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How not to advertise for a job in London

programmingisterrible.com

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Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#11

Post by jeeva »

Xophmeister wrote: post #6
ironrabbit wrote: post #2

Under "common behaviours of our ideal candidate" in the HR doc posted: > 8. Just a nice dude It seems obvious to me that this is outright illegal gender discrimination, am I wrong?

"Dude" doesn't necessarily imply male, but it is strongly slanted that way. I'm not sure if it would hold up as discrimination.

Yeah, I always see this sort of comment and worry that I'm the only person using guys/dude/folks as a catch-all.

Quickly Googling seems to indicate that it's not set in stone, at least.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#12

Post by testtestq »

detaro wrote: post #3

...aaaannd there goes the "faith in humanity"-budget for the day. There can't be many people applying to such job offers, right? (Also, video-pitch for a job as a backend developer? What's the logic behind that except "let's see through how many hoops they'll jump")

I checked it out the other day, and his whole start-up was based on this 30-second video "magic-pitch" thing, which is why they had it for their own candidates, I guess.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#13

Post by detaro »

sebular wrote: post #7
ironrabbit wrote: post #2

Under "common behaviours of our ideal candidate" in the HR doc posted: > 8. Just a nice dude It seems obvious to me that this is outright illegal gender discrimination, am I wrong?

You're not wrong at all. Furthermore: > 2. Under 30 years old Is obviously age discrimination as well. Unlike some people, I'm under no illusions that tech is non-discriminatory, but it's still surprising and disappointing to see it stated so plainly on a job description. These people are idiots for leaving this document online now that they've been caught. I don't know the specifics of UK labour laws, but in the US…

They only need "Fast and accurate proficiency" in being under 30 years old ;) (so someone who just turned 30 is probably best, having the 30 years experience with being under 30)

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#15

Post by apkostka »

detaro wrote: post #3

...aaaannd there goes the "faith in humanity"-budget for the day. There can't be many people applying to such job offers, right? (Also, video-pitch for a job as a backend developer? What's the logic behind that except "let's see through how many hoops they'll jump")

If you require people to jump through hoops for a job, only people who have time to jump through them will apply.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#16

Post by andyjohnson0 »

sebular wrote: post #7
ironrabbit wrote: post #2

Under "common behaviours of our ideal candidate" in the HR doc posted: > 8. Just a nice dude It seems obvious to me that this is outright illegal gender discrimination, am I wrong?

You're not wrong at all. Furthermore: > 2. Under 30 years old Is obviously age discrimination as well. Unlike some people, I'm under no illusions that tech is non-discriminatory, but it's still surprising and disappointing to see it stated so plainly on a job description. These people are idiots for leaving this document online now that they've been caught. I don't know the specifics of UK labour laws, but in the US…

"The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against employees, job seekers and trainees because of their age." [1]

[1] http://www.acas.org.uk/index.aspx?articleid=1841

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#17

Post by detaro »

testtestq wrote: post #12
detaro wrote: post #3

...aaaannd there goes the "faith in humanity"-budget for the day. There can't be many people applying to such job offers, right? (Also, video-pitch for a job as a backend developer? What's the logic behind that except "let's see through how many hoops they'll jump")

I checked it out the other day, and his whole start-up was based on this 30-second video "magic-pitch" thing, which is why they had it for their own candidates, I guess.

So along the lines of "use our product for your application"? That would make some resemblance of sense...

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#18

Post by elcct »

markbnj wrote: post #8

>> Enters into a state of Flow, where when the candidate is coding a long time they are wired in and cannot easily get distracted Haha, TBH almost every programmer I know under 30 years old is distracted every 90 seconds by a) a tweet, b) a text, c) a notification, or d) an email. Wait, actually that's all of us, under 30 or not.

But you have control over when you are responding to said distraction, so it won't necessarily get you out of the zone.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#19

Post by codezero »

jeeva wrote: post #11
Xophmeister wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dude" doesn't necessarily imply male, but it is strongly slanted that way. I'm not sure if it would hold up as discrimination.

Yeah, I always see this sort of comment and worry that I'm the only person using guys/dude/folks as a catch-all. Quickly Googling seems to indicate that it's not set in stone, at least.

It's something to be aware of and to try to avoid. It may be casually acceptable, but consider it from a female candidates point of view. Having been frequently confronted with exclusionary language the assumption is likely to be that this usage does imply male-only. I'm not saying you or anyone implies that, but it's good to be aware of so you can avoid unintended discrimination. It takes almost no effort to modify these word choices to be inclusive.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#20

Post by mgkimsal »

Whether it's illegal or not, I sort of wish more employers would just advertise like this anyway - just tell me you're really only interested in a 23 year old, so I can avoid wasting both our time. Theoretically, the market will reward them with ... whatever comes of having a bunch of 23 year olds running mission-critical aspects of your business. Might be massive success, might be failure, but let them get on with it.
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