Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#51

Post by drumdance » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 9:49 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #49

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…

Which is among the reasons I've revised my LinkedIn profile to a de minimas version. Name. Field. No job history. No resume. Contacts, which I keep trimmed in public views (lord knows how they're available behind my back, of course). I also maintain no FB profile. My prediction: the "social web" will end very badly. Mostly as the present cohort hits its 30s and early 40s, with concomitant life issues (marriage, child…

I actually think it will go the other way. Things that are suspect now will be treated as youthful indiscretion. Think about it: the current President admitted in his own book that he had done cocaine. That was unthinkable just 10 years ago.

As Gen Y moves higher up the career ladder, they'll be the ones making the hiring decisions about the Facebook oversharers.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#52

Post by jbigelow76 » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 9:51 PM UTC

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #50

Here's an easy one somebody could write up over the weekend: You apply for a job with a resume. The resume lists the dates you worked various jobs. So you just go out and comb the social networks to find all the posting times for this person and cross-reference it with their work hours. You've just made a predictor of how much time they'll be spending on your dime trolling the net. Now perhaps that's only 1 in 20 sec…

Mobile is gonna skew that factor, if I'm at work and I tweet I do it from my phone, even if I'm sitting in front of my computer at home I'll still usually tweet from my phone just so I don't have to open another tab and nav to twitter's home page.

Now if you could poll how long I spend on google reader in a given day...

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#53

Post by mikeash » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 9:52 PM UTC

analyst74 wrote: post #18

The narrative is also likely to play out this way: "Well, 9 out of 10 candidates we interviewed has some sort of health problems. Tina is great in all other fronts, I guess we'll just have to live with it." But regardless, social judgement/ranking is zero-sum game, if someone is losing out due to some social change, others are winning.

I disagree that it's a zero-sum game. The rankings themselves are zero-sum, but the correctness of those rankings can have huge consequences. If a change occurs which causes people who are less suited for a job to be preferred, that results in a lower global outcome.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#54

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 9:53 PM UTC

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…

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." - Cardinal Richelieu (a/k/a Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duc de Richelieu et de Fronsac)

The fundamental problem is that the order of operations is likely to be "what is the narrative we would like to portray", followed by "how may we select from the available information to convey that narrative".

The present tendency toward counterfactuality and/or selective factuality in various narratives (notably political, also concerning various other social and scientific matters) doesn't particularly encourage me.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#55

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 9:59 PM UTC

drumdance wrote: post #51

dredmorbius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is among the reasons I've revised my LinkedIn profile to a de minimas version. Name. Field. No job history. No resume. Contacts, which I keep trimmed in public views (lord knows how they're available behind my back, of course). I also maintain no FB profile. My prediction: the "social web" will end very badly. Mostly as the present cohort hits its 30s and early 40s, with concomitant life issues (marriage, child…

I actually think it will go the other way. Things that are suspect now will be treated as youthful indiscretion. Think about it: the current President admitted in his own book that he had done cocaine. That was unthinkable just 10 years ago. As Gen Y moves higher up the career ladder, they'll be the ones making the hiring decisions about the Facebook oversharers.

Your example provides its own counterexample. The same individual has encountered persistent questioning over the specifics of his birthplace, despite ample documentation substantiating his claims.

How information is interpreted depends very much on who's interpreting it and what their objectives are.

Hiring processes are notoriously opaque. Corporations are, very literally, machines for creating one-way flows of liability, shielding management and owners at the expense of the public and workers. What do you think the term "limited liability corporation" refers to? How many NDAs have you signed? What are your workplace's rules regarding disclosure of employment terms and/or compensation?

