Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 362 posts

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#191

Post by seattle_spring »

afpx wrote: post #101
DavidWoof wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a programmer in my late 50s. While age discrimination is real, and I certainly have my share of "not a culture fit" and "overqualified" rejections over the past 10 years, if you're getting rejected over 90% of the time then I strongly suspect the problem isn't age discrimination. It's much more likely that your skills are out of date or you've gained some bad interviewing habits that you should examine. If people…

No way. Sorry to be blunt. Sure, my speed has decreased a little. But, I make better decisions which saves orders more time. And, my skills are still solidly top 15-20%. I know most modern databases, Java, Scala, Python, JavaScript, Angular, React ... the list goes on. I only claim to be an expert in things I’m actually an expert in. To be fair, I do try to interview at interesting companies. So, that could be the pr…

You seem very focused on your skillset. Have you considered that it's your soft skills (equally important to technical skills) that may be the issue?

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#192

Post by biztos »

bo1024 wrote: post #154

Many of the posts here focus on ageism but this is just one example of discriminatory algorithms/ML in action. Don't be surprised if the same headline reappears soon with gender or race substituted. There is currently an academic movement often called "fairness in machine learning" aiming to correct these kinds of behaviors in automated systems.

Thanks, I didn't know this was a Thing in academia.

Just found a nice intro here, starting a few slides in:

https://fairmlclass.github.io/1.html

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#193

Post by tyrust »

raarts wrote: post #167
tyrust wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resistance to constructive criticism is a potential no-hire signal.

> resistance to constructive criticism Very curious where you detect that in GP?

They completely discount the feedback without any concessions.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#194

Post by arethuza »

DavidWoof wrote: post #89
afpx wrote: post #2

Excellent news! Up until age 39, I was never not given an offer after interviewing. Now after 40, my offer rate has dropped to 1 in 14. So much for the claims that there is a shortage in tech. So crazy.

I'm a programmer in my late 50s. While age discrimination is real, and I certainly have my share of "not a culture fit" and "overqualified" rejections over the past 10 years, if you're getting rejected over 90% of the time then I strongly suspect the problem isn't age discrimination. It's much more likely that your skills are out of date or you've gained some bad interviewing habits that you should examine. If people…

You are assuming that interviewers read CVs/resumes before the interview....

A colleague recently had an experience at a second interview where the hiring manager proudly proclaimed that they hadn't read her CV and the interviewer was the one who had done the first interview!

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#195

Post by logfromblammo »

afpx wrote: post #108
maxxxxx wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely never offer to work for free or a reduced rate. It just shows that you are desperate and don't value yourself. If you want to work for free, give speeches or contribute to open source or write a book. There activities will get you respected by other people. Working for cheap makes you lose people's respect.

True. But, I was desperate.

Never lower your rate. If you want to make yourself cheaper for the company, offer to work fewer hours, or on a fixed-term contract rather than permanent employment. For those options, you should also actually be raising your hourly rate, because you'll then have to cover more of your own costs, like taxes and insurance.

And don't let anyone squeeze you to make your actual rate lower. I once went to an interview where I was told that the expectation would be for 45 hours of billable work per week, and so I immediately told them that my salary expectation for that would be 20% higher than for a 40 hour work week. They could raise the salary, or lower the work hours, because on a per-hour basis, their pay range was suddenly no longer competitive.

They declined to negotiate that. So I eventually went to work for someone else more willing to pay me what I think I'm worth.

Don't work for free; it just encourages those who try to scam free work out of people. The only person for whom you should be doing unpaid work is yourself.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#196

Post by ryanmonroe »

agrippanux wrote: post #156

Age discrimination being rampant in our industry is a fantastic opportunity for an astute hiring manager. I go out of my way to hire older devs that are eschewed by typical Bay Area startups. I can get a seasoned pro with a solid background in C - and other more trendy languages - for about the same price of a 3-years-working-experience "senior dev" who likely was battlefield commissioned into the role at their last…

> I go out of my way to hire older devs that are eschewed by typical Bay Area startups

Going "out of [your] way" to hire older devs sounds like age discrimination. AFAIK, age discrimination in this direction isn't illegal in America, but it seems odd that you would respond to an article decrying age-discrimination by proudly declaring that you discriminate too, in the opposite direction. Maybe you just meant that you almost always find the qualities/compensation-demands you're looking for in older applicants rather than younger ones, but your phrasing doesn't seem to indicate that.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#197

Post by baxtr »

hcoura wrote: post #183
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The typical solid dev can only put in 4, maybe 5-6 hours of actual good coding a day. Outside of extremely rare triage situations, this limit is true for all developers, regardless of age or quality of output. Beyond about the 6 hour mark, people can force themselves to sit in a chair and hit keys on a keyboard like the Swedish chef from the muppets, but it's pure management denial to believe those hours count as "…

I have recently started working remotely and dealing with my own productivity as opposed to have some expectations of work hours has been an interesting challenge. Since I log my own hours I became full aware of this 6 hours "ceiling" in the long term, for a few days I could work for many more hours, but that would have a big price to pay in future productivity. In the beginning I felt bad, as if I was not able to pr…

Please, please, please let everybody come to this conclusion. How much better would the world be as place. I’ve wasted many hours of my time at work, not working, which is so sad

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#198

Post by dominotw »

lainga wrote: post #157
dominotw wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Google/Facebook/etc recruit quite heavily from the Ivys. Yes but do they recruit older non traditional students. Schools catering to them doesn't automatically imply that they are being hired by google.

You just moved the goalposts from "don't recruit where there are older students" to "yes, they recruit there, but do they recruit the older students".

ok. I see what you mean.

> don't recruit where there are older students

But they don't recuit from 'schools dedicated to older 'nontraditional' students '

My original comment is still true > Not in the places where top tech companies are willing to go to.

"places" here can be 'schools dedicated to older 'nontraditional' students' within Ivies.

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#199

Post by tyrust »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #187
tyrust wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Resistance to constructive criticism is a potential no-hire signal.

Blaming the victim just for the sake of being contrarian is an even stronger one.

A victim of being told to consider their weaknesses?

Re: Facebook Tools Are Used to Screen Out Older Job Seekers, Lawsuit Claims

#200

Post by bartread »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #164
agrippanux wrote: post #156

Age discrimination being rampant in our industry is a fantastic opportunity for an astute hiring manager. I go out of my way to hire older devs that are eschewed by typical Bay Area startups. I can get a seasoned pro with a solid background in C - and other more trendy languages - for about the same price of a 3-years-working-experience "senior dev" who likely was battlefield commissioned into the role at their last…

> The typical solid dev can only put in 4, maybe 5-6 hours of actual good coding a day. Outside of extremely rare triage situations, this limit is true for all developers, regardless of age or quality of output. Beyond about the 6 hour mark, people can force themselves to sit in a chair and hit keys on a keyboard like the Swedish chef from the muppets, but it's pure management denial to believe those hours count as "…

Maybe you also accrue enough wisdom to know that after that 5-6 hours, however productive you might feel, what you write is going to be garbage so the smartest thing to do is stop, unless you want to waste even more time sorting out the mess later.

I can still code for longer than this, from time to time, but only if I already know exactly where I'm going. Even then it's playing with fire.

Post reply on HN