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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

#741

Post by candiodari »

davnicwil wrote: post #452
itronitron wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, worse work typically gets done a lot more slowly than good work.

I think it depends on the timescale. In the short term, a 'bad' hacky solution is usually quicker than a 'good' one, but it will likely slow you down over the medium to long term. If the timing of that bad hacky solution being shipped is critical, then it's actually the perfect solution and the right work was done quickly, which is great. If it's not, and is rather the first piece of a new feature intended to last fo…

I find writhing a quick hacky solution and then fixing it over time (IF it's worth it, alternatively a rewrite might happen) is quicker because I don't usually write what I want/need on the first try.

If I want to end up with a great end result, I find this is the way I have to work.

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

#742

Post by shard »

Clubber wrote: post #738
user5994461 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The norm is to double or triple salary between graduation and much experience. Remember that costs is more than just salary. In SF/NYC, juniors can start under 100k, seniors can go over 300k. Either number could go either way, let's not argue about who got what. The point is, there is a LARGE multiplier. I recall one friend in London, in a junior position. Left his company because of bad conditions and bad pay. One o…

So 10x to 5x to 3x, which isn't really a large multiplier. Also, a guy worth $300K is a "large multiplier" more valuable than 3 entry level juniors at $100K.

3x the double gives 6x.

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

#745

Post by plorg »

gspetr wrote: post #724
whack wrote: post #684

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard similar quotes before, and always assumed the speaker meant that they didn't want everyone to be a old/white/guy, not that they didn't want anyone who was a old/white/guy. Context matters a lot - such quotes are usually said in reference to a company's leadership team, and there's quite a bit of truth to them. When you look at the list of CEOs/Senior-Executives/Board-members at Fortune 500 companies, it's…

Most Fortune 500 companies were founded by white men -> Most CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are white men. Is that problematic? Tax system already penalizes those who are producing wealth in order to subsidize those who are consuming it.

Alternately, the tax system "penalizes" those who lack wealth by advantaging those who make money by owning capital. Pretending like a pre-existing, often un-earned economic advantage implies some sort of inherent moral or economic superiority is an almost laughably privilege-blind perspective.

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

#746

Post by taejo »

77pt77 wrote: post #588
taejo wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. A year is a long time, and a valuable, difficult achievement in February may raise your prestige for a while, but by December that's faded to background levels. I even forget my own achievements from nine months ago, never mind those of a dozen other people on my team.

The question is always: > What can you do for me or have done for me recently ? Services provided so far in the past that need to be reminded are at best irrelevant and it can actually hurt you to bring them up. I'm not saying that it is nice, only that humans behave individually and (even more collectively) according to this.

So at my annual review in December I should only be assessed on work in the last quarter? I guess I'd better save my best work for November.

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

#747

Post by koliber »

phkahler wrote: post #549
koliber wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about costs. If you are a large company and have robust processes in place, you don't need smart people with tons of experience. Such people are expensive. You need average people who don't need to think too much for themselves and can follow directions and work hard. The process is designed to compensate for mistakes and guide inexperienced workers. Thinking in computer terms, the analogy goes like this. A long…

>> If you are a large company and have robust processes in place, you don't need smart people with tons of experience. Such people are expensive. That was the fallacy put forth in the CMM (Capability Maturity Model) right on page 1 or 2. The notion that process could eliminate the need to rely on experts. There are a couple problems with that. Number one is that there is no process that can solve all problems or writ…

>> Without pockets of expertise, a vast group of mediocre people will drift at times.

I completely agree with each thing you said. I should have been more clear and said "a large company does not need to fill their entire workforce with smart people with tons of experience. Just a few is enough once a good process is in place."

A small company needs very smart people when starting up. They don't have any processes in place and each problem is new.

As companies grow, these experts develop and polish processes. As time goes on, more and more can be done with less capable people.

Not all experts can be eliminated as a company grows. There will always be problems that don't fit the process. An expert is needed for those. A process also needs to adapt with the times. Experts are needed for that.

However, for any class of problem, the pareto principle is in play. An army of mediocre people with an excellent process can handle 80%* of the issues. The remained will need to be handled by experts.

If you have a small company you may need 10 experts to handle X load. You don't need 1000 experts to handle 100x load. You need 20 experts, a good process, and 980 hard working people.

* - numbers depend on actual cases. These values are for illustrative purposes only.

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

#748

Post by loa_in_ »

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…

I genuinely wonder if people in charge of companies read up on the tech news and wonder "I sure would love to have a person, akin to a mathematician, that could do good work and operated in those abstract truths we see are interwoven in all things and reliably improve my business" and then proceed to hire cheapest mental workforce that gets the job barely done .

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

#750

Post by BjoernKW »

marcosdumay wrote: post #692
le-mark wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also note that it is very, very difficult for anyone, inexperienced or experienced, to build a monolith that can later be pulled apart. You're two suggestions are a great start. You have to really design with the major blocks of functionality in mind, and carefully manage dependencies between these blocks AND third party dependencies. So many monoliths are balls of mud, that can't be pulled apart with any reasonable…

Honestly, if one can not create a monolith that isn't a giant ball of mud, one has not chance at all of creating a distributed application, microservices or not, even ignoring quality.

In that case one not unlikely ends up with an anti-pattern known as The Distributed Monolith, which combines the worst of both worlds.
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