Google Sued by Job Candidate for Age Discrimination(blogs.wsj.com)
blogs.wsj.com
Google Sued by Job Candidate for Age Discrimination
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/04/23/google-sued-by-job-candidate-for-age-discrimination/
229 comments
There's not a lot of detail about the actual case. But to me based on what's there, it sounds like a recruiter reached out and told him "you would be a great candidate to come work at Google", which is kind of what recruiters always say.
Then he got sent to someone else (someone technical?) for a phone screen, and they decided he wasn't a great fit. It's possible his experience just wasn't really what they were looking for, and that wasn't evident from his resume.
I'm not trying to defend Google. As a 40+ year old programmer, I'm concerned about age discrimination, too. The article just doesn't make a very compelling case to me, I guess.
Then he got sent to someone else (someone technical?) for a phone screen, and they decided he wasn't a great fit. It's possible his experience just wasn't really what they were looking for, and that wasn't evident from his resume.
I'm not trying to defend Google. As a 40+ year old programmer, I'm concerned about age discrimination, too. The article just doesn't make a very compelling case to me, I guess.
> Then he got sent to someone else (someone technical?) for a phone screen, and they decided he wasn't a great fit.
That's certainly understandable, but another article[1] goes into some of the details of that interview that do make it seem a bit odd:
The interviewer was 10 minutes late to the call, "barely fluent in English," and "used a speaker phone that did not function well." Heath politely asked him, repeatedly, to use the phone's headset but the request was declined.
One part of the interview involved writing a short program to find the answer to a problem posed by the interviewer. Heath accomplished the task and offered to share it via Google Docs or email, but, instead, the interviewer required Heath "to read the program coding over the phone."
I'm not suggesting that's grounds for an age discrimination lawsuit, but it's easy to see how it could seem the interviewer wasn't that interested in giving the candidate a fair shot.
[1] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2914233/it-careers/medi...
That's certainly understandable, but another article[1] goes into some of the details of that interview that do make it seem a bit odd:
The interviewer was 10 minutes late to the call, "barely fluent in English," and "used a speaker phone that did not function well." Heath politely asked him, repeatedly, to use the phone's headset but the request was declined.
One part of the interview involved writing a short program to find the answer to a problem posed by the interviewer. Heath accomplished the task and offered to share it via Google Docs or email, but, instead, the interviewer required Heath "to read the program coding over the phone."
I'm not suggesting that's grounds for an age discrimination lawsuit, but it's easy to see how it could seem the interviewer wasn't that interested in giving the candidate a fair shot.
[1] http://www.computerworld.com/article/2914233/it-careers/medi...
Had a similar thing happen to me in a Google interview.
The recruiter was personable and polite.
But the engineer had my 7 year old resume even though I sent the recruiter a recent one. They didn't seem interested in asking much about what I did in the last 7 years. They seemed tired and frustrated and I in turn got nervous and started to stutter and then got into a dead end programming some stupid tree building program. It was pretty bad, and left me with a bad impression.
Year later they contacted me again, and I refused to interview with them.
The recruiter was personable and polite.
But the engineer had my 7 year old resume even though I sent the recruiter a recent one. They didn't seem interested in asking much about what I did in the last 7 years. They seemed tired and frustrated and I in turn got nervous and started to stutter and then got into a dead end programming some stupid tree building program. It was pretty bad, and left me with a bad impression.
Year later they contacted me again, and I refused to interview with them.
> the interviewer required Heath "to read the program coding over the phone."
Yeah, if that actually happened, Google should fire the interviewer. How incredibly absurd.
Yeah, if that actually happened, Google should fire the interviewer. How incredibly absurd.
I have interviewed twice at Google now and it seems pretty par for the course. They didn't tell me the interview date and time until the day before, and despite having to rearrange my schedule on short notice, they couldn't have the courtesy of being on time.
After showing up to the call half hour late, we got started. My interviewer was quite verbally irate when I asked clarifying questions and had some connection problems. Then he asked me to explain my code over the phone, brace-by-brace, colon by colon. I asked to share a document it was declined, I asked if we could talk about the algorithm and pseudo-code, but he wanted the C++. Afterwards he told me it wouldn't compile because it was missing some semicolons.
A few months later I tried again, thinking it was a fluke. Second interview started much the same as the first. I just hung up, not worth my time.
After showing up to the call half hour late, we got started. My interviewer was quite verbally irate when I asked clarifying questions and had some connection problems. Then he asked me to explain my code over the phone, brace-by-brace, colon by colon. I asked to share a document it was declined, I asked if we could talk about the algorithm and pseudo-code, but he wanted the C++. Afterwards he told me it wouldn't compile because it was missing some semicolons.
A few months later I tried again, thinking it was a fluke. Second interview started much the same as the first. I just hung up, not worth my time.
> I have interviewed twice at Google now and it seems pretty par for the course.
I had a phone screen with Google earlier this year and it had great audio quality and used a shared Google Doc. It is really sad to hear that you and others are having such a different experience.
I wonder if the quality of people's interviews are affected by the location and position they're interviewing for. I was interviewing for a smaller location instead of the main campus.
I had a phone screen with Google earlier this year and it had great audio quality and used a shared Google Doc. It is really sad to hear that you and others are having such a different experience.
I wonder if the quality of people's interviews are affected by the location and position they're interviewing for. I was interviewing for a smaller location instead of the main campus.
I second this. I just finished interviewing on-site at Google. The phone screen was fine -- I was given a link to a Google Doc ahead of time. Audio quality was fine and the interviewer was personable. I actually found the on-site interviewers to be significantly nicer than other places I've interviewed at. I mentioned this to one of them and he said that all interviwers are required to go through special training. This was on the main Mountain View campus.
My impression is that bad interviews are the exception and get disproportionate attention. Glassdoor interview ratings for Google are 54% positive, 26% neutral, 18% negative. http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Interview-Question...
My impression is that bad interviews are the exception and get disproportionate attention. Glassdoor interview ratings for Google are 54% positive, 26% neutral, 18% negative. http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Google-Interview-Question...
After Google missed the first scheduled interview, I had the same experience the last time I interviewed. I'd hardly call it a good experience because the call was clear and they used a Google doc, however. I will never understand the idiocy of asking someone to code over the phone (and then not giving them either the time or space/privacy to work in), but if it must be done, at least use an appropriate tool. The code I wrote was JS and there are at least a handful of online realtime JS interpreters like jsbin etc. with proper indentation handling, code highlighting, and most importantly, the ability to run the code so you don't spend time figuring out where the semicolons should be or where missing parenthesis might be. While I have no doubt that age discrimination is happening at Google and elsewhere, one can answer all the questions in the phone screen correctly and still not pass so it'll be quite difficult for the lawsuit to prove its claims.
Out of curiosity, which Google office location?
Google's interview process is a bad joke, but frankly the (internal Google) recruiters I've spoken to appears to be as fed up with it as candidates - anyone interviewing with Google who has a bad phone interview should bring it up with the recruiter, as at least sometimes the recruiters can get the phone screens thrown away.
(source: first hand experience with Google recruiters, and first hand experience of being sent further in the process after explaining the long list of ridiculous flaws in the phone interview I had, all of which the recruiter agreed with me on. I declined to continue the process, though, after it became clear that if I had gotten the job I would have been managing the guy who gave the phone screen; I had no desire whatsoever to ever work with that person based on the way he acted).
(source: first hand experience with Google recruiters, and first hand experience of being sent further in the process after explaining the long list of ridiculous flaws in the phone interview I had, all of which the recruiter agreed with me on. I declined to continue the process, though, after it became clear that if I had gotten the job I would have been managing the guy who gave the phone screen; I had no desire whatsoever to ever work with that person based on the way he acted).
A friend went through a Google phone screen at a satellite campus two or three years ago. The interviewer asked him to solve a simple problem first, which my friend answered. The interviewer followed up with a tougher problem, and before my friend could think for a minute about questions to ask the interviewer, he was told that the interviewer would be leaving to go to the restroom. The interviewer set the phone down.
Twenty minutes later, he returned and asked for a solution, which my friend didn't have. The interviewer ended the call and my friend was turned down. He raised his objections to the process to his recruiter, who apologized and agreed to send him a Google branded mug and T-shirt for his troubles (what a joke). He still hasn't received them.
Twenty minutes later, he returned and asked for a solution, which my friend didn't have. The interviewer ended the call and my friend was turned down. He raised his objections to the process to his recruiter, who apologized and agreed to send him a Google branded mug and T-shirt for his troubles (what a joke). He still hasn't received them.
I'm pretty sure this is common (the same happened to me).
Is it really that bad?
It's understandable if people find it ridiculous to read their code line by line but it's not at all clear from the article this is what was being asked as opposed to asking about the general approach to the problem. I feel like if the person's English was not that good, one thing that the interviewer might have wanted to know was whether the person could communicate effectively with coworkers.
Indeed, the article even says that the interviewer could not understand what was being read. For someone so senior, it's likely that he would have had to mentor junior developers. Seems like it would be a bad experience if they were unable to understand him and vice versa.
It's understandable if people find it ridiculous to read their code line by line but it's not at all clear from the article this is what was being asked as opposed to asking about the general approach to the problem. I feel like if the person's English was not that good, one thing that the interviewer might have wanted to know was whether the person could communicate effectively with coworkers.
Indeed, the article even says that the interviewer could not understand what was being read. For someone so senior, it's likely that he would have had to mentor junior developers. Seems like it would be a bad experience if they were unable to understand him and vice versa.
> I feel like if the person's English was not that good, one thing that the interviewer might have wanted to know was whether the person could communicate effectively with coworkers.
person = interviewer, or candidate?
The interviewee may have wanted to know the same thing about Google employees...
person = interviewer, or candidate?
The interviewee may have wanted to know the same thing about Google employees...
Person = candidate
And indeed the interviewee should probably know that too. Either way it sounds like it was a poor fit if they couldn't understand each other
And indeed the interviewee should probably know that too. Either way it sounds like it was a poor fit if they couldn't understand each other
Yeah, sounds ridiculous, but, well, I don't know, maybe it's on purpose… Like to get a feeling of how able is that person of communicating with his colleagues and explaining code without appropriate media at hand or whatever. It's debatable if this is really what interviewee should be tested for, but ideas about the best interviewing strategy and "what the team needs" diverge drastically, so I guess it's his business.
One more possible scenario: some manager thinks your team absolutely needs more people. You don't think so, because there's some limit on how many people are needed to change a light bulb. So you, in fact, actually aren't that interested in the candidate unless you see that he is perfect fit, somebody you just cannot lose only because you don't need more people right now. And I cannot judge you, it's, well, _OK_ to not to hire someone. Yeah, in the perfect world everybody is always polite and sincerely interested in others and so on, but c'mon, lets just allow people do their job and keep them away from all these political bullshit.
One more possible scenario: some manager thinks your team absolutely needs more people. You don't think so, because there's some limit on how many people are needed to change a light bulb. So you, in fact, actually aren't that interested in the candidate unless you see that he is perfect fit, somebody you just cannot lose only because you don't need more people right now. And I cannot judge you, it's, well, _OK_ to not to hire someone. Yeah, in the perfect world everybody is always polite and sincerely interested in others and so on, but c'mon, lets just allow people do their job and keep them away from all these political bullshit.
A bad phone interview is very different from age discrimination. Was this lazy interviewer even aware of the candidate's age? If this is all they have, this can't possibly go anywhere. Right...?
Reading between the lines, it sounds like the guy got angry and argumentative with the interviewer, and that never ends in employment.
A better legal angle could be that the crappy phone line is discriminatory against people with bad hearing, such as many old people.
When I interviewed at Google in 2006, I had to read my scribbled 14 lines of code over the phone. It was kinda reasonable then, but I'm astonished they still do that when we have simple tools like this: https://coderpad.io/ not to mention Google's own Docs.
Reading between the lines, it sounds like the guy got angry and argumentative with the interviewer, and that never ends in employment.
A better legal angle could be that the crappy phone line is discriminatory against people with bad hearing, such as many old people.
