targeting can be applied across their entire platform, not just for job postings, and it can be applied in either direction (i.e. companies can also create ads targeting only people over the age of 40).

> In the amended complaint, CWA alleged that Facebook encourages advertisers to exclude some job-seekers by providing both age filters and regularly updated data on how ads perform among different age groups.

IMO, this complaint achieves the opposite of what they want it to achieve. It suggests that the age-related metrics that Facebook offers are a) explicitly defined by the individual advertiser and b) are used to objectively determine the ad's effectiveness rather than to unjustly discriminate.

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

#295

Post by s73v3r_ »

seattle_spring wrote: post #276
s73v3r_ wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blaming the victim just for the sake of being contrarian is an even stronger one.

Just because someone says, "I'm a victim!" it doesn't actually make them a victim.

No, but the burden of proof is on you to prove that they're not. And you don't have the evidence to back it up.

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

#296

Post by biztos »

biztos wrote: post #192
bo1024 wrote: post #154

Many of the posts here focus on ageism but this is just one example of discriminatory algorithms/ML in action. Don't be surprised if the same headline reappears soon with gender or race substituted. There is currently an academic movement often called "fairness in machine learning" aiming to correct these kinds of behaviors in automated systems.

Thanks, I didn't know this was a Thing in academia. Just found a nice intro here, starting a few slides in: https://fairmlclass.github.io/1.html

OT but I'm surprised this got down voted. Anybody care to tell me what etiquette I violated here?

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

#297

Post by driverdan »

OhHeyItsE wrote: post #188

I always wonder where the myth that older developers are "slower" comes from. Dunno about you folks, but I get better and faster every year. And, for me, that productivity metric is probably approaching parabolic. You learn enough languages, frameworks, tools - all the fundamentals start to merge together. You can pick the next one up faster than you did the one you just put down. You understand how to design softwar…

The slow myth is at least partially from experienced developers putting more time into upfront planning. A novice may crank out a solution faster but it'll have far more bugs and result in technical debt.

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

#298

Post by biztos »

BasHamer wrote: post #255
biztos wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you make the system moral? Let's say "moral" means "won't discriminate based on X" and the same "system" is used by everyone, which of course it wouldn't be. So do you make up a bunch of fake "people" who are equal in everything except X, and test that it doesn't advantage/disadvantage the X's? Would that even be possible if the "system" is getting its inputs from social media? Do you do mandate some kind o…

train it. Give it examples that we consider moral and examples of what we consider immoral and have it figure it out. The solutions that the algorithms create are less complex than the data that they base the solutions on; so it should be relatively easy for it to model these solutions as data. We would have to train it on what we consider moral and immoral; that would require us to visualize the solutions in a way t…

Yeah but -- assuming this could work in theory -- is it actually possible to give it examples if you don't know all its inputs?

For instance what if when scraping social media it discovers that a tendency to post memes with the color green together with frequent mention of cats correlates to better Python skills, but it happens that Elbonians are forbidden by law to mention cats? Would the system even know that's what it found? Would it even be knowable in the end? Would that be an immoral outcome even if the system didn't know about the Elbonian Anti-Cat Law? And wouldn't you have to know about the correlation already in order to give it "moral" and "immoral" examples?

I agree that litigation (the threat of litigation) is going to remain a factor for a long time, but I see this potentially turning into some kind of black-box system where there might be very serious discrimination but it would be impossible to prove.

[edit: corrected for spell-check, and apologies to any Albanians who like cats. :-)]

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

#299

Post by [deleted] »

save_ferris wrote: post #15
p0nce wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

What are some common exit strategies in the industry? It seems like early startup options for employees are more of a lottery ticket than retirement plan.

[deleted]

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

#300

Post by jmull »

notacoward wrote: post #280
jmull wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, the very sentence you quoted characterizes the process as a screen, in the sense of a filter. Later the post uses the actual word filter a couple times, so I know that's what the post was talking about. And, of course, a post-hiring process can function as a filter. Also, the term disparate treatment is yours -- a vague term which I merely used in the same sense you did. You used it to describe what the lawsuit…

> the term disparate treatment is yours Untrue. It's directly from the second paragraph of the news story you clearly didn't read. It's also not vague as you claim. It's a legal term with an established definition, and it's highly relevant. As you so politely introduced yourself to this conversation, COME ON. Again. Read before you start launching arguments that others will find laughable.

>Untrue. It's directly from the second paragraph...

Fair enough, you're right and I withdraw that.

I realize now you were making irrelevant observation rather than a topical argument. (It doesn't matter to the point being made in the post you quoted or it's ancestor post or to the suit wether or not that poster's experience is the opposite of the disparate treatment alleged in the suit.)

> As you so politely introduced yourself to this conversation, COME ON. Again. Read before you start launching arguments that others will find laughable.

Oh, come on. My mistake was in construing your post as being more coherent than it actually was.

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