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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

#31

Post by VLM »

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…

Is a demand for an academic reference letter obvious age discrimination also? I'm old enough that I'm pretty sure some of my profs are dead by now. I suppose a seance could be arranged.

Trying to obtain "testimonials of previous customers" would almost certainly get me fired and sounds like a major breach of professional etiquette but then again this is a different culture, maybe that kind of thing is normal over there. Along with providing dumps of my social media presence.

Not to trash talk the concept of the startup excessively, but why do they need a guy with 20+ years of experience and a full service laundry list to do what little they're trying to do, and unless I was the dumbest 20+ year veteran out there its not really possible to summarize my entire life experience in a 30 second video, at least to any useful to them extent. Slap a video on youtube and send em a link doesn't take a 20 year industry veteran although I could do it if I needed to pay the mortgage. Also, I've seen longer gravestone epitaphs than whats provided.

On the bright side they didn't ask for sexual orientation, marital status, religious beliefs, or demand an interpretive dance portraying the quicksort algorithm, although who knows what goes on at the interview.

So they're looking for someone simultaneously deeper than the Marianas Trench and shallower than a rain puddle. Good luck with that.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#32

Post by vonmoltke »

erroneousfunk wrote: post #28
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.

It typically applies only to males, and historically has only referred to males. If I were a female thinking about applying for this job, I would certainly be taken aback by it. While you might refer to a mixed-gendered group as "dudes" it seems odd to refer to a single female as a "dude"

My wife and her female cousin-in-law do it to each other all the time.

That said, I agree it's not appropriate for a job req and understand why it turns women off from applying.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#35

Post by jnbiche »

It's not clear to me, was this ad placed through Career Harbour or by Career Harbour? Their site is down at the moment, but they appear to be an HR-type of company.

Either way, it's bad news, since they either placed a blatantly discriminatory ad themselves or they failed to warn a client that such ads are illegal in the UK (pretty big failure for a career services company).

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#36

Post by maxerickson »

jnbiche wrote: post #35

It's not clear to me, was this ad placed through Career Harbour or by Career Harbour? Their site is down at the moment, but they appear to be an HR-type of company. Either way, it's bad news, since they either placed a blatantly discriminatory ad themselves or they failed to warn a client that such ads are illegal in the UK (pretty big failure for a career services company).

I would not be shocked if the ad is some internal document they use as an illustration of what not to put in job ads.

Then they can have a discussion around it. This item is illegal. This item is going to put off many candidates. This item is unclear. And so on.

edit: From other comments about people from the company nuking their online presence, maybe it was real. Huh.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#37

Post by vasilipupkin »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #16
sebular wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Wait, UK only adopted this in 2010? Sorry, I am surprised by that

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#39

Post by collyw »

mgkimsal wrote: post #20

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 i…

Yes the amount of people that want to interview me is high in Barcelona. The amount of people that want to pay for my level of experience is low (and the wages aren't especially high here). Save us both the time and tell me in advance what you are willing to pay.

Re: How not to advertise for a job in London

#40

Post by philh »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #37
andyjohnson0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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

Wait, UK only adopted this in 2010? Sorry, I am surprised by that

Not necessarily. That Act might be an update to a previously-existing one that also forbade gender discrimination.
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