When I interviewed at Google in 2006, I had to read my scribbled 14 lines of code over the phone. It was kinda reasonable then, but I'm astonished they still do that when we have simple tools like this: https://coderpad.io/ not to mention Google's own Docs.
> The interviewer was 10 minutes late to the call, barely fluent in English, and used a speaker phone that did not function well.
Sounds a lot like my Google interview. And then it took a month for the interviewer to send his feedback. Along with a bunch of other ridiculous things, it really was the worst interview process I've ever had.
Sounds a lot like my Google interview. And then it took a month for the interviewer to send his feedback. Along with a bunch of other ridiculous things, it really was the worst interview process I've ever had.
That's still pretty sketchy grounds for age discrimination, unless there is more to the story that isn't making it into the tech press.
How about this one: About 2005, shortly after completing my Ph.D., I interviewed with th' Goog', including an on-site in Dublin (they said they had just started doing on-site interviews outside of Mountain View); the next day I received email from the recruiter in Dublin saying, "looks like we're coming to a successful conclusion", and a few days later received their standard thanks-but-no-thanks letter. I was unable to get more information from them. Clearly, I was denied by the mother ship, but one of the few solid reasons I could come up with was that I was 37 at the time.
How about this one: About 2005, shortly after completing my Ph.D., I interviewed with th' Goog', including an on-site in Dublin (they said they had just started doing on-site interviews outside of Mountain View); the next day I received email from the recruiter in Dublin saying, "looks like we're coming to a successful conclusion", and a few days later received their standard thanks-but-no-thanks letter. I was unable to get more information from them. Clearly, I was denied by the mother ship, but one of the few solid reasons I could come up with was that I was 37 at the time.
> one of the few solids reasons ... was that I was 37 at the time.
I'm sorry but you have to give specific reasons. Otherwise this is just an imaginary persecution complex.
I'm sorry but you have to give specific reasons. Otherwise this is just an imaginary persecution complex.
For those unfamiliar with the interview process at Google, you meet with several people over the course of a day.
What's more likely is that you had some positive scores and feedback from several interviewers initially. Then, the remaining feedback from the other interviewers came in a little later and was below the mark. Interviewers have focus areas typically, so it's not uncommon to see candidates do very well in one area (e.g. culture fit) and poorly in another (e.g. technical ability).
The recruiter shouldn't have lead you on like that. They should know that until all the scores and feedback is in, nothing is final. That said, it is their job to keep candidates engaged. So, perhaps this one was a little over zealous?
What's more likely is that you had some positive scores and feedback from several interviewers initially. Then, the remaining feedback from the other interviewers came in a little later and was below the mark. Interviewers have focus areas typically, so it's not uncommon to see candidates do very well in one area (e.g. culture fit) and poorly in another (e.g. technical ability).
The recruiter shouldn't have lead you on like that. They should know that until all the scores and feedback is in, nothing is final. That said, it is their job to keep candidates engaged. So, perhaps this one was a little over zealous?
This seems fairly standard for phone interviews at large tech companies, regardless of the age of the interviewee.
The interviewer is probably an engineer who had to find a random conference room to conduct the call in (hence being 10 minutes late and using a lousy speakerphone). Asking the interviewee to talk through the code he's written would not be unusual if the interviewer wanted to find out about the thought process that went into writing the code.
And it's impossible to know without context, but the "barely fluent in English" part sounds more like bias on the side of the interviewee than anything.
The interviewer is probably an engineer who had to find a random conference room to conduct the call in (hence being 10 minutes late and using a lousy speakerphone). Asking the interviewee to talk through the code he's written would not be unusual if the interviewer wanted to find out about the thought process that went into writing the code.
And it's impossible to know without context, but the "barely fluent in English" part sounds more like bias on the side of the interviewee than anything.
That story may well be accurate, but it more likely reflects how the interviewer/environment mistreats everyone, instead of any unusual treatment of one candidate.
It sounds like Google has some real assholes working with them. Why would you want to work for a company where people like that could be your boss? Sounds awful.
It sounds like the interviewer didn't care much about the interview, and conducted it while driving so that he didn't waste time out of some other part of the day.
(Of course, this is pure speculation based on a third-hand one-sided account.)
If so, it has nothing to do with discrimination.
(Of course, this is pure speculation based on a third-hand one-sided account.)
If so, it has nothing to do with discrimination.
> Heath politely asked him, repeatedly, to use the phone's headset but the request was declined.
It's also easy to see how it could seem the interviewee wasn't that interested in giving the interview a fair shot, but you forgot to point this out.
It's also easy to see how it could seem the interviewee wasn't that interested in giving the interview a fair shot, but you forgot to point this out.
How?
"I cannot hear you, could you use the headset instead of the speaker phone mode?"
How does this make it seem the interviewee wasn't interested? He couldn't hear and asked the interviewer if he could use the headset which would have taken no effort and made the whole process a lot better.
"I cannot hear you, could you use the headset instead of the speaker phone mode?"
How does this make it seem the interviewee wasn't interested? He couldn't hear and asked the interviewer if he could use the headset which would have taken no effort and made the whole process a lot better.
You assume that is how he asked. I know he describes it as politely but he might consider a polite request as 'Please use the headset." Repeated, even after being told no, possibly with explanation that he can't understand him due to his accent instead of comment on the quality of the speaker phone.
My point isn't that either of these straw man situations happened, its that any of a wealth of possible scenarios are possible given the extremely vague details given by the interviewee it is easy to see many different interpretations by the parties involved as reasonable.
My point isn't that either of these straw man situations happened, its that any of a wealth of possible scenarios are possible given the extremely vague details given by the interviewee it is easy to see many different interpretations by the parties involved as reasonable.
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I have to agree with you. Even if they said that the person looks like a great candidate, failing a telephone interview is not necessarily a sign of age discrimination. We once had a guy who looked absolutely fabulous on paper, and was older than me (and I'm pushing 50 ;-) ). To be honest, I was incredibly excited to get the opportunity to work with someone who had more experience than me -- especially with the CV that he had. I'm the oldest person on our team and having someone else who had been there and done that was really enticing. But the phone interview just didn't go well enough. I still kind of regret not calling him in for a face-2-face, but we already had a full plate of people who's phone interview did go well. Sometimes that's just the way it works out. I've screwed up interviews in the past too. One can't very well overlook a bad interview because the candidate is older. That would also be age discrimination.
> One can't very well overlook a bad interview because the candidate is older. That would also be age discrimination.
Legally, in the US, it isn't. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act specifically only protects workers 40 or older. http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm
There is nothing illegal at the US federal level about discrimination in the reverse direction (favoring workers over 40, perhaps by overlooking a bad interview), nor about age discrimination against a 39-year-old who is perceived to be too old for the company or industry.
Legally, in the US, it isn't. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act specifically only protects workers 40 or older. http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/adea.cfm
There is nothing illegal at the US federal level about discrimination in the reverse direction (favoring workers over 40, perhaps by overlooking a bad interview), nor about age discrimination against a 39-year-old who is perceived to be too old for the company or industry.
What I find interesting is that you must be at least 35 years old to hold the office of POTUS, which is age discrimination in the other direction.
When was the last time we had a seriously-regarded candidate between 35 and 40, though, let alone under 35? It seems like the field self-selects and voters also select for candidates with a high degree of experience in politics, anyway.
Wikipedia has a good section about it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_candidacy#Controversies
> voters also select for candidates with a high degree of experience in politics, anyway
If that'd genuinely be the case, there's no reason for a hard minimum age limit to be codified.
I personally can see the potential for a younger candidate, if given a chance, to be able to mobilize a ton of young voters and even win, especially given the current state of social media.
If Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, and Page can effectively run billion dollar companies in their twenties and early thirties, I can totally see a 20-something be a better POTUS than folks who came before her.
If that'd genuinely be the case, there's no reason for a hard minimum age limit to be codified.
I personally can see the potential for a younger candidate, if given a chance, to be able to mobilize a ton of young voters and even win, especially given the current state of social media.
If Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, and Page can effectively run billion dollar companies in their twenties and early thirties, I can totally see a 20-something be a better POTUS than folks who came before her.
I'm feeling silly today, so I'll share my favourite tin-foil hat moment. Consider a political system where only 2 or 3 parties have a reasonable chance to get a significant number of candidates elected (significant means enough to control the direction of policy). Also consider a system where the parties themselves select which candidates that the general voter is allowed to vote for.
So in other words, in any given area there will be 2 or 3 candidates that have a decent chance of winning. Those 2 or 3 candidates are selected by their parties to be allowed to run in that area. Obviously some independents will get elected, but not enough to control government policy.
Now imagine a system where the people who run for their parties are selected by an internal vote inside the party. If you are not a member of the party, you have no say in which candidates are allowed to run in the area that you vote in. Which, of course, seems completely fair because why should outsiders determine which candidates a party runs?
Now imagine that these votes are not one vote per person, but rather vote-by-proxy. In other words, if a member of the party does not wish to vote for candidate selection, they can, instead, assign a proxy to vote for them. In practice, there will be certain very senior people in the party who have a very large number of proxy votes that they can vote with. The average party member will be encourage to assign their proxy to experienced, trusted party leaders because actually attending a convention and voting yourself is a PITA. Through political dealings, there will be big blocks of votes that can can sway the selection very easily.
Now imagine that you are some shadowy entity outside of the political system. You have some money that you want to use to influence the political system. Let's say that you want to ensure that enough people sympathetic to your cause are elected (from whatever party) so that you can control public policy. How much money would it cost?
Let's say there are 3 parties with a realistic chance of controlling public policy. You don't need to bribe every official. Instead you only need to bribe the people with many proxy votes. Those people can insist that in exchange for promoting the candidate to run in an area, the candidate must "tow the party line" on these kinds of issues.
That way the majority of the candidates that realistically stand a chance of affecting public policy are on board with the shadowy entity. The public never really gets a chance to vote on the issue because it has all been controlled at the candidate selection level.
Now imagine that you are a young, idealistic candidate that will refuse to make such a horrible deal just to get selected as a candidate. Well, you won't be selected as a candidate. Every 4 years you will try and try and try and after 4 or 5 times you will realize that there is absolutely no way to be a candidate without playing ball with the party politics. By the time you are 40 or 50, you've become realistic and even if you hate it, you will realize that you must compromise on some issues in order to push through the issues that are more important to you.
And so any "seriously-regarded" candidate is older, because nobody gets to even pay attention to you until you agree to compromise. And even if you agree to compromise, it takes time before the people with the proxy votes trust that you will follow through.
Of course the above is complete fiction. But, I have always thought about it this way: in computer security we feel that if an exploit exists, it is only a matter of time before it is used. The above sounds like a nice little exploit.
So in other words, in any given area there will be 2 or 3 candidates that have a decent chance of winning. Those 2 or 3 candidates are selected by their parties to be allowed to run in that area. Obviously some independents will get elected, but not enough to control government policy.
Now imagine a system where the people who run for their parties are selected by an internal vote inside the party. If you are not a member of the party, you have no say in which candidates are allowed to run in the area that you vote in. Which, of course, seems completely fair because why should outsiders determine which candidates a party runs?
Now imagine that these votes are not one vote per person, but rather vote-by-proxy. In other words, if a member of the party does not wish to vote for candidate selection, they can, instead, assign a proxy to vote for them. In practice, there will be certain very senior people in the party who have a very large number of proxy votes that they can vote with. The average party member will be encourage to assign their proxy to experienced, trusted party leaders because actually attending a convention and voting yourself is a PITA. Through political dealings, there will be big blocks of votes that can can sway the selection very easily.
Now imagine that you are some shadowy entity outside of the political system. You have some money that you want to use to influence the political system. Let's say that you want to ensure that enough people sympathetic to your cause are elected (from whatever party) so that you can control public policy. How much money would it cost?
Let's say there are 3 parties with a realistic chance of controlling public policy. You don't need to bribe every official. Instead you only need to bribe the people with many proxy votes. Those people can insist that in exchange for promoting the candidate to run in an area, the candidate must "tow the party line" on these kinds of issues.
