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Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

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Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#231

Post by throwaway2048 »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #224
aussieguy1234 wrote: post #191

Not just Facebook, but any targeted advertising platform that can target based on demographic could do this. Its not the first example of unethical behaviour using this technology. Alcohol gets targeted to Alcholics, Gambling gets targets to problem gamblers. Targeted advertising for certain purposes should be illegal, including employment ads, alcohol ads, gambing ads and any kind of political ad. There's just too m…

Banning targeted advertising means the vast majority of people see irrelevant employment ads. Every lumberjack and security guard on Facebook will see useless software engineering ads, or nursing, or whatever is the hard to recruit field du jour. This means less people see ads for jobs for them, and that hurts untalented, unskilled regular people the most, because their job ads aren’t going to outcompete highly paid…

I think I'm willing to endure the horrors of insufficiently targeted advertising.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#232

Post by DoreenMichele »

m0zg wrote: post #226
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because white men that dominate those jobs already typically know white men to recommend for those jobs.

I must have spent the last 20 years in a parallel universe where every single hiring manager would like nothing more than to hire a minority or a woman because of corporate edicts. At Microsoft today, for instance, they have _quotas_ for hiring women (I don't know about minorities, but they probably have quotas for that, too), and if you don't meet the quota, you're kinda fucked as a manager. At Google, when the hiri…

You can't get more women into the profession if they choose not to apply.

And they can't apply if they never see your ad because of practices like the ones described in the article under discussion.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#233

Post by seanmcdirmid »

tasogare wrote: post #215
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because white men that dominate those jobs already typically know white men to recommend for those jobs.

Super racist comment. Just replace white men by black men or jew and you will see how this line of thinking is dangerous.

There is nothing racist about my comment, and yes, it does apply to other races to beget similar results.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#235

Post by seanmcdirmid »

gleenn wrote: post #217
macintux wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Director of engineering at a former employer once said in the span of 30 seconds: “we’re trying to hire more diversity” and “please reach out to your social network”. To an audience of 98% white males. The director acknowledged the incongruity, thankfully, but never solved the problem.

I think you're assuming white males don't know how to suggest females and non-whites. We may be statistically more likely to hang out with other white males but I'm pretty sure I can suggest people besides them.

Replace “don’t know how to” with “don’t know” and it would be more appropriate.

I know plenty of women in the industry, but for the specialty I would recommend for, I couldn’t list more than a couple of names (of which are well employed already).

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#236

Post by gsich »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #232
m0zg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have spent the last 20 years in a parallel universe where every single hiring manager would like nothing more than to hire a minority or a woman because of corporate edicts. At Microsoft today, for instance, they have _quotas_ for hiring women (I don't know about minorities, but they probably have quotas for that, too), and if you don't meet the quota, you're kinda fucked as a manager. At Google, when the hiri…

You can't get more women into the profession if they choose not to apply. And they can't apply if they never see your ad because of practices like the ones described in the article under discussion.

That's only an issue if you get applications only after ads.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#237

Post by m0zg »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #232
m0zg wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have spent the last 20 years in a parallel universe where every single hiring manager would like nothing more than to hire a minority or a woman because of corporate edicts. At Microsoft today, for instance, they have _quotas_ for hiring women (I don't know about minorities, but they probably have quotas for that, too), and if you don't meet the quota, you're kinda fucked as a manager. At Google, when the hiri…

You can't get more women into the profession if they choose not to apply. And they can't apply if they never see your ad because of practices like the ones described in the article under discussion.

I've never got a job in response to an ad either. Have you? Do you personally know anyone who has?

Another issue, with workplace politics and edicts being what they are, wouldn't white men be a better category of applicants to exclude via such targeting? I'm pretty sure this is happening as we speak. I don't view this as a problem, though, for the reason alluded to above: approximately nobody in tech lands jobs in response to ads.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#238

Post by soulofmischief »

kjs3 wrote: post #194
DoreenMichele wrote: post #24

I have mixed feelings about this. I am absolutely aware this can be a means to intentionally exclude specific groups due to prejudice and can be a polite way to do terrible things. I get that. But the reality is that the modern world seems to seriously suck at figuring out how to help people find the right kind of job for themselves or help employers find the right people for the job. I keep thinking "Surely, there m…

The "modern world" sucks at figuring out how to help people find the right kind of job for one of two reasons: 1) they keep thinking about gender and age as qualifiers for jobs for which those factors have absolutely zero relevance (girls are bad at math! Old people can't learn new things!), or 2) They invent the delusion that gender and age disqualifies you for a job (girls will just get pregnant and leave! oldster…

I'm glad you care about these things, but to say those are the only two reasons why we have trouble correctly matching people to fulfilling jobs is asinine.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#239

Post by soulofmischief »

Spooky23 wrote: post #11
tdurden wrote: post #4

So does this mean that targeted ads are now considered discrimination?

When you target against protected classes, yes. Facebook has a history of facilitating this type of thing and crying ignorance later. A local landlord was caught using Facebook to target apartment listings to people who weren’t black, Hispanic, Jewish, or gay.

As a white male, I'd like to get in on that protected class bit. No one should be seeing targeted ads if they don't want to, regardless of birth status.

Re: Employers Used Facebook to Keep Women and Older Workers from Seeing Job Ads

#240

Post by [deleted] »

m0zg wrote: post #237
DoreenMichele wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't get more women into the profession if they choose not to apply. And they can't apply if they never see your ad because of practices like the ones described in the article under discussion.

I've never got a job in response to an ad either. Have you? Do you personally know anyone who has? Another issue, with workplace politics and edicts being what they are, wouldn't white men be a better category of applicants to exclude via such targeting? I'm pretty sure this is happening as we speak. I don't view this as a problem, though, for the reason alluded to above: approximately nobody in tech lands jobs in re…

[deleted]
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