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

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

#221

Post by gowld »

galieos_ghost wrote: post #112
shawnfratis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Sorry to say this, but get used, as I have, to getting flooded with employment offers that might as well have a note on the bottom that says "all are welcome to apply-EXCEPT YOU." Why they bother to waste resources to send these out is beyond me, unless they are just sadistic.

Boggles my mind that companies do this. I'm just out of college and am amazed by the depth of knowledge older programmers have. A lot of them can find bugs on an almost instinctive level . I think it might come down to founders being insecure around older engineers who probably won't be afraid to call them out on dumb decisions and won't be as likely to drink the hpye kool-aid because they've seen it all before. Seem…

Why would a founder want to hire someone who doesn't believe in their business?

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

#222

Post by scarface74 »

reaperducer wrote: post #109
dvtrn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Overqualified" has got to be the softest insult you can throw at a job seeker. It ostensibly says "we aren't secure in ourselves as employers to challenge our workers to produce great work, nor do we value original thought, so we'd rather hire drones that don't rattle the cage".

In some industries it means, "You've got a ton of experience, and know this stuff inside and out. But we don't want to pay for someone who knows what they're doing." As you stated, they're looking for inexperienced drones.

Sometimes all you need are inexperienced drones. If you just need a developer to help write the next software as a service CRUD web app and you have experienced developers already, a drone with three years of experience may be good enough.

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

#223

Post by gowld »

csixty4 wrote: post #19
JaceLightning wrote: post #10

I mean, are we going to start suing companies who go to career fairs at colleges too?

There are plenty of older college students. There were lots of grey hairs in my night classes.

Not "plenty". A small fraction. The statistical biases are the point in these discrimination debates.

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

#224

Post by philipov »

cannonedhamster wrote: post #110
philipov wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because managers can measure hours, but they can't measure effectiveness.

Good managers can measure effectiveness. The problem is it's hard to quantify to higher ups, and even when you do quantify the data, it never beats the sales guy drinking with the boss and knowing the boss's taste in wo/men.

I think that measurement implies a quantity being measured, so it sounds like we agree on the main point. Managers can form opinions about who is effective, but the silly quantities they come up with don't end up being useful, because "mistakes avoided" isn't an observable[0]. You can't count events that didn't happen, yet such hypothetical suppositions are crucial to appreciating the benefits of experience.

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable

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

#225

Post by gowld »

bluGill wrote: post #76
wmeredith wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What if they were targeting older workers as part of a diversity program?

That is discrimination against younger workers. Diversity programs are a double edged sword, there are groups that are under represented. However every time you target them you lose the larger group that you didn't target, and that group has great people.

So which group should we prefer, if we don't put our heads in the sand and pretend we are unbiased?

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

#226

Post by s73v3r_ »

notacoward wrote: post #142
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the lawsuit is talking about someone using Facebook tools or other means to specifically target subgroups of the population to be able to see a job ad. As in, older candidates would not have even been allowed to know about the job in the first place, regardless of what pipeline a candidate is placed in. So no, I don't think the properties of a pipeline after a candidate has applied would be related to the l…

> older candidates would not have even been allowed to know about the job To be more precise, they would not have seen the job on Facebook . That's not the same as not being allowed to know about the job, and the difference matters. The question is not whether they were included by a particular venue, medium, or method. If it were, every engagement with a headhunter would be discriminating against anyone not part of…

"That's not the same as not being allowed to know about the job, and the difference matters"

Unless they're also advertising in other places where those people might see the posting, no, the difference does not matter. Saying, "Well, you should have looked for it," when putting the posting in the cellar of the department with the lights gone and the stairs gone in the bottom of a locked file cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying, 'Beware of the Leopard' is not really saying it's on display, now is it?

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

#227

Post by cm2012 »

gowld wrote: post #215
cm2012 wrote: post #208

This is really dumb if you understand how Facebook's advertising algorithm works. It's going to optimize job ads towards people who click job ads. Young people are more likely to be looking for jobs than older people, and thus click job ads more. [1] So Facebook's ad algorithm's are going to target younger people because it's more cost effective, because they want to see these type of ads more by far. By the data, ol…

Comments may be offtopic, but I don't see what's "dumb" about it. The article is about discrimination, and you described how Facebook's algorithm learns to discriminate.

That's fair. But discrimination in where you advertise (with the goal of saving 2/3 of your total cash outlay, rather than ruling out a group as a goal) is a whole different kettle of fish compared to discrimination in the HR process. People shouldn't think Facebook ads have anything to do with the latter.

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

#228

Post by logfromblammo »

galieos_ghost wrote: post #112
shawnfratis wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Sorry to say this, but get used, as I have, to getting flooded with employment offers that might as well have a note on the bottom that says "all are welcome to apply-EXCEPT YOU." Why they bother to waste resources to send these out is beyond me, unless they are just sadistic.

Boggles my mind that companies do this. I'm just out of college and am amazed by the depth of knowledge older programmers have. A lot of them can find bugs on an almost instinctive level . I think it might come down to founders being insecure around older engineers who probably won't be afraid to call them out on dumb decisions and won't be as likely to drink the hpye kool-aid because they've seen it all before. Seem…

I once heard about a bug, diagnosed it, fixed it, and checked in the fix within a span of 15 minutes. The [younger] person who told me about it then looked at me like I was some kind of celestial being that inadvertently let their glamour slip for a moment--they were awestruck. Apparently, they had been struggling with it for a week. I didn't even realize it was a big deal.

That's what hiring older people gets you. But you also have to connect them with younger people.

And yeah, the corporate hype-ade gets dumped right into the potted plants now. But we don't exactly call people out on their dumb decisions, though, as much as factor them into future estimates. Telling truth to power gets you fired at most places, so you share your concerns only in private with your direct supervisor. Then you either polish up your resume again, or you work around all the dumb decisions that have already been made, plus the new one. If they didn't bother to consult with the expert before making that stupid plan, they're probably not going to listen to expert critiques after the fact. Always secure your own paycheck before helping out the company. They won't ever reward you for self-sacrifice.

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

#229

Post by jiggliemon »

The joke is really on the employer using Facebook ads to target a younger candidate pool.

Youngsters don’t use Facebook. And if a young dev is using Facebook - they’re certainly using an ad-blocker. If they’re not using an ad blocker on Facebook, do you even want to hire them?

Seems like if you wanted to attract a pool of young candidates now days, you’d target the parents of the said youngsters. The ones with no applicable experience, and who are still living at home “looking for a job.”

The ad should be to the effect of “tired of your good for nothing millennial taking up your third bedroom? Want them to move out? We’re hiring good for nothing straight out of college devs so as to lock them into a low tier pay bracket.”

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

#230

Post by s73v3r_ »

biztos wrote: post #182
BasHamer wrote: post #144

Data-driven algorithms are discriminating based upon undesirable/illegal vectors; they are utterly amoral in optimizing their solutions. Even if the algorithm does not have access to the "Age" field, then there are plenty of proxies, like what reunion tour you liked. And the same goes for race, gender, sexual identification, religion, etc. To solve this we either need the training data to have no illegal/undesired di…

How would you make the system moral? Let's say "moral" means "won't discriminate based on X" and the same "system" is used by everyone, which of course it wouldn't be. So do you make up a bunch of fake "people" who are equal in everything except X, and test that it doesn't advantage/disadvantage the X's? Would that even be possible if the "system" is getting its inputs from social media? Do you do mandate some kind o…

"How would you make the system moral?"

Don't use it.

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