That way the majority of the candidates that realistically stand a chance of affecting public policy are on board with the shadowy entity. The public never really gets a chance to vote on the issue because it has all been controlled at the candidate selection level.
Now imagine that you are a young, idealistic candidate that will refuse to make such a horrible deal just to get selected as a candidate. Well, you won't be selected as a candidate. Every 4 years you will try and try and try and after 4 or 5 times you will realize that there is absolutely no way to be a candidate without playing ball with the party politics. By the time you are 40 or 50, you've become realistic and even if you hate it, you will realize that you must compromise on some issues in order to push through the issues that are more important to you.
And so any "seriously-regarded" candidate is older, because nobody gets to even pay attention to you until you agree to compromise. And even if you agree to compromise, it takes time before the people with the proxy votes trust that you will follow through.
Of course the above is complete fiction. But, I have always thought about it this way: in computer security we feel that if an exploit exists, it is only a matter of time before it is used. The above sounds like a nice little exploit.
I had a similar experience in doing telephone screenings a few years ago. On paper, the candidate looked a lot like me. But in the phone screen actually had trouble with some very softball questions. We usually asked about SQL, ASP.Net and JavaScript... if the candidate did well in any one of the three, they moved on to the next stage.
I was absolutely amazed at the number of people with a decade or more of web development with ASP/ASP.Net SQL and JavaScript that didn't get past that first stage (about 1 in 4). It actually made me very upset that was the state of the hiring process for technical roles.
I can't imagine what it's like for Google, given that they tend to ask for more conceptual understanding of common algorithms, which I know for a fact I'd fail at because I simply don't work in constructs that low level, and it's been years since I've read much on them. I do have an understanding of how to distribute work, and connect complex solutions together to a relatively fine grained detail... but being well rounded with a good high-level vision isn't what companies like Google and Microsoft tend to screen for (I have gone through the interview process for MS a few times, but never with Google).
I was absolutely amazed at the number of people with a decade or more of web development with ASP/ASP.Net SQL and JavaScript that didn't get past that first stage (about 1 in 4). It actually made me very upset that was the state of the hiring process for technical roles.
I can't imagine what it's like for Google, given that they tend to ask for more conceptual understanding of common algorithms, which I know for a fact I'd fail at because I simply don't work in constructs that low level, and it's been years since I've read much on them. I do have an understanding of how to distribute work, and connect complex solutions together to a relatively fine grained detail... but being well rounded with a good high-level vision isn't what companies like Google and Microsoft tend to screen for (I have gone through the interview process for MS a few times, but never with Google).
Definitely agree.
The line that is cited by the employee is that the company is "embarking on its largest recruiting / hiring campaign in its history" and that they are very interested in the candidate. This is actually the exact line many people get when they get approached by Google recruiters.
Then he didn't pass the phone screen...
If there was something worse said during phone screen itself, then they probably would have put it in the article as an argument on his side...
The line that is cited by the employee is that the company is "embarking on its largest recruiting / hiring campaign in its history" and that they are very interested in the candidate. This is actually the exact line many people get when they get approached by Google recruiters.
Then he didn't pass the phone screen...
If there was something worse said during phone screen itself, then they probably would have put it in the article as an argument on his side...
I worked at Google and I'm not a fan of the place, but I never felt like it had a strong culture of ageism. That said, I wasn't there for long and I didn't see much. Also, I was in the NYC office and ageism seems to be a California thing. If you had a good manager and team, age didn't seem to matter.
That said, I've only worked in one company that seemed overtly ageist (a piece-of-shit startup where I spent 3 months after Google). Maybe I'm not in-tune enough to see it. The fact that it exists disturbs me, but Google seems pretty good on this issue compared to most California tech companies that make it more obvious.
That said, I've only worked in one company that seemed overtly ageist (a piece-of-shit startup where I spent 3 months after Google). Maybe I'm not in-tune enough to see it. The fact that it exists disturbs me, but Google seems pretty good on this issue compared to most California tech companies that make it more obvious.
Having been on the screening side and candidate side... it's rough either way. I just turned 40, and see certain biases even from myself, and tend to think that a lot of developers by their mid 30's simply are less inclined to use or keep up with newer tools. I see the same "Enterprise" patterns used over and over again, because that's the way it is done not because it's even a good fit. And this is from someone in that age group... so I can definitely understand it.
On the flip side, it's been over a decade since I've looked at a lot of things at a lower level (implemented a b-tree or quick-sort) or even really used a fully compiled language; favoring .Net, JavaScript and other scripted languages. The kinds of things that Google/MS and others seem to screen for just don't interest me as much as building a distributed system that can handle scale and load consistently. I've never been a fan of OO and tend to favor more functional patterns. Almost every time I've looked at a Java or .Net solution I cringe as there's always a number of design patterns that don't fit well, and implemented by any number of people who I wouldn't consider craftsmen.
People tend to get too comfortable with a given situation... I think after the bubble burst around 2000 a pretty large divide was created between those before the bubble and those since... Especially given that a lot of people came in and left software development during the early 2000's... I see a lot of people 35+ and a lot of people under 30.. and a bit of a gap in between. It's almost a given that ageism is bound to flourish in the environment.
A lot of attention is given to bringing more women into technology in terms of using "inclusive phrasing", having recently had an interesting discussion following someone come into an IRC channel and asking, "can one of you guys help me with something". I think the younger generation should work on re-thinking about their own ageism.
On the flip side, it's been over a decade since I've looked at a lot of things at a lower level (implemented a b-tree or quick-sort) or even really used a fully compiled language; favoring .Net, JavaScript and other scripted languages. The kinds of things that Google/MS and others seem to screen for just don't interest me as much as building a distributed system that can handle scale and load consistently. I've never been a fan of OO and tend to favor more functional patterns. Almost every time I've looked at a Java or .Net solution I cringe as there's always a number of design patterns that don't fit well, and implemented by any number of people who I wouldn't consider craftsmen.
People tend to get too comfortable with a given situation... I think after the bubble burst around 2000 a pretty large divide was created between those before the bubble and those since... Especially given that a lot of people came in and left software development during the early 2000's... I see a lot of people 35+ and a lot of people under 30.. and a bit of a gap in between. It's almost a given that ageism is bound to flourish in the environment.
A lot of attention is given to bringing more women into technology in terms of using "inclusive phrasing", having recently had an interesting discussion following someone come into an IRC channel and asking, "can one of you guys help me with something". I think the younger generation should work on re-thinking about their own ageism.
I've never been a fan of OO and tend to favor more functional patterns. Almost every time I've looked at a Java or .Net solution I cringe as there's always a number of design patterns that don't fit well, and implemented by any number of people who I wouldn't consider craftsmen.
Agreed. See, it's knowledge like this that makes older programmers the best hires. Most people don't realize that OOP's design patters are detrimental until after a decade of programming experience.
Especially given that a lot of people came in and left software development during the early 2000's... I see a lot of people 35+ and a lot of people under 30.. and a bit of a gap in between.
Hm. I'm exactly in that gap (I'm 31) and I never thought about it in those terms. I think that a part of the problem is that 2002-2005 and 2008-9 were terrible years to come out of college, while 2006-7 were pretty good. Even though I've made a lot of career mistakes, the year of graduate school that I did (I was in a math PhD program for a year, before I realized that academia was a declining industry best escaped) actually made me better off by putting me on the market in a much better year (2006) to start a career. 2005 was still awful.
Successful people under 35 definitely seem to have birth-year clusters (obviously, there are individual exceptions): there's a 1984-86 cluster and a 1990-92 cluster. 2002 tanked salaries and job availability, while 2008 tanked job availability but not salaries, so the people who were able to establish themselves in 2006-7 and get on a decent track, before the shit-fan interaction term became nonzero, were able to work their way into high salaries and leadership roles (since leadership roles follow from high salary, and not the reverse, in most companies) during the boom times of 2012-15.
I think the younger generation should work on re-thinking about their own ageism.
I don't think that the younger generation (meaning the people under 30 now) is ageist at all. Most young programmers are as much against ageism as the older ones being affected. I think that the ageism comes from middle-aged businessmen who see middle-aged programmers as not having made the cut to get into management. It's an attitude of, "If you're so smart, why aren't you like me?"
Agreed. See, it's knowledge like this that makes older programmers the best hires. Most people don't realize that OOP's design patters are detrimental until after a decade of programming experience.
Especially given that a lot of people came in and left software development during the early 2000's... I see a lot of people 35+ and a lot of people under 30.. and a bit of a gap in between.
Hm. I'm exactly in that gap (I'm 31) and I never thought about it in those terms. I think that a part of the problem is that 2002-2005 and 2008-9 were terrible years to come out of college, while 2006-7 were pretty good. Even though I've made a lot of career mistakes, the year of graduate school that I did (I was in a math PhD program for a year, before I realized that academia was a declining industry best escaped) actually made me better off by putting me on the market in a much better year (2006) to start a career. 2005 was still awful.
Successful people under 35 definitely seem to have birth-year clusters (obviously, there are individual exceptions): there's a 1984-86 cluster and a 1990-92 cluster. 2002 tanked salaries and job availability, while 2008 tanked job availability but not salaries, so the people who were able to establish themselves in 2006-7 and get on a decent track, before the shit-fan interaction term became nonzero, were able to work their way into high salaries and leadership roles (since leadership roles follow from high salary, and not the reverse, in most companies) during the boom times of 2012-15.
I think the younger generation should work on re-thinking about their own ageism.
I don't think that the younger generation (meaning the people under 30 now) is ageist at all. Most young programmers are as much against ageism as the older ones being affected. I think that the ageism comes from middle-aged businessmen who see middle-aged programmers as not having made the cut to get into management. It's an attitude of, "If you're so smart, why aren't you like me?"
I actually did a brief stint in management and would never do it again... I much prefer being in a developer or architect role. I like to mentor, and don't mind doing some PM type stuff... but never again do I want to be saddled with management or hr type tasks ever again.
Why is that? I tend to agree that middle management is a trap. If you don't get creative control but have to push other people to work on things, it can be worse than being a grunt, because your job is actually to enforce directives that you don't agree with. If it's bad to follow a stupid rule, it's even worse to be expected to make 10 other people follow it and to discipline (or even fire) them if they don't comply.
Middle management can often be the worst of both worlds. I don't know if that's intrinsic to the job, or just intrinsic to how organizations conceive of the job.
The sad truth, however, is that most people have no options other than climbing, because so much of this industry is "manage or be managed". It's at the point where I would generally not take a job without a manager-equivalent title at the VP/Dir level unless it was a small organization or one that I knew well, even though I have no need to be running a team. Ideally, you want to be a programmer in terms of what you actually get to do, but VP-equivalent in terms of being able to get shit done, be listened to when you need something, and avoid undesirable and distracting work being dropped onto you.
Middle management can often be the worst of both worlds. I don't know if that's intrinsic to the job, or just intrinsic to how organizations conceive of the job.
The sad truth, however, is that most people have no options other than climbing, because so much of this industry is "manage or be managed". It's at the point where I would generally not take a job without a manager-equivalent title at the VP/Dir level unless it was a small organization or one that I knew well, even though I have no need to be running a team. Ideally, you want to be a programmer in terms of what you actually get to do, but VP-equivalent in terms of being able to get shit done, be listened to when you need something, and avoid undesirable and distracting work being dropped onto you.
We had recently interviewed a female candidate for a Lead engineering role at our company. What impressed us about her resume was that she was mentioned as co-inventor in at least 11 patents while working for IBM, various SW "Architecture" projects yada yada. During the interview she could not explain the basics of database queries processing before we could even asked her how to write a simple statement that prints out the dupes.
The thing is we (as I address to most of the HM community which I am assuming is tech/IT related) work in a very lucrative yet highly dangerous field. If you don not keep up with ongoing technologies and have failed to update your skills even in a time frame of 6-12 months, buddy youre outta market.
Companies like IBM, HP/Compaq, Dell, Oil firms, Networking companies have this culture (btw i have had experienced it first handed) where they promote their engineers to lead roles so early on and have them do all of the Project Management tasks and in the midst of everything, years pass by and they are left with obsolete technical skills and 20 years of work experience. I wish things were not like this.
