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Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

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Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#151

Post by redcalx »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120
leggomylibro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly. Well, iOS11 needs to ship on its annual schedule, non-negotiable. And the SVP will really complain if I ask for more money this quarter. So, cheap it is. If a bridge falls down, it's really obvious and people die. If bill…

I'm one of the greyhairs. I won't work the insane hours, but I'll still get more done. How? By knowing what to write and how to write it, so I don't have to fumble around trying things for nearly as long. By not writing the bugs that the 20-somethings write, which means I don't have to take the time to try to fix them. By not creating the shoddy designs that other create, which then have to be fixed. By having an ide…

Indeed. When you see some of the waste that goes on - whole projects going in the wrong direction and having to be largely reworked. And the people in charge will never admit they made an error in how they set up teams, and that it's the 'greyhairs' getting involved and rescuing projects over and over again.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#152

Post by racer-v »

lorenzq wrote: post #143
racer-v wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a perception in computer programming that any experience outside of the specific language, library and toolkit being used on the project is irrelevant. Or worse, an impediment; "I don't want somebody with bad habits and instincts acquired from working on now-obsolete systems". Managers really believe a kid with 3 years JavaScript experience and 1 year of Vue is as good (or better) than a senior programmer wit…

If that older Unix or C++ programmer doesn't have a strong bias against Javascript, functional programming, new es6/es7 concepts, and web appliactions in general, then sure. I see many of these types of people even on HN with biases though. Age shouldn't be used as a catch all filter, but I can see how it might be faster to screen those who have been too content to stick to their tools without catching up to industry…

I presume you wouldn't hire someone who expresses a strong distaste for your software stack, regardless of age (unless their job is specifically to replace it).

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#153

Post by Clubber »

jeremyjh wrote: post #116
tensor wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it legal to discriminate against young people?

Well, there is no law against discriminating by age against people who are below the age of 40. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employme...

Hey man, 40 is young!

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#154

Post by javajosh »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120
leggomylibro wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a race to the bottom. You could pay more for better work that gets done more slowly (fewer hours as people have families, etc,) or you could pay less for worse work that gets done more quickly. Well, iOS11 needs to ship on its annual schedule, non-negotiable. And the SVP will really complain if I ask for more money this quarter. So, cheap it is. If a bridge falls down, it's really obvious and people die. If bill…

I'm one of the greyhairs. I won't work the insane hours, but I'll still get more done. How? By knowing what to write and how to write it, so I don't have to fumble around trying things for nearly as long. By not writing the bugs that the 20-somethings write, which means I don't have to take the time to try to fix them. By not creating the shoddy designs that other create, which then have to be fixed. By having an ide…

Indeed! Over time I've become more and more aware (and proud) of the things I left out. As a young programmer, I would be far more proud of the things I included.

The shipped project is one branch of an extremely large tree of possibilities which a younger, less experienced programmer would have taken a very long time to explore and discard (which I know for certain because I was that programmer).

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#155

Post by wwweston »

trevyn wrote: post #119
combatentropy wrote: post #66

It doesn't make sense to me to discriminate against people with more experience. Can someone explain it to me? I have heard that companies like recent grads because they are (1) more malleable and (2) can be paid less. But neither of those reasons seem to me strong enough. I'm talking completely about the company's own interests. Let's address the first reason: malleability. A recent grad presumably will adopt the co…

The rate of change of technological progress is increasing, and many people just have a tendency to... crystallize. Experienced people of any age who can adapt well to change have no trouble getting a job.

> The rate of change of technological progress is increasing

Well, the rate of change seems to be high. Whether it's "progress" is another matter. Progress usually implies change, but the reverse is not at all necessarily true.

Who's usually in a position to recognize that and be a judge of it? People with experience.

So the question I'd ask is this: when someone with experience doesn't like change, is it because they've "crystalized"? Or is it because they have some defensible reason for disliking the change?

If it might be both, how would someone be able to tell the difference?

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#156

Post by gerdesj »

I wanted to pontificate about how I don't hire like that etc etc however, I'll simply make the observation that an advertisement in a news paper or on a bill board is open to all.

Just because you can, does not mean you should. Most countries have fairly strict discriminatory laws. This falls afoul of the lot. You should not be able to use an advertising platform to pre-filter your applicants.

If you think I'm wrong then substitute "skin colour" or "disabled" or "sex" for "age" in this discussion. Substitute a combination of all of those ...

This is wrong. So wrong that the perpetrators should be considered criminal.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#157

Post by ryanmarsh »

exelius wrote: post #129
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm one of the greyhairs. I won't work the insane hours, but I'll still get more done. How? By knowing what to write and how to write it, so I don't have to fumble around trying things for nearly as long. By not writing the bugs that the 20-somethings write, which means I don't have to take the time to try to fix them. By not creating the shoddy designs that other create, which then have to be fixed. By having an ide…

I'm not attacking you here (and in fact I agree with you), but from a manager's perspective, I need one guy like you to design it in an architecture modeling tool and 8 young code monkeys to do all the boring work of building and testing it. You can do the code reviews to make sure they don't do stupid shit. The thought is that a team of greyhairs never ships anything, and a team of youngsters ships garbage. But it's…

I seem to recall an episode of the A16Z podcast where Adrian Cockcroft of Netflix explained they were top heavy on senior engineers when they began moving to microservices. Didn’t seem to slow them down but I could be misremembering.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#158

Post by Clubber »

40acres wrote: post #114

This is tough. Super targeted advertising is exactly why Facebook is so valuable. Add that to the fact that their marketing tech is so frictionless (it's my knowledge that you can get your ads up on Facebook relatively quickly w/o interfacing with a human) and you end up with situations like this. There are a finite amount of ads that can be shown on TV during a week and a finite amount of billboards, bus placements…

  if (isJobPosting)
    txtAgeRange.Enabled = false;

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#159

Post by pkaye »

tensor wrote: post #68
avs733 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While at a certain level I can't help but agree with you, I think some self-reflection is in order. It is perfectly legal to discriminate against young people but not against older folks. Those laws were put into place by that generation you reference. Not to mention that the likely reason to target younger employees is because they can be paid less for the same job. That is a manifestation of the ongoing depowering…

How is it legal to discriminate against young people?

I believe age discrimination laws are only applicable to those who are 40 years and older.

Re: Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older Workers From Job Ads

#160

Post by grzm »

jklinger410 wrote: post #148
jklinger410 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pernicious as it may be, ads being able to exclude people is a natural evolution of ads, not something malicious as it has been portrayed often recently. In the past it was up to the ad buyer to attempt to exclude people based on their wits. I want to use site X because it has these people instead of site Y because it has those people. Totally normal. Now we are debating on the right to see ads because Facebook has s…

@grzm If you advertise at Macy's certain people will not see the ad. They may not know the product even exists. That's what I meant by ostensibly invisible. To your larger point. I'm having a hard time understanding where the line is in removing this type of freedom to advertise the way companies want to because of the affects it might have. I'm going to have to bow out of this because I haven't made up my mind. I am…

But anyone going to Macy's can see the ad.

Please do read some Tufekci. She does a much better job describing this than I do (unsurprising, given she's studied it extensively), and I hesitate from regurgitating her here wholesale. She did a podcast with Sam Harris that I found illuminating, if you prefer that format.

https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/persuasion-and-contro...

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