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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

#331

Post by AsyncAwait »

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #294
stakhanov wrote: post #290

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires): https://powertofly.com/ ...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels. Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

Because “punching up” is allowed, apparently.

I mean, yes? That's where a lot of comedy has historically come from, it's not necessarily a problem.

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

#332

Post by concordDance »

qtplatypus wrote: post #163
eloff wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women software engineers are a much smaller percentage of women than male software engineers are of men. That's pretty obvious to anyone who's ever worked in software.

However that is in part because employers have been historically hesitant to employ them (and clearly if they are not advising to women then the will not be getting employment) this creates a self supporting feedback loop. Part of employment law is to break this loop.

I thought there were more women computer programmers than men in the 60s?

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

#333

Post by hutzlibu »

black_puppydog wrote: post #279
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems pointless to me. What are they gonna do, hire those folks they meant to exclude anyway when they show up?

While we're at it: why bother with any sort of anti-discrimination effort? Haters' gonna hate after all. /s

There is a difference between accepting discrimination, or trying to enforce antidiscrimination. Make such things open, talk and discuss about it, yes! But when you discriminate to counter discrimination for example, than I believe something went wrong.

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

#334

Post by unionpivo »

cryptozeus wrote: post #313

All this will do is force companies which are not open to hiring older people and women will have to spend money interviewing them. They will still reject them and waste everyone’s time.

So the solution is to what, just look away and shrug ?

It's a process, you move goal posts one tiny step at a time and eventually it will become less and less acceptable.

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

#335

Post by Traster »

concordDance wrote: post #320
adrianN wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think for similar reasons like it generally being seen as a good thing to give free food and housing to the poor, but frowned upon to do the same for the rich.

I upvoted your comment because I think the reasoning reflects people's actual reasoning. That said, I don't think techy women can be described as metaphorically "poor" these days. Big tech firms are desperate for more women. For women as a whole it's another issue, but very few are going to learn an entirely new skillset just because they saw an ad.

>Big tech firms are desperate for more women.

I can't talk about everyone's experience, but this is true in a "We desperately want to have more women", but not true in the sense of "We're willing to address the systematic reasons women don't join our company". It doesn't matter how much you advertise on a website for women if you're advertising a job with no maternity benefits, or one of your engineers remarks "Oh! Is this our new HR lady?" when you're showing the prospective employee around the office.

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

#336

Post by ptah »

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #323
adrianN wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that it's a poor comparison?

there are more homeless men than women. So that's like targeting men to give free food and shelter because more men need it, which wouldn't happen.

i think you are trying to stretch the metaphor too far

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

#337

Post by ptah »

sdfmmkmsdfmk wrote: post #321

Why force businesses to waste money on advertising to and interviewing people they don't want to hire? At the end of the day, some person will get a job. Why is it better if a woman or old person gets the job? Enforcing diversity hiring practices is not creating more jobs for anyone (except diversity advisors, granted). On the contrary, it increases the cost of doing business, which is likely to reduce demand for emp…

most studies show that diversity leads to increased productivity and innovation. it actually reduces the cost of doing business significantly. this is the only reason big corporates are doing it as they are purely driven by their bottom line

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

#338

Post by GrayTextIsTruth »

ptah wrote: post #336
GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are more homeless men than women. So that's like targeting men to give free food and shelter because more men need it, which wouldn't happen.

i think you are trying to stretch the metaphor too far

its more accurate. targeting the underrepresented cohort.

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

#339

Post by hutzlibu »

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…

What is your proof, that gender and age has zero relevance?

I believe, that yes, for example women of a certain age, have a high statistical chance of getting pregnant soon (or already are pregnant). That is very relevant. As they will suddenly be not avaiable anymore for quite some time. While the employer still hase obligations to them (don't know about US, but definitely in germany).

Now yes, the correct solution can't be to just exclude women of that age or prefer man. But the reality is, that this is happening a lot. And it sucks and is a hard problem for society in general, but I don't believe the mantra helps to exclaim the problem does not exist.

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

#340

Post by kstenerud »

stakhanov wrote: post #290

There are job boards that SPECIFICALLY make it their business to target women and deliver female candidates looking for tech roles (in organizations that are in need of diversity hires): https://powertofly.com/ ...and companies pay a premium for those job advertising channels. Why is it a great business and an initiative to be applauded if it is about excluding men and a scandal if it is about excluding women?

Because it's a specialized channel where companies can specifically advertise their inclusiveness, which is important for a number of reasons.

First, we need to stem the losses of women in tech that happen due to the traditionally woman-hostile culture that has pervaded the industry for so long, and is only now beginning to recede. Women (and in fact all minority groups) get pushed out of the industry by hostile work environments. A specialized channel like this allows companies to say "We don't tolerate that, so come work for us." It allows them to tap a potentially huge labor force before it shrinks too much.

Second, markets like these offer a less stressful job search for marginalized groups, because they can have greater confidence that they won't get jerked around this time. It means that less women get so fed up that they quit, which means less time and effort is required to reach a critical mass where the momentum of women in tech begets more women in tech on its own.

This isn't about excluding men; it's about providing a more confidence-inducing hiring process for marginalized groups.

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