The thing is we (as I address to most of the HM community which I am assuming is tech/IT related) work in a very lucrative yet highly dangerous field. If you don not keep up with ongoing technologies and have failed to update your skills even in a time frame of 6-12 months, buddy youre outta market.
Companies like IBM, HP/Compaq, Dell, Oil firms, Networking companies have this culture (btw i have had experienced it first handed) where they promote their engineers to lead roles so early on and have them do all of the Project Management tasks and in the midst of everything, years pass by and they are left with obsolete technical skills and 20 years of work experience. I wish things were not like this.
I agree with this comment and there's a lot of truth to this observation, except for one tiny nitpick: "buddy, you're out of market."
That depends on many factors, though...primarily the employer and what kind of work is done. For instance, Google has a huge C++ codebase that needs to be maintained. I guess it could be argued that even in C++, one needs to keep up with the C++11/C++14 curve, but I doubt that curve is as extreme or difficult to keep current on as, say, new developments in JavaScript.
That depends on many factors, though...primarily the employer and what kind of work is done. For instance, Google has a huge C++ codebase that needs to be maintained. I guess it could be argued that even in C++, one needs to keep up with the C++11/C++14 curve, but I doubt that curve is as extreme or difficult to keep current on as, say, new developments in JavaScript.
> it could be argued that even in C++, one needs to keep up with the C++11/C++14 curve
It would be a poor argument. An accomplished senior level candidate may not not follow all the proceeding of some language committee, but could have all kinds of important technical and non-technical skills. It's often more valuable that your engineers understand your problem domain well, produce code with a low defect rate in a steady rhythm, encourage others to excel through management or mentoring, etc.
It would be a poor argument. An accomplished senior level candidate may not not follow all the proceeding of some language committee, but could have all kinds of important technical and non-technical skills. It's often more valuable that your engineers understand your problem domain well, produce code with a low defect rate in a steady rhythm, encourage others to excel through management or mentoring, etc.
C++ is drastically different today from 10-15 years ago. Sure, so is Javascript, but C++ as a language and as an ecosystem encompasses vastly more concepts and operations than Javascript, and the language itself seems to add complexity at a much greater rate.
There are new features in both, sure, but "drastically different" seems to imply that someone proficient in the C++ or Javascript of 10-15 years ago would take more than 2 weeks to get up to speed. I think that's unlikely.
"Oh, the compiler does that automatically now!" is not such a steep learning curve.
"Oh, the compiler does that automatically now!" is not such a steep learning curve.
I know old-school C++ with templates. I think it would take me more than two weeks to get up to my current level of Ruby proficiency due to all the changes in the STL, Boost, auto pointers, lambdas, etc.
Yup..after re-reading my comment this tiny nitpick: "buddy, you're out of market." was a bit condescending on my part. Apologies.
6-12 months? What? You must work in web frameworks...
Your example, I assume, refers to SQL, which was first released in 1986. The absolute latest standard was released in 2011. The lingua franca to be proficient in say, Postgres, changes far slower than that.
Your example, I assume, refers to SQL, which was first released in 1986. The absolute latest standard was released in 2011. The lingua franca to be proficient in say, Postgres, changes far slower than that.
It sounds like you just did a bad job of reviewing that resume. The candidate almost certainly had valuable skills that probably just don't align with what you were looking for.
I also don't understand why you mentioned that she was a woman or what this has to do with the article in the first place.
I also don't understand why you mentioned that she was a woman or what this has to do with the article in the first place.
In this scenario it was candidate responsibility to make sure she/he has all of the necessary skills before they press the submit button.
> female
seems like an arbitary detail to add, among the many possible details you could have chosen.
seems like an arbitary detail to add, among the many possible details you could have chosen.
Details are just details. It all depends on how you interpret and perceive them :-)
Age discrimination is definitely an issue in this industry. I encourage all the <40's to consider their position towards their elder peers in light of just how quickly 10 - 15 years can fly by when you spend a majority of it in front of a screen ..
> "Age discrimination is definitely an issue in this industry."
Perhaps this is true for certain segments of "this industry", but, like so many blanket statements on HN, this is just false for the larger industry as a whole. Most of the jobs in "this industry" are enterprise/corporate/consultancy, and those jobs are simply not age-discriminatory. For those who seek a work environment where the latest/greatest is paramount, please prepare yourselves to deal with the consequences. For the vast majority of us, other forms of discrimination are INCREDIBLY more relevant.
Perhaps this is true for certain segments of "this industry", but, like so many blanket statements on HN, this is just false for the larger industry as a whole. Most of the jobs in "this industry" are enterprise/corporate/consultancy, and those jobs are simply not age-discriminatory. For those who seek a work environment where the latest/greatest is paramount, please prepare yourselves to deal with the consequences. For the vast majority of us, other forms of discrimination are INCREDIBLY more relevant.
>For those who seek a work environment where the latest/greatest is paramount, please prepare yourselves to deal with the consequences.
...because you will face well known and rampant age discrimination right?
The wsj article list also includes Salesforce, Nvidia, Adobe, Intel, Samsung and, IBM which I believe qualify as being corporate. But even if they were not discriminatory it would not remotely excuse those who are.
Speaking of blanket truths on HN, what percentage of ycombinator founders are over 40?
...because you will face well known and rampant age discrimination right?
The wsj article list also includes Salesforce, Nvidia, Adobe, Intel, Samsung and, IBM which I believe qualify as being corporate. But even if they were not discriminatory it would not remotely excuse those who are.
Speaking of blanket truths on HN, what percentage of ycombinator founders are over 40?
My understanding is that much of the YC evaluation comes from accomplishment density - accomplishments/time. That's pretty hard to maintain for many years, so it's natural that fewer 40 somethings meet that metric. I'm 44 and can easily chart my regression-to-the-mean over the years.
In fact, I think if somebody does maintain that accomplishment density and is interested in YC, they become a partner. :)
In fact, I think if somebody does maintain that accomplishment density and is interested in YC, they become a partner. :)
Yet others in this thread have explained low numbers of over 40 employees by claiming they often go on to become entrepreneurs. In that case we should see a higher precentage of founders in that older age group not a lower number.
Of course what you and others say is quite plausible. But also often contradictory. It really looks like a very real phenomenon for which intuitive but post hoc conjectures are being generated. You could do the same thing for women or any other group as well (thank goodness sensible people don't)
Ycombinator is not evil or unusual but really ageism is a very measurable, irrational problem in the industry that is undoubtedly resulting in lost efficiency and we have a choice of addressing it or just ignoring it with facile explanations.
Of course what you and others say is quite plausible. But also often contradictory. It really looks like a very real phenomenon for which intuitive but post hoc conjectures are being generated. You could do the same thing for women or any other group as well (thank goodness sensible people don't)
Ycombinator is not evil or unusual but really ageism is a very measurable, irrational problem in the industry that is undoubtedly resulting in lost efficiency and we have a choice of addressing it or just ignoring it with facile explanations.
http://www.endicottalliance.org/jobcutsreports.php just search for age, the situation is long and complicate and the corps have perfected the art of hiding layoff in plain sight, but the preference for laying off staff was the same cross countries.
>what percentage of ycombinator founders are over 40?
It seems obvious to me that even in a world with no discrimination, programs with an introductory/learning aspect that require massive drive will mostly have younger people in them, because older people with the same drive will have largely already gone through something like that.
It seems obvious to me that even in a world with no discrimination, programs with an introductory/learning aspect that require massive drive will mostly have younger people in them, because older people with the same drive will have largely already gone through something like that.
You're arguing for discrimination-discrimination. Okay. All discrimination is bad, mmmkay, newbie ... ?
I understand you didn't mean it this way, but this is such a depressing message.
It's only depressing if you first hear it after said years have flown.
Taken in at age 27, it might be the spark that sets one down a life path where "time in a felt cube" is minimized in favor of higher priority things.
My 30s flew. But very little of it was spent actually heads down coding.
Taken in at age 27, it might be the spark that sets one down a life path where "time in a felt cube" is minimized in favor of higher priority things.
My 30s flew. But very little of it was spent actually heads down coding.
When I started out 100+ hour weeks were the norm for me. I worked the first year and a half without taking a single day off (neither weekends nor national holidays). Definitely not worth it for me.
In my 30's I got smarter and programmed as much as I wanted (which was still a lot more than I got paid for). Career was still a huge priority for me though. I struggled to find work/life balance because I thought it was a zero sum game.
In my 40's I took 5 years off and taught English in Japan. I came back to a programming career 2 or 3 years ago.
What have I learned? Heads down coding is really important to me. I prioritise it. It is what I enjoy doing most in this world. I pretty much ignore my career now and just try to help out my team the best way that I can. I like helping people (I learned that from teaching). I also try to write as much code as I can before I get tired. And then I rest.
My job is fun (most of the time). Sometimes helping people who make my job not fun is very hard, but you always have a choice whether to help people or not. Sometimes if I can't help someone, I have to let it go. I have learned that there are some jobs where you have to let the job go because you can't help the people who are there. But in my experience, most jobs aren't like that. Usually there is a place for people who like to write code.
This kind of life can be good too :-)
In my 30's I got smarter and programmed as much as I wanted (which was still a lot more than I got paid for). Career was still a huge priority for me though. I struggled to find work/life balance because I thought it was a zero sum game.
In my 40's I took 5 years off and taught English in Japan. I came back to a programming career 2 or 3 years ago.
What have I learned? Heads down coding is really important to me. I prioritise it. It is what I enjoy doing most in this world. I pretty much ignore my career now and just try to help out my team the best way that I can. I like helping people (I learned that from teaching). I also try to write as much code as I can before I get tired. And then I rest.
My job is fun (most of the time). Sometimes helping people who make my job not fun is very hard, but you always have a choice whether to help people or not. Sometimes if I can't help someone, I have to let it go. I have learned that there are some jobs where you have to let the job go because you can't help the people who are there. But in my experience, most jobs aren't like that. Usually there is a place for people who like to write code.
This kind of life can be good too :-)
> It's only depressing if you first hear it after said years have flown.
... or if you (like me) ignore it because your knowledge and experience are 'state of the art'. Really depressing seeing those 'shortage of IT workers' articles. I would laugh if I could laugh.
... or if you (like me) ignore it because your knowledge and experience are 'state of the art'. Really depressing seeing those 'shortage of IT workers' articles. I would laugh if I could laugh.
Who said you have a right not to be depressed? That's just such a young-person thing to say.
Could you please recommend a line of actual real private-sector salaried work where time doesn't fly? Or is it that recent generations are entitled to some better fate than previous ones?
Why does it have to be an entitlement? If there's a better fate to be had, why not have it? "Other people suffered this way, so you should too" never made sense to me.
There is always talk on HN about American culture versus European and how Europe has no big tech companies like the US. I can't speak for all of Europe, having worked in only 2 of these countries full time, and Germans I know have a very different week to those of us in Norway, but I'm only here at 4.15pm because I'm on HN. I should have home half an hour ago. Really, why am i still here?
We can have it better and we don't need 100 hour weeks. The company I work for has cornered the industry and won out over MS for our last major contract.
We can have it better and we don't need 100 hour weeks. The company I work for has cornered the industry and won out over MS for our last major contract.
>>Or is it that recent generations are entitled to some better fate than previous ones?
We should all be striving to make our children's lives & the world they'll inherit better than our own.
We should all be striving to make our children's lives & the world they'll inherit better than our own.
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Majority of time being awake (ie roughly 50% of those 16 hours), 5 days a week, most weeks of year, say 52 - 7(vacations) - 1-2(sickness/accidents, and yes, they do happen).
How you spend remaining time is entirely up to you. Me, for example, I've been through much more and grown quite a bit as a person in last 5 years (moved to different country), then in first 28 years of my life (33 now). Looking back, it feels like a lifetime and a bit more (weekends mostly in the mountains, either ski touring or hiking/climbing/etc), travelling around the world - recently 2 weeks in indonesia, etc). No, even those 5 years didn't fly by at all.