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#56

Post by michaelochurch » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 10:00 PM UTC

drumdance wrote: post #51

dredmorbius wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is among the reasons I've revised my LinkedIn profile to a de minimas version. Name. Field. No job history. No resume. Contacts, which I keep trimmed in public views (lord knows how they're available behind my back, of course). I also maintain no FB profile. My prediction: the "social web" will end very badly. Mostly as the present cohort hits its 30s and early 40s, with concomitant life issues (marriage, child…

I actually think it will go the other way. Things that are suspect now will be treated as youthful indiscretion. Think about it: the current President admitted in his own book that he had done cocaine. That was unthinkable just 10 years ago. As Gen Y moves higher up the career ladder, they'll be the ones making the hiring decisions about the Facebook oversharers.

In the Victorian era, drug use was not nearly as stigmatized as it is today, but sexuality was deeply hidden. You didn't dare talk about your sex life, but use of opium for purposes we'd call "recreational" was commonplace.

People are becoming more tolerant of minor drug indiscretions (cocaine is a nasty drug, but he didn't use it as an adult or let it become a habit, so I'd count it as a relatively minor issue) because society was at an extreme of intolerance on that issue, but I don't think that's a general trend in social acceptance of error.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#57

Post by michaelochurch » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 10:04 PM UTC

m0nastic wrote: post #47

Apocryphon wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concern here is that people would edit the year they would graduate in order to escape being excluded because of ageism, a trend which Silicon Valley is notorious for.

It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you (in which case lying about your graduation dates just causes you to have to sit through more interviews with places that won't hire you). I guess the assumption is that you might be able to "win them over" in person, assu…

It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you

Disagree. If you transform your career story from VP-at-48 to VP-at-43, your social status changes and the interview is a completely different conversation.

Lying about actual skill is unethical, but people who are able to improve their social status by exploiting human shallowness, in my opinion, deserve everything they can gain in doing so.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#58

Post by DanBC » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 10:09 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #26

tptacek wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Bumping your college degree by 5 years in order to seem 5 years younger is, in my opinion, ethically OK

No. Not only is it lying, which is obviously not acceptable, but it is pandering to discriminatory attitudes.

It is not legal to discriminate based on age when employing people in the UK, and thus it should be pointless to lie about age.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#59

Post by m0nastic » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 10:17 PM UTC

michaelochurch wrote: post #57

m0nastic wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you (in which case lying about your graduation dates just causes you to have to sit through more interviews with places that won't hire you). I guess the assumption is that you might be able to "win them over" in person, assu…

It would seem like this doesn't actually buy you very much, because presumably the same places that would exclude your resume because of an ageist bias, would also pass on you after interviewing you Disagree. If you transform your career story from VP-at-48 to VP-at-43, your social status changes and the interview is a completely different conversation. Lying about actual skill is unethical, but people who are able t…

I guess I don't see how lying about this can inherently not also cause you to have to lie about other things.

By which I mean, changing your resume from VP-at-48 to VP-at-43 either means that you're lying about how long you've been a VP (which is definitely now lying about experience/skill), or it means you're just moving all of your work experience up a sliding scale to appear younger; in which case you are now potentially lying about your work/experience/schooling as well, as tying that experience to a point in time is more than just human shallowness.

For example, let's say I was a web developer in the mid-nineties, but I decide to change that on my resume to appear more recent (to make myself seem younger). I'd argue that being a web developer in the mid-nineties is pretty far removed from being a web developer currently (so at what point does it become disingenuous...is sliding things ahead a few years ok? more than 5?)

This all seems too "The Secret of My Success" for my liking.

Re: Facebook's Gen Y Nightmare

#60

Post by gaius » Sun, Sep 23, 2012, 10:27 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #49

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…

Which is among the reasons I've revised my LinkedIn profile to a de minimas version. Name. Field. No job history. No resume. Contacts, which I keep trimmed in public views (lord knows how they're available behind my back, of course). I also maintain no FB profile. My prediction: the "social web" will end very badly. Mostly as the present cohort hits its 30s and early 40s, with concomitant life issues (marriage, child…

Revising doesn't help - the only safe way is not to give them it in the first place. These companies live or die on their databases. What you delete, they merely flag as deleted and don't show, but you can bet they keep it.