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Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

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Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#21

Post by DigitalJack »

majormajor wrote: post #15

If these companies learn everything about everyone, what happens if what they discover is that most people have their own little problems and health issues and craziness? The truly awesome people with absolutely nothing wrong with them? Good luck finding them! As far as the migraine bit goes: there are already some sorts of medical discrimination that are illegal to use for hiring in the US, though I don't know exact…

As long as they don't put it in writing, there would be no case. People are not hired or fired for illegal reasons all the time. You just don't state those reasons.

If it is due to blatantly obvious handicaps, that's a different story. But good luck proving you we're passed over because the employer figured out you have headaches.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#22

Post by majormajor »

DigitalJack wrote: post #21
majormajor wrote: post #15

If these companies learn everything about everyone, what happens if what they discover is that most people have their own little problems and health issues and craziness? The truly awesome people with absolutely nothing wrong with them? Good luck finding them! As far as the migraine bit goes: there are already some sorts of medical discrimination that are illegal to use for hiring in the US, though I don't know exact…

As long as they don't put it in writing, there would be no case. People are not hired or fired for illegal reasons all the time. You just don't state those reasons. If it is due to blatantly obvious handicaps, that's a different story. But good luck proving you we're passed over because the employer figured out you have headaches.

So this hypothetical Narrative Data company would have a largely-illegal business plan, and nobody would notice? There wouldn't be any whistleblowers? People would be willing to contract their HR stuff out to them?

In my view, there's a pretty bright line between the described business and today's background check companies.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#23

Post by crazygringo »

I think this just reveals bad hiring practices, more than anything else.

There are 1,000 different things that can affect your productivity. Maybe her migraines cause 15% "lost productivity", but her enthusiasm causes 35% better quality work, her daydreaming cuts 10%, and her intelligence adds 20%, the fact she's stimulated by spicy food adds 5%, etc.

Companies that might attempt to do this kind of micro-analysis miss the forest for a few trees, will be less competitive in the long run, and over time will die out.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#24

Post by jbigelow76 »

majormajor wrote: post #22
DigitalJack wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long as they don't put it in writing, there would be no case. People are not hired or fired for illegal reasons all the time. You just don't state those reasons. If it is due to blatantly obvious handicaps, that's a different story. But good luck proving you we're passed over because the employer figured out you have headaches.

So this hypothetical Narrative Data company would have a largely-illegal business plan, and nobody would notice? There wouldn't be any whistleblowers? People would be willing to contract their HR stuff out to them? In my view, there's a pretty bright line between the described business and today's background check companies.

  >So this hypothetical Narrative Data company would have a largely-illegal business plan, and nobody would notice?
What are they doing that's illegal? You aren't applying for a job with them so they aren't the ones who passed you over for "somebody who's a better fit".

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#26

Post by michaelochurch »

tptacek wrote: post #16
michaelochurch wrote: post #14

LinkedIn scares me more, because I think most 22-year-olds don't really foresee that they might have the need to change their career histories. The idea that you might have to bump your college degree by 5 years is unimaginable at age 22. I don't foresee myself ever needing an explicit lie, but it's hard to keep a story consistent over 20 years. The online paper trail is a bit scary. I wouldn't even have a LinkedIn p…

It is a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal dishonesty on resumes. Meanwhile, we talk to lots of great people who don't have LinkedIn profiles; it is by no means a standard requirement. If you can't be honest to LinkedIn, just keep your profile off it. No matter who gets elected in November, by 2015 guaranteed-issue health insurance is going to be the norm, so this health insurance story a…

It is a little hard for me to feel sympathetic with the need to conceal dishonesty on resumes.

It depends what the "dishonesty" is. Claiming a skill you don't have is unethical. Bumping your college degree by 5 years in order to seem 5 years younger is, in my opinion, ethically OK. There's a difference between quackery (faking a skill you don't have, and potentially hurting people) and social status inflation. One is fraud; the other is just how people work.

The problem is that, if you get caught in one of those minimal and ethically acceptable lies, or are just accidentally inconsistent, HR won't make the distinction because of the mythology that small discrepancies beget substantial whoppers. In my experience, this isn't true. Deeply unethical people are so experienced with lies that they almost never get caught in the small stuff.

I don't need to lie because I'm a person of high enough social status that I don't see it useful to fake, and I'm comfortable having an online presence because I foresee that remaining true, but I have no dislike for high-caliber, low-status people who use a bit of creative revision to up their game, as long as they're not defrauding or hurting people.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#27

Post by ShabbyDoo »

DigitalJack wrote: post #21
majormajor wrote: post #15

If these companies learn everything about everyone, what happens if what they discover is that most people have their own little problems and health issues and craziness? The truly awesome people with absolutely nothing wrong with them? Good luck finding them! As far as the migraine bit goes: there are already some sorts of medical discrimination that are illegal to use for hiring in the US, though I don't know exact…

As long as they don't put it in writing, there would be no case. People are not hired or fired for illegal reasons all the time. You just don't state those reasons. If it is due to blatantly obvious handicaps, that's a different story. But good luck proving you we're passed over because the employer figured out you have headaches.

Didn't LinkedIn originally offer HR recruiters some version of their system which didn't show photos so that they wouldn't be worried about the liability of violating US discrimination laws by using headshots to bypass minorities? This suggests that HR departments would fear the purchase of legally prohibited data types.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#28

Post by fl3tch »

pgroves wrote: post #6

I don't think this scenario could play out that way. - Facebook profiles can be made inaccessible to non-friends. People who post pictures of themselves naked and using drugs use this feature. - The hypothetical conclusions drawn are only possible if users post extremely frequently and in great detail. Otherwise, the predictive analytics will suffer from garbage-in-garbage out. Huge companies spend millions of dollar…

That last point is interesting. There's already a burgeoning industry for companies that protect privacy, keep you off Zaba Search-type sites, etc. There are a few "reputation management" companies that try to get negative information removed or pushed down in search results. The next logical step is to just pay someone to create profiles with great content.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#30

Post by ChuckMcM »

majormajor wrote: post #15

If these companies learn everything about everyone, what happens if what they discover is that most people have their own little problems and health issues and craziness? The truly awesome people with absolutely nothing wrong with them? Good luck finding them! As far as the migraine bit goes: there are already some sorts of medical discrimination that are illegal to use for hiring in the US, though I don't know exact…

I suspect you are correct, if you had this data on everyone you would find that everyone had issues. Now some would have more issues than other but it wouldn't be like you had some sparkling clean alternative choice. At the end of the day the costs our blogger is suggesting are influential are, in the large, smoothed over the entire population.

Now folks who've done really stupid things? They might have problems. There is a certain 'maturity' bit that flips somewhere (not uncommonly on marriage or first child) which selects for longer term benefit behaviors over short term benefit behaviors. I could easily see a management/individual contributor choice swing on that data.

But the article plays to the insecurities that are common in people which is sad.

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