How you spend remaining time is entirely up to you. Me, for example, I've been through much more and grown quite a bit as a person in last 5 years (moved to different country), then in first 28 years of my life (33 now). Looking back, it feels like a lifetime and a bit more (weekends mostly in the mountains, either ski touring or hiking/climbing/etc), travelling around the world - recently 2 weeks in indonesia, etc). No, even those 5 years didn't fly by at all.
For software engineers at least, I think the Google interview process would naturally select younger people. You need to have a pretty good grip on algorithms / ability to do programming competition like problems and in my experience at least you're not frequently practicing a lot of the required knowledge in real world software dev roles. You get rusty. By comparison, this is fresh in the minds of people just out of university. Also, I think younger people are more open to doing the required prep. I've heard many an older developers complain that they think their time is better spent learning / doing other things (which have more immediate real-world benefit).
I also don't think Google should consider changing an interview process that is working for them on the grounds that it may be indirectly penalizing older people.
note: I'm an older software dev about to go through the Google interview process.
I also don't think Google should consider changing an interview process that is working for them on the grounds that it may be indirectly penalizing older people.
note: I'm an older software dev about to go through the Google interview process.
>> For software engineers at least, I think the Google interview process would naturally select younger people.
If true then it violates the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA):
http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html
If true then it violates the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA):
http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/qanda.html
Not if what they look for results in younger people, but they don't stop old people capable of meeting the same requirements, as long as that requirement is not specifically age.
Some jobs likely have a lot more young applicants than old applicants - would those places be required to match the county, state, or national ratio of young to old in their workforce? (which of course is impossible for most locales).
If hiring practices don't match the overall ratios, that in itself is not illegal. Otherwise we could sue the NBA for both age and sex discrimination. However, if an old person or a woman could perform as well, they could get NBA spots. If they were as capable at everything as a younger/male athlete, and the reason they were not selected is because they are also old/female, then it's illegal.
Some jobs just have more capable candidates in various age/gender pools, so those hired reflects that reality.
Some jobs likely have a lot more young applicants than old applicants - would those places be required to match the county, state, or national ratio of young to old in their workforce? (which of course is impossible for most locales).
If hiring practices don't match the overall ratios, that in itself is not illegal. Otherwise we could sue the NBA for both age and sex discrimination. However, if an old person or a woman could perform as well, they could get NBA spots. If they were as capable at everything as a younger/male athlete, and the reason they were not selected is because they are also old/female, then it's illegal.
Some jobs just have more capable candidates in various age/gender pools, so those hired reflects that reality.
Didn't Google admit recently that there was not a strong correlation between how well a developer did on their interview questions and how well they performed within the company?
that's actually what you want, though.
It's because only successful candidates appear in the statistics. If Google let everyone in, you'd see a good correlation between how well developers do in the interviews and how well they do at Google. If you dump the 95% of people who don't perform well in the phone interview, then what you're left with is a bunch of high performers who performed well to different extents (where the purpose of the interview is not to gauge ability but to demonstrate minimum ability), where the extent to which they performed well is largely noise.
Either a positive or negative correlation would be bad in this case.
It's because only successful candidates appear in the statistics. If Google let everyone in, you'd see a good correlation between how well developers do in the interviews and how well they do at Google. If you dump the 95% of people who don't perform well in the phone interview, then what you're left with is a bunch of high performers who performed well to different extents (where the purpose of the interview is not to gauge ability but to demonstrate minimum ability), where the extent to which they performed well is largely noise.
Either a positive or negative correlation would be bad in this case.
You’re assuming everyone did well at their job. Google selects a lot of terrible people suggesting their process is broken.
No such assumption made. If you have a positive correlation in your data, you're probably not placing enough weight on your interviews in your hiring process (i.e. you knew people weren't as good at interview but you still hired them). If you have a negative correlation you're similarly placing too much emphasis on interviews; you're likely hiring people who interview well over people who'd be better in the job.
You might still hire bad engineers, but the uncorrelated nature of your interview/job performance data won't help you explain that.
You might still hire bad engineers, but the uncorrelated nature of your interview/job performance data won't help you explain that.
Considering how many google products have failed in the past and are how divided users are on the existing ones I would question whether google's culture is worth anything at all.
Seems to me that many of the big tech companies are losing the reality plot like coked up Hollywood starlets. I think we might see a paradigm shift in tech again soon including how recruitment is carried out.
Seems to me that many of the big tech companies are losing the reality plot like coked up Hollywood starlets. I think we might see a paradigm shift in tech again soon including how recruitment is carried out.
I would much rather work at a company that is willing to risk failed projects than one which refuses to take risks.
> I would question whether google's culture is worth anything at all.
Uh, how about $385.46Bn?
Uh, how about $385.46Bn?
You think Google's products and assets are worth zero?
Probably, but you'd expect that because the interviews only test part of what is required to be a good employee. It's just a in-precise filter - a bar they force you to jump over, which if you manage to do so pretty much proves you're not hopeless (and have enough dedication to learn the material). So amongst the guaranteed-non-hopeless people there is fairly random distribution of ability to perform well in the company.
user CHY872 says it much better than me :-)
No, what they found was that there was no correlation between doing well on brainteasers (like "How many golf balls can you fit into an airplane?") and job performance.
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citation needed...
The interview with Google HR stating this finding right is here (Googled "google" + "interview" + "correlation"):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-b...
I am not sure if you read the article but they never claim that they have found a correlation between performance on technical interviews and ability on the job.
Yes, brainteasers are worthless and "structured behavioral" questions yield better informations but there is a gap between claiming that technical interviews are worthless and that.
Also, it is usually the duty of the author to support their claims with a direct reference to sources not the opposite.
Yes, brainteasers are worthless and "structured behavioral" questions yield better informations but there is a gap between claiming that technical interviews are worthless and that.
Also, it is usually the duty of the author to support their claims with a direct reference to sources not the opposite.
As an old-ish developer that has gone through the google process twice, my problem with them is not the kind of questions they ask, it's the length of the process.
I don't know anyone working in Google that hasn't gone through 6 months+ of weekly interviews. The second time I entered the process I went through six phone interviews without any indication on when the presential interviews would begin.
I'm willing to do a lot of things for the right position. But I won't put everything on hold and let other interesting opportunities pass for half a year or more just in case Google deems me worthy.
I don't know anyone working in Google that hasn't gone through 6 months+ of weekly interviews. The second time I entered the process I went through six phone interviews without any indication on when the presential interviews would begin.
I'm willing to do a lot of things for the right position. But I won't put everything on hold and let other interesting opportunities pass for half a year or more just in case Google deems me worthy.
Dunno about Google, but in the past couple of companies where I worked age was a strong source of bias no doubt.
For my (admittedly relatively short) experience in office jobs it was also a self fulfilling prophecy: because tech companies avoided to hire people past 30-35, those either started their own companies or remained at their current jobs even where they didn't want to be there anymore, which gave those established companies a negative view of older devs. Rinse and repeat, add the sad european (?) classic "experienced people have to be manager and mostly stay away from code, senior developer doesn't exist" and you get a poor state of affairs.
And this is why major software companies are actually American. Most European software companies are terrible places, where "coding" people are considered as the lowest class. I don't want to generalize, there are incredible startups and small companies out there, but hey, no European Google or Facebook.
And strangely enough, "managers" who used to be good in their 20's and who have been only producing powerpoint-esque bullshit for the last 15 years are not very valuable assets, despite being overpaid, resulting in poor quality products.
And strangely enough, "managers" who used to be good in their 20's and who have been only producing powerpoint-esque bullshit for the last 15 years are not very valuable assets, despite being overpaid, resulting in poor quality products.
Having been monitoring the software development market in Europe for quite some time (being European and always wondering what it would be like to come home and continue my development career) it astounds me why anyone would pursue development there given the advertised salaries for developers. With the high cost of living and the ridiculously low (comparatively speaking) salaries, it's a wonder any software developer would even take an interview - especially given that software developers can make 3-4 times more in other markets with comparatively lower costs of living.
The only market that appears to differ from this (based on advertised salaries) is the banking/finance sector. But despite the fact that they're not doing anything that the rest of the technology sector are doing (from a technology perspective), their incestuous hiring practices make it all but impossible to get in unless you know the right person or already specifically have banking/finance experience. So you could have 25 years of extremely relevant experience from other fields spread across various startups, small businesses and huge multibillion dollar corporations, have in depth experience writing platforms and APIs for leading corporations with highly scalable web facing platforms with all the latest technologies, have spent 5 years at some point in your past cobbling together antiquated technologies such as Access databases and Excel spreadsheets, just as many of these companies still are, but unless you've specifically got experience in the financial sector, they're not interested... despite their common claim that it's really hard to find good developers.
It's not hard to find good developers if you take your blinkers off and ask yourself what is it you're doing that's so special that you can't hire someone with all the right personality traits and technological experience but because of some arbitrary bias that they don't specifically have experience in your sector, they're unsuitable.
So that's my two biggest gripes about hiring practices - one specifically pertaining to hiring software developers in Europe, but the other equally applies in North America too.
Agism isn't nearly as evident as cronyism and incest.
The only market that appears to differ from this (based on advertised salaries) is the banking/finance sector. But despite the fact that they're not doing anything that the rest of the technology sector are doing (from a technology perspective), their incestuous hiring practices make it all but impossible to get in unless you know the right person or already specifically have banking/finance experience. So you could have 25 years of extremely relevant experience from other fields spread across various startups, small businesses and huge multibillion dollar corporations, have in depth experience writing platforms and APIs for leading corporations with highly scalable web facing platforms with all the latest technologies, have spent 5 years at some point in your past cobbling together antiquated technologies such as Access databases and Excel spreadsheets, just as many of these companies still are, but unless you've specifically got experience in the financial sector, they're not interested... despite their common claim that it's really hard to find good developers.
It's not hard to find good developers if you take your blinkers off and ask yourself what is it you're doing that's so special that you can't hire someone with all the right personality traits and technological experience but because of some arbitrary bias that they don't specifically have experience in your sector, they're unsuitable.
So that's my two biggest gripes about hiring practices - one specifically pertaining to hiring software developers in Europe, but the other equally applies in North America too.
Agism isn't nearly as evident as cronyism and incest.
You would be surprised to know that, considering all bonus and malus, even with a very low pay compared to what I would get in US the quality of my life is far better here in EU that there. And I mean FAR FAR better. Just considering main reasons: social security, free universal healt care, almost not-existent costs for top universities, types of contracts, not enforceable anti competition agreements, food quality, air quality, full social support to make a family, etc.
Should I continue?
In Denmark, the usual reason people work here despite higher salaries elsewhere is that many people just strongly prefer to live in Denmark (or if not in Denmark, at least in the Nordic region), for a mixture of cultural and quality-of-life reasons. The specific reasons vary based on the person, but some include: this is where your family/friends already are, prefer the urban layout of the cities (transit, biking, safety, etc.), prefer the working conditions (hours, vacation policies), prefer the social support, especially for families (subsidized childcare, parental-leave policies, no university tuition), etc. That and reasons like people wanting to raise their kids as Danes, which is harder to do if they grow up elsewhere. It's very common for people to work abroad for a bit in their 20s, though, as a kind of seeing-the-world thing that combines work and tourism, and then return later.
I always find it funny when I read statements about Europe as if there existed something like a European culture. Europe is not a nation, and European nations do not share the same culture. Sure, several values are shared, but the differences can be great.
PS: calling the USA America, that makes me smile, too!
PS: calling the USA America, that makes me smile, too!
Being lectured by Europeans that "calling the USA America" is somehow "funny" is in itself funny. It is a common refrain that perhaps demonstrates a lack of knowledge of idiomatic English. It certainly is a case of haphazardly leaping to the conclusion that Americans are arrogant.
The poster did not use the word "America" but "American". That is simply the correct demonym for the USA in the English language, and is used internationally. Alternatives have been proposed, like "US-American", but they have never caught on and have always been completely unidiomatic. Other languages do make this distinction, like "estadounidense" in Spanish. Perhaps usage of the term "americano" in Spanish could trigger your smirk of superiority, but not that of the English term "American".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_United_States_citizen...
The poster did not use the word "America" but "American". That is simply the correct demonym for the USA in the English language, and is used internationally. Alternatives have been proposed, like "US-American", but they have never caught on and have always been completely unidiomatic. Other languages do make this distinction, like "estadounidense" in Spanish. Perhaps usage of the term "americano" in Spanish could trigger your smirk of superiority, but not that of the English term "American".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_for_United_States_citizen...
Hello, I'm sorry that my comment was understood with such a negativity. I wasn't trying to "lecture", nor did I want to imply any "arrogance" on anyone, seriously!
I'm in my 40s and I've yet to hear "America" being used for anything other than the U.S. "The Americas" to me is more about North/South America.
Your life experiences matter not to the European superiority complex. It has been decided a priori that this behavior is wrong. Being 400 years old instead of just 40 would serve only to increase the magnitude of your wrongness tenfold.
Hello, "European superiority complex", really? Please, come on! First of all, superior wrt to whom? And, especially, you use again "European" after my comments about the lack of a European culture? Oh dear, we're entering an infinite loop :-)
Then you have not traveled to central america. When I first went down, I'd always introduce myself as an American. I would get amused incredulity in return. They see themselves as Americans, and rightly so. The misguided superiority complex we seem to maintain up here is petty, and your comment drips of it. Let's say you were 80, and your second 40 years mirrored your first forty. How many individuals would you guess you spoke with? The population of the Americas combined is ~1 billions (2008)[google search].
So then what do you propose as an English-language demonym to replace "American" when traveling through Central America?
United-Statesian? Usonian? Unisian? USian? Uessian? US-American?
It has nothing to do with an alleged superiority complex, and is just a matter of language.
"But why this term "America" has become representative as the name of these United States at home and abroad is past recall." –Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture: Selected Writings 1894–1940, p. 100.
United-Statesian? Usonian? Unisian? USian? Uessian? US-American?
It has nothing to do with an alleged superiority complex, and is just a matter of language.
"But why this term "America" has become representative as the name of these United States at home and abroad is past recall." –Frank Lloyd Wright on Architecture: Selected Writings 1894–1940, p. 100.
> So then what do you propose as an English-language demonym to replace "American" when traveling through Central America?
> United-Statesian? Usonian? Unisian? USian? Uessian? US-American?
Well, in Spanish-speaking countries (not just Central America) you could just use the term that already exists in Spanish to resolve this ambiguity (which is basically the same as your first, only derived from the Spanish for "United States" by Spanish rules): Estadounidense.
> United-Statesian? Usonian? Unisian? USian? Uessian? US-American?
Well, in Spanish-speaking countries (not just Central America) you could just use the term that already exists in Spanish to resolve this ambiguity (which is basically the same as your first, only derived from the Spanish for "United States" by Spanish rules): Estadounidense.
Note that I already posted about "estadounidense" above. That's perfectly fine for Spanish. But speaking in English, one says "American", not because of a "dripping superiority complex" as stated above, but just because it's idiomatic.
In a sense, what the Central Americans are getting offending over is a false cognate. And false cognates can often lead to these kinds of problems: if I referred to trousers as "pants" around Brits, I get yelled at for being a stupid American. There are countless examples of this. This is by no means a problem unique to Americans or unique to the English language. While travelers should be aware of local idioms and the potential for false cognates, they can't exactly be blamed for lacking perfect knowledge either.
All other English-speaking countries use the term "American" in this way. Note especially that Canadians share the same idioms, speaking of America and Americans (although they might favor using "the States" over "America"). Also note that Canadians colloquially use "North America" to mean the USA + Canada, leaving out Central American countries.
In a sense, what the Central Americans are getting offending over is a false cognate. And false cognates can often lead to these kinds of problems: if I referred to trousers as "pants" around Brits, I get yelled at for being a stupid American. There are countless examples of this. This is by no means a problem unique to Americans or unique to the English language. While travelers should be aware of local idioms and the potential for false cognates, they can't exactly be blamed for lacking perfect knowledge either.
All other English-speaking countries use the term "American" in this way. Note especially that Canadians share the same idioms, speaking of America and Americans (although they might favor using "the States" over "America"). Also note that Canadians colloquially use "North America" to mean the USA + Canada, leaving out Central American countries.
> Canadians colloquially use "North America" to mean the USA + Canada, leaving out Central American countries.
Just for the record, this doesn't shock me. While Americas are geologically two, I've always been taught about North, Central an South America from a geopolitical point of view.
Just for the record, this doesn't shock me. While Americas are geologically two, I've always been taught about North, Central an South America from a geopolitical point of view.
A bit of a niggle here, but I said your post drips with... Not 'dripping superiority complex'... But I actually really like that phrase.
Upon reread I see that I come of as a SJW Berk. I apologize; I just got reamed by my fellow gringos so much it is second nature.
You are correct; I don't know what the word should be, but I do feel we need one.
Upon reread I see that I come of as a SJW Berk. I apologize; I just got reamed by my fellow gringos so much it is second nature.
You are correct; I don't know what the word should be, but I do feel we need one.
[deleted]
America is an equally valid name for either the USA or the Americas.
Citizens of the USA are Americans.
We're happy this bit of reality made you smile.
Citizens of the USA are Americans.
We're happy this bit of reality made you smile.
United States of America -> America
United States of Mexico -> Mexico
Dominion of Canada -> Canada (I think they dropped "Dominion of" some time ago, though)
Kingdom of the Netherlands -> Netherlands
Federal Republic of Germany -> Germany
It's a fairly common abbreviation style, and USA is the only country that has "America" in its name.
If the OP thinks that the USA is any more of a monoculture than Europe is, perhaps he should spend some time in Manhattan followed by some time in Luckenbach, Texas. :-)
United States of Mexico -> Mexico
Dominion of Canada -> Canada (I think they dropped "Dominion of" some time ago, though)
Kingdom of the Netherlands -> Netherlands
Federal Republic of Germany -> Germany
It's a fairly common abbreviation style, and USA is the only country that has "America" in its name.
If the OP thinks that the USA is any more of a monoculture than Europe is, perhaps he should spend some time in Manhattan followed by some time in Luckenbach, Texas. :-)
> If the OP thinks that the USA is any more of a monoculture than Europe is, perhaps he should spend some time in Manhattan followed by some time in Luckenbach, Texas. :-)
I don't have enough information to comment on your example, but I suppose that in every small village on Earth you'll always find the progressive and the conservative guy, and you'll always find a different environment in a big city than in the countryside.
My comment was more to point out that in Europe each people still has his uniqueness. You know how Swiss people are proud of their neutrality, Finnish school system is (one of) the best in the world, Englishmen love their queen, Greeks invented democracy and Italians are immune to Stendhal Syndrome? Well, none of those sentence makes any sense if you substitute the national adjective with "European".
Europe being not a nation is not only a matter of traditions, but of everyday life as well. We don't share a television system, which would be anyway complicated by the multitude of languages. We don't follow political debates in other countries, and newspapers will report about foreign election only for a handful of states or when an extremist party wins. We have the football European Champions League final, but it's nowhere like what I heard about the Super Bowl, with stars and celebrities, because we don't share stars and celebrities.
Maybe this is just a case of "far away, thus homogeneous". For example, some time ago I was talking about south-Asian cuisine, when suddenly I found myself wondering how I could talk about a south-Asian cuisine. Does a south-Asian cuisine even exist? What would I do if I traveled to China and entered a "European" restaurant serving both pizza and haggis? I'd run away while screaming!
I don't have enough information to comment on your example, but I suppose that in every small village on Earth you'll always find the progressive and the conservative guy, and you'll always find a different environment in a big city than in the countryside.
My comment was more to point out that in Europe each people still has his uniqueness. You know how Swiss people are proud of their neutrality, Finnish school system is (one of) the best in the world, Englishmen love their queen, Greeks invented democracy and Italians are immune to Stendhal Syndrome? Well, none of those sentence makes any sense if you substitute the national adjective with "European".
Europe being not a nation is not only a matter of traditions, but of everyday life as well. We don't share a television system, which would be anyway complicated by the multitude of languages. We don't follow political debates in other countries, and newspapers will report about foreign election only for a handful of states or when an extremist party wins. We have the football European Champions League final, but it's nowhere like what I heard about the Super Bowl, with stars and celebrities, because we don't share stars and celebrities.
Maybe this is just a case of "far away, thus homogeneous". For example, some time ago I was talking about south-Asian cuisine, when suddenly I found myself wondering how I could talk about a south-Asian cuisine. Does a south-Asian cuisine even exist? What would I do if I traveled to China and entered a "European" restaurant serving both pizza and haggis? I'd run away while screaming!
Everything you said about the uniqueness of European countries applies to the uniqueness of American states or regions, so I'd say it's case of "far away, thus homogeneous".
That seems like quite a vast over simplification. Silicon Valley being in the US probably has a lot to do with it as well.
Time for age transparency reports.
I am 68 and working as much as I want to. I had no trouble finding a job and am actually in demand. I guarantee this is not because I am a genius.
I have hired many people over the years, many worked out well. I have also rejected many candidates over the years. I am sure many of them would have worked out too, but I will never know. Believe me, when you need to hire someone you want to find the right person quickly. And often you know in the first few minutes if the candidate is a fit or not. Then to be polite and fair you spend the next 30-45 minutes even with the candidate you are certain you do not want. Think about the first 2 minutes, because that is where you lost it. Not in the code you wrote or the phone connection.
I have hired many people over the years, many worked out well. I have also rejected many candidates over the years. I am sure many of them would have worked out too, but I will never know. Believe me, when you need to hire someone you want to find the right person quickly. And often you know in the first few minutes if the candidate is a fit or not. Then to be polite and fair you spend the next 30-45 minutes even with the candidate you are certain you do not want. Think about the first 2 minutes, because that is where you lost it. Not in the code you wrote or the phone connection.
Interviews are like politics. The people who are good at it usually aren't the people you want.
This is a poor way to interpret the reality. Interviews have relatively weak validity, but the relationship is still positive. Of course that assumes a structured interview from competent interviewers, which is more the exception than the norm.
What interviews may lack in utility for predicting good performance they can potentially make-up for in determining cultural/supervisor-candidate fit. But this also requires the interviewer to 1) accurately represent the culture and 2) to not implicitly discriminate with things that might correlate with fit, which many things (age, religion, gender) might do. No simple ask there.
I think the primary value of interviews it that it makes the process seem more fair. Everyone had a chance to put their thumbprint on the experience, including the interviewee. In the absence of other selection measures (e.g., work samples) I understand its use, but if you have better tools then you should use those. For me, an interview's primary outcome question should really only be "Is this person completely unqualified or terribly unprofessional?" If the answer is "no", rely on the other indicators to make a decision.
What interviews may lack in utility for predicting good performance they can potentially make-up for in determining cultural/supervisor-candidate fit. But this also requires the interviewer to 1) accurately represent the culture and 2) to not implicitly discriminate with things that might correlate with fit, which many things (age, religion, gender) might do. No simple ask there.
I think the primary value of interviews it that it makes the process seem more fair. Everyone had a chance to put their thumbprint on the experience, including the interviewee. In the absence of other selection measures (e.g., work samples) I understand its use, but if you have better tools then you should use those. For me, an interview's primary outcome question should really only be "Is this person completely unqualified or terribly unprofessional?" If the answer is "no", rely on the other indicators to make a decision.
I wouldn't want someone to get the impression I completely write off interviews as a way to assess the potential in someone. It's been around forever, and I don't see it going away anytime soon.
Also I don't think my comment implies that outgoing / social people are bad at what they do.
I wouldn't think too hard about the correlation I'm trying to make. Really my point is that the skillset you need in order to "pass" an interview is far different skillset in many cases than what the actual job requires.
Same with politics. The irony is the skillset necessary to "win" an election is far from what is necessary to do a good job once you're elected.
EDIT: Also, I would clarify that the context of the original thread is about hiring a software engineer at Google. The interview(s) necessary for hiring for that position I imagine could not possibly be conducted in the proposed "2 minutes at the beginning of the interview" I was originally replying to.
I have no doubt that there are plenty of positions that an interview can be conducted in 2 minutes, but software engineer at Google I doubt is one of them.
Also I don't think my comment implies that outgoing / social people are bad at what they do.
I wouldn't think too hard about the correlation I'm trying to make. Really my point is that the skillset you need in order to "pass" an interview is far different skillset in many cases than what the actual job requires.
Same with politics. The irony is the skillset necessary to "win" an election is far from what is necessary to do a good job once you're elected.
EDIT: Also, I would clarify that the context of the original thread is about hiring a software engineer at Google. The interview(s) necessary for hiring for that position I imagine could not possibly be conducted in the proposed "2 minutes at the beginning of the interview" I was originally replying to.
I have no doubt that there are plenty of positions that an interview can be conducted in 2 minutes, but software engineer at Google I doubt is one of them.
I'm replying to my own comment here just because it's a different point.
I posit, interviews are unlikely candidates to truly separate the wheat from the chaff in these 2 distinct but probably not uncommon scenarios.
With the second person I imagine it's a different kind of challenge to try to uncover this kind of personality trait during an interview process.
I posit, interviews are unlikely candidates to truly separate the wheat from the chaff in these 2 distinct but probably not uncommon scenarios.
1) ambitious person with limited skills
2) highly skilled person with limited ambition
With the second person I imagine it's a different kind of challenge to try to uncover this kind of personality trait during an interview process.
A good interviewer isn't looking for somebody that's suave and comfortable in the interview. They understand awkwardness, nervousness and that it's easy to make stupid technical and social mistakes under pressure -- and they may even relate to it.
But they still probably make a 95%-accurate assessment in those first couple minutes.
But they still probably make a 95%-accurate assessment in those first couple minutes.
Or at least, think they do. They're human, and subject to human biases which no amount of awareness and understanding will completely remove.
I don't really agree with that. Some people are naturally more outgoing and comfortable in interview situations than others. It doesn't mean they're bad people.
If the candidate has knowledge relevant to the role he is applying, can you really conclude that much from those first 2 minutes?
Could you share on past interview experiences when you decided a candidate was not a fit from those first 2 minutes?
The problem with most interviews is that they fallback to a confirmation bias thing.
Could you share on past interview experiences when you decided a candidate was not a fit from those first 2 minutes?
The problem with most interviews is that they fallback to a confirmation bias thing.
A little off-topic, but a fact that I find amazing is that around the time of the first moon landing the average age of the mission controllers was 26.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/kranz.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tothemoon/kranz.html
NASA specifically wanted people right out of college to do operations so that they would not have to unlearn bad habits and since everyone would have to learn new skills for the moon landing to be successful.
http://history.nasa.gov/monograph14.pdf (see p. 17)
http://history.nasa.gov/monograph14.pdf (see p. 17)
In reference to the table with national age averages, I would love to see those numbers redrawn from the perspective of development staff only. I'm curious about this because I think in recent years there is a corresponding jump in the number of computer science graduates. There may just be more programmers in those lower age brackets and as an organization that skews heavily toward developers your age grouping may just be lower.
That said, google's recruiting process is horrible and robotic. Feel for the guy.
That said, google's recruiting process is horrible and robotic. Feel for the guy.
I can't help but wonder where this might leave someone such as myself, who is over 40, but relatively new to professional software development. I've programmed for years as a hobby, but was educated in a different field and have only recently decided to pursue programming work for a living. Not only am I old, but I also have little experience compared to others my age.
As long as you get the right hiring manager it shouldn't matter. I agree that it is a valid concern of yours, and rightfully so in this hiring climate. But fair hiring managers do exist, and they build some of the best teams around.
I work at Twilio, and we put a lot of effort into providing a hiring experience that removes as many biases as possible. The end result is a solid, diverse workforce that understands that we all come from different walks of life and have different employment expectations. Other companies, such as Stripe, also seem to have similar initiatives in their hiring practices.
It's a concern, but some of us are actively fighting it.
I work at Twilio, and we put a lot of effort into providing a hiring experience that removes as many biases as possible. The end result is a solid, diverse workforce that understands that we all come from different walks of life and have different employment expectations. Other companies, such as Stripe, also seem to have similar initiatives in their hiring practices.
It's a concern, but some of us are actively fighting it.
Same boat, problem is either that people assume I have 15 years experience and must be godlike behind a keyboard or that I am an idiot (I like to think I'm somewhere in the middle, and being a front-end dev I have an inflated idea of my own skills while being self-aware enough to know I might be living in an alternative universe).
Getting my first job was hard and age was definitely an issue, no doubt about it. A guy I graduated with who was a year older than me at the time (mid 30s) was flat out told by one recruiter that he was too old for post-grad Microsoft-university (which is a 1 year paid internship focussing on MS development).
Getting my first job was hard and age was definitely an issue, no doubt about it. A guy I graduated with who was a year older than me at the time (mid 30s) was flat out told by one recruiter that he was too old for post-grad Microsoft-university (which is a 1 year paid internship focussing on MS development).
As someone who is over 40 and took a few years off, I can tell you that having recent working experience is more important than age (or at least it was for me). Nobody seemed worried about how old I was but many people wondered if I could still code after taking 5 years off (I kept coding as a hobby, though).
I'm wondering as well! Been a UK-based API-level tech author for 10 years and in product marketing (and sales, even) before that. I've programmed as a hobby for 25 years, and love technology so much I'd like to spend the next 10 doing it professionally. It doesn't even have to be a great job :-) But age goes against me, despite an enduring passion in tech and having learned several languages on my own dime.
As someone that is months away from 40, I've considered this as well. However, considering the continued lack of developer talent as well as the increasing demand for it, I'm not terribly concerned.
I can't speak for El Goog. What would you do:
http://www.bobheath.com/
http://www.aspnet.net/
http://www.visit-new-york-city.com/
http://www.bobheath.com/
http://www.aspnet.net/
http://www.visit-new-york-city.com/
The front end skills are seriously awful but if he is doing all this by hand maybe he just needs a bump in the right direction. IBM has a lot of legacy software and projects. Their engineers are brilliant but they are like time capsules. They get on a project and stay on it for years because the money is there. When the money dries up and they come out of the 5*5 cubicle basement hole ALOT of shit has happened. Realistically, it has to come down to cost benefit. This guy has the chops but would need to be brought to speed on latest dev practices. By the time he is effectively contributing to Google it might be 18 months in. By that time he is well into his retirements years and Google has invested probably 200K(maybe more) into him.
I'm assuming they weren't interviewing him for his design skills.
He claims to have developed a widely-used CMS built on Java.
But his sites use Joomla, which is strange when he's supposedly offering and selling a better CMS of his own.
I'm surprised he got an interview.
But his sites use Joomla, which is strange when he's supposedly offering and selling a better CMS of his own.
I'm surprised he got an interview.
Wow, I think http://www.visit-new-york-city.com is the first time I've seen an example of domain based navigation. Almost every link on the page is to the top level of a slightly renamed domain. Depending on when this was made, that could have been very expensive.
Clearly he is not a graphic designer, but he would benefit from contracting that out. The sites as they exist today give a poor impression of him. Appearances do matter.
Even ignoring all of the dates mentioned, his sites and his resume do not look like the work of somebody who has up-to-date software development knowledge.
Even ignoring all of the dates mentioned, his sites and his resume do not look like the work of somebody who has up-to-date software development knowledge.
For a minute I thought it was 1997 all over again. Google is cutting-edge stuff. What I see is someone who hasn't advanced their skills since the Clinton administration and probably believes that "all business logic should be in PL/SQL".
And some are saying that their "front end" skills are bad - they don't have to be. I can whip up something better in a day just using the default Twitter Bootstrap template and not touching a line of CSS.
And some are saying that their "front end" skills are bad - they don't have to be. I can whip up something better in a day just using the default Twitter Bootstrap template and not touching a line of CSS.
So that movie "The Internship" with Owen Wilson was just fiction and Google doesn't really hire out-of-work 40 somethings who don't know anything about tech for their sales experience?
Oh man, that movie was just horrible. And at least you have a sense of humor about how horrible it was, but I've face-palmed so many times when people ask me, as a Google employee, if that's how it really is to work there.
On the other hand, I do have a couple of friends working in Google in the London office that, not only love that movie, but have incorporated some of the things in it in their teams :)
I must say I haven't seen it myself, so I can't judger.
I must say I haven't seen it myself, so I can't judger.
I still can't believe how bad it was. I had high hopes for it to be an educational comedy. Easily on the top 10 of the worst plots I've seen.
The article looks interesting, not so much for the merits of the case but for the data on the median age per employer.
There's going to be a bias in there related to at what point the company was growing the fastest.
The question is if there is a another bias - that of actual discrimination.
There's going to be a bias in there related to at what point the company was growing the fastest.
The question is if there is a another bias - that of actual discrimination.
Unfortunately I'm not sure how valid those stats are. I'm not familiar with the website that conducted the survey, but there may be a substantial self-selection bias based on who chose to respond in the first place.
This honestly just sounds like a recruiter trying to get their numbers of hires up by getting more people to interview. I too was told I'd be a great fit at Google but in my interview my lack of intense algorithm study showed up and my non-ivy league college didn't win me any points. Poor guy because it sounds like they really got his hopes up.
I've seen a lot of complaints about the interview process at Google. One core issue to me seems to be that they outsource a lot of their recruiting. Another may be the metrics. Hiring the equivalent of gym membership salespeople to do recruiting has issues.
On the other side, I've only had very positive interactions with Google recruiting. When you have a company growing so fast in both relative and absolute numbers, you're likely to run into some issues.
In the broader sense, technical people have to stay relevant. I was recently helping a Phd data scientist try to get a new job. When I suggested that he learn Python to augment his SQL, he said he was too old to learn new tricks. After hearing that I new he wouldn't be of use in my firm, or many others.
The flip side is that the people who do stay relevant and have all the experience are enormously valuable. Someone who is programming in Python or Ruby on Rails that also had to learn Assembler and C will have enormous insights into performance and what's going on in the guts of the machine. Those types of folks can solve problems other don't even know how to frame. It's hard to find 21 year olds with such breadth.
On the other side, I've only had very positive interactions with Google recruiting. When you have a company growing so fast in both relative and absolute numbers, you're likely to run into some issues.
In the broader sense, technical people have to stay relevant. I was recently helping a Phd data scientist try to get a new job. When I suggested that he learn Python to augment his SQL, he said he was too old to learn new tricks. After hearing that I new he wouldn't be of use in my firm, or many others.
The flip side is that the people who do stay relevant and have all the experience are enormously valuable. Someone who is programming in Python or Ruby on Rails that also had to learn Assembler and C will have enormous insights into performance and what's going on in the guts of the machine. Those types of folks can solve problems other don't even know how to frame. It's hard to find 21 year olds with such breadth.
This is why the time has come for blind auditions like GapJumpers offers - helps to avoid all bias when deciding who to interview. Bias for age, women returning from career breaks, education pedigree etc - all avoided if you focus on how a candidate completes a job challenge first. https://www.gapjumpers.me
Or you could all choose the German solution...
1. A photo on your cv. Or it goes in the bin.
2. Birth date.
3. Marital status and children.
4. Every educational achievement documented officially since highschool.
5. Every working position with an official written reference, in deeply codified form, written mandatorily by your boss, who probably inspired you to want a new job in teh first place. The last company I left had a secret ten factor 5 level numeric rating system, which was then translated into the codified text by the personel department.
1. A photo on your cv. Or it goes in the bin.
2. Birth date.
3. Marital status and children.
4. Every educational achievement documented officially since highschool.
5. Every working position with an official written reference, in deeply codified form, written mandatorily by your boss, who probably inspired you to want a new job in teh first place. The last company I left had a secret ten factor 5 level numeric rating system, which was then translated into the codified text by the personel department.
1. A photo on your cv. Or it goes in the bin.
I've never understood why this isn't outright illegal. There's literally no reason for it but to discriminate.
I've never understood why this isn't outright illegal. There's literally no reason for it but to discriminate.
Actually there is a practical reason in some hiring processes: you get many applicants, you look at their papers, then you interview them. Being able to map the face to the correct paper helps, particularly afterwards when you are contemplating the results.
At some point earlier in my career I sometimes did a hundred interviews in a week to hire a dozen people. To decide between different people, it was useful to have the pictures attached in application letters.
Of course, in addition it can be used to discriminate.
At some point earlier in my career I sometimes did a hundred interviews in a week to hire a dozen people. To decide between different people, it was useful to have the pictures attached in application letters.
Of course, in addition it can be used to discriminate.
and what is the practical purpose of marital status and whether you have children?
Those are also obvious things that allow discrimination, but I can't think of a reason why they would be of interest to my employeer.
EDIT: sorry this sounds a bit adversarial, but it was meant as a genuine question.
Those are also obvious things that allow discrimination, but I can't think of a reason why they would be of interest to my employeer.
EDIT: sorry this sounds a bit adversarial, but it was meant as a genuine question.
Some companies collect that data so they can check they're not discriminating. Ideally it's on a seperate sheet or different part of the website; the information is psuedo-anonymised and goes direct to HR and never goes to someone doing hiring.
In the US this is typically collected after they hire you (where it can then go into said statistics).
How do they check their processes pre-hiring? Like selection for interview?
all of this done in 2 pages as is the accepted "standard"
Nah, the documentation package is about 40 pages. The cv though, yes, is about 2 pages. I included a 1 page resume, and a 3-4 page curriculum vitae, to get around the annoyance of having a wide variety of experience, yet wanting to be terse, and to avoid the whole, "I see you have programmed in C++, but we needed a C programmer" problem.
That's a great method of initial screening and testing technical ability but there's a lot more to the hiring process. It doesn't tell you if the person is good at communicating or fits in with the company culture. You still need to do regular interviews.
Yes, you select who to interview based on the results of testing technical ability, not on the résumé. So you don't ignore the cultural fit, you just make sure you eliminate bias in the candidate sifting process.
And that would be great, if only we lived in a world where everyone was judged purely on technical merit and experience. In reality, social integration with the existing team is exceptionally important. I really wouldn't expect this to change any time soon.
Why assume that selecting candidates for interview based on the results of a blind audition/technical challenge approach like the GapJumpers model wouldn't also yield fantastic candidates who fit into the culture? The real benefit is increasing the diversity of who you interview in the first place, since getting the interview is usually the hardest part. Since there is so much bias associated with reviewing résumés then the entire process is tainted. At least if you eliminate in the first step you have a chance of eliminating it at the next steps as well.
Exactly. Synergies from working together are the reason we build businesses in the first place.
If the only thing that mattered was individual merit and experience, we could all just sell our work to businesses without a hiring agreement.
If the only thing that mattered was individual merit and experience, we could all just sell our work to businesses without a hiring agreement.
Maybe the older guys are contracting so wouldn't show up those stats...
The fellow in question seems to have a fairly robust resume, at least according to LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpheath
If you read into the job summaries, it seems like he's been doing the same things for a long time without progressing to roles of greater responsibility. On a side note, hes also starting an Oracle certification class.
California badly needs to be taken down a notch with all the age discrimination and wage fixing that's been going on there.
NYC shows that it's possible to do vastly better on those. Or at least not to brazenly laugh in the face of those laws.
NYC shows that it's possible to do vastly better on those. Or at least not to brazenly laugh in the face of those laws.
I was at Google's NYC offices last week, and I immediately felt like I was on a college campus. The vast majority of people there look very young.
I'm not sure whether the underlying cause is age discrimination, but clearly it's not a NYC/California issue so much as a company or industry issue.
I'm not sure whether the underlying cause is age discrimination, but clearly it's not a NYC/California issue so much as a company or industry issue.
From my experience, I'm absolutely sure that large NYC companies are far more cautious about it. Both cities are full of young people, but CA doesn't even try.
E.g. the YC application always has directly asked for age. Try that in NYC.
E.g. the YC application always has directly asked for age. Try that in NYC.
SF is too happy to bend to the demands of the tech lobby because the industry is so dominant there.
In NYC tech is one of many. The importance is recognized, as it has created jobs while other industries are in decline (cough publishing), but there is no sense here that anyone feels the need to kowtow to the industry.
In NYC tech is one of many. The importance is recognized, as it has created jobs while other industries are in decline (cough publishing), but there is no sense here that anyone feels the need to kowtow to the industry.
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Looking just now the YC application doesn't explicitly ask for age, but it does ask for
> Please enter the url of a 1 minute unlisted (not private) YouTube video introducing the founders
It would be pretty easy to discriminate on age/race/sex with that.
It would be pretty easy to discriminate on age/race/sex with that.
You're looking at the wrong page. They've moved the personal questions to a separate "Founder Profile" form, which each founder gets a special email link to access and fill out.
In my first group at Google the ages were 26, 29, 32 (me at the time), 35, 55, 60, 70.
The stats table in the article is imho not a good basis for discussion. The sample is too small and there is a huge self selection bias for younger people to sign up to such surveys.
Unfortunately, the nature of the technical interview allows for easy disqualification of an individual. Miss a semi colon, something we all have done, you're disqualified. Coupled with the preconceived notions of the interviewer, even the most skilled individual can be disqualified with ease. Doesn't bode well in a industry that seems rampant with issues regarding age and gender .
Not that this contradicts the claim, but Rob Pike (59) and Ken Thompson (72) from Unix both work at Google.
They are really special cases though, aren't they? I don't think it affects the larger discussion that Google employs a couple of extremely well-known and proven guys in their older age.
You're right; Pike and Thompson are huge outliers. If there is going to be a case made that age discrimination doesn't exist at companies where there have been class-action lawsuits, it's not particularly compelling to point to a pair of outliers as proof.
Yes, bad example.
For what is worth, I've seen a decent number of >40 years old new hires while I was there. Not a huge number, but it's hard to tell what the right number would be; they didn't appear exceptional cases to me.
While the interviewing system at Google is far from perfect (to put it euphemistically), I've seen a very strong practical commitment against any kind of discrimination.
For what is worth, I've seen a decent number of >40 years old new hires while I was there. Not a huge number, but it's hard to tell what the right number would be; they didn't appear exceptional cases to me.
While the interviewing system at Google is far from perfect (to put it euphemistically), I've seen a very strong practical commitment against any kind of discrimination.
Yeah, everyone wants to trot them out whenever Google + age discrimination comes up, but they're not exactly what you'd call your typical 60+ year old developers. Get back to me when Google hires 70 year old Joe Smith.
Yeah, but how about Eric Schmidt? He is 59!
Just kidding :).
Just kidding :).
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I doubt this case will hold water. There doesn't seem to be conclusive evidence that points to the age bias. That being said, the lawyers must be seeing something that I'm not. They wouldn't file a suit otherwise.
Even if the case does not hold, the cost of the lawyers is probably lower than the reputation damage on Google.
They might just simply see dollar signs.
I presume same dollar signs as some (anecdotal) lady who sued McDonald and won millions by burning her mouth with fresh coffee because it was... wait for it... hot.
On a more serious note, most jobs have all kinds of biases. Army doesn't take older recruits, nor 50% of all recruits are not women/gay/whatever group is right now poplar to fight for. Or commodity traders - one of my ex-gf succeeded in this field, but the amount of macho sh*t she had to go through and still pops up almost daily is unbelievable. Also, some members of her current trading team, which are more on introvert side (yes, there are some traders like that) were asking their boss on private meetings how to handle a WOMAN as their colleague. Some are 50-something, and never worked with woman directly.
She just ain't crybaby like these pathetic people and actually works hard to prove herself in such an environment.
On a more serious note, most jobs have all kinds of biases. Army doesn't take older recruits, nor 50% of all recruits are not women/gay/whatever group is right now poplar to fight for. Or commodity traders - one of my ex-gf succeeded in this field, but the amount of macho sh*t she had to go through and still pops up almost daily is unbelievable. Also, some members of her current trading team, which are more on introvert side (yes, there are some traders like that) were asking their boss on private meetings how to handle a WOMAN as their colleague. Some are 50-something, and never worked with woman directly.
She just ain't crybaby like these pathetic people and actually works hard to prove herself in such an environment.
"Anecdotal" here means "made up". You are most likely referring to Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald%27s_Restaur... . She received third-degree burns in her pelvic region.
Millions of dollars have been spent as propaganda to spin what happened in order to push tort reform changes that minimize consumer rights. It seems to have worked on you.
Biases are generally acceptable in job hiring. You can refuse to hire someone due to a lack of experience.
However, it's illegal to have biases based on a small number of protected classes: sex, military service, religion, national origin, and a few others. The law does allow some exceptions. There can be a bona fide occupational reason. For example, a strip club is allowed to hire only women performers. Similarly, a church can require that ministers be members of the given faith. The Army's age restriction on recruits falls into this category.
So while it's true that nearly all jobs have biases, that's irrelevant for this discussion, because there is no bona fide occupational reason for age discrimination in hiring at Google.
Your last line incorporates victim blaming. You appear to be using name calling to chastise people who wish to exercise their legal rights.
Millions of dollars have been spent as propaganda to spin what happened in order to push tort reform changes that minimize consumer rights. It seems to have worked on you.
Biases are generally acceptable in job hiring. You can refuse to hire someone due to a lack of experience.
However, it's illegal to have biases based on a small number of protected classes: sex, military service, religion, national origin, and a few others. The law does allow some exceptions. There can be a bona fide occupational reason. For example, a strip club is allowed to hire only women performers. Similarly, a church can require that ministers be members of the given faith. The Army's age restriction on recruits falls into this category.
So while it's true that nearly all jobs have biases, that's irrelevant for this discussion, because there is no bona fide occupational reason for age discrimination in hiring at Google.
Your last line incorporates victim blaming. You appear to be using name calling to chastise people who wish to exercise their legal rights.
> some (anecdotal) lady who sued McDonald and won millions by burning her mouth with fresh coffee because it was... wait for it... hot.
There are lots of frivolous law suits out there. If you look into this one you will find that it was a legitimate case, and it wasn't her mouth that got burned. Your argument will be more valuable if it is based on facts.
There are lots of frivolous law suits out there. If you look into this one you will find that it was a legitimate case, and it wasn't her mouth that got burned. Your argument will be more valuable if it is based on facts.
I presume same dollar signs as some (anecdotal) lady who sued McDonald and won millions by burning her mouth with fresh coffee because it was... wait for it... hot.
http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/10/23/3568411/clovis-woman-74-...
No, but it was being brewed at the recommended temperature (and still is today, but now the cup is covered in lawyer-safe warnings).
Mickey D's sells at least 500M cups of coffee every day, and this was back in 2006[1]. Given that some high-nineties percentage of those people didn't manage to scald themselves, courts be damned (they're arbitrators of law, not correctness), Liebeck was an idiot. Anyone who puts hot and crushable containers of liquid between their legs isn't acting responsibly.
[1]http://www.franchise-hit.com/franchisors-news-wire/McDonalds...
Mickey D's sells at least 500M cups of coffee every day, and this was back in 2006[1]. Given that some high-nineties percentage of those people didn't manage to scald themselves, courts be damned (they're arbitrators of law, not correctness), Liebeck was an idiot. Anyone who puts hot and crushable containers of liquid between their legs isn't acting responsibly.
[1]http://www.franchise-hit.com/franchisors-news-wire/McDonalds...
I don't think you understand what third-degree burns mean see: (third-degree burns on six percent of her skin and lesser burns over sixteen percent) Also she won less than 1Million and much of that went to pay for her attorney they also settled for confidential amount before an appeal was decided. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restauran...
PS: Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.[
PS: Other documents obtained from McDonald's showed that from 1982 to 1992 the company had received more than 700 reports of people burned by McDonald's coffee to varying degrees of severity, and had settled claims arising from scalding injuries for more than $500,000.[
Severity of the injury does not change my evaluation of the matter seeing as how it was entirely self inflicted.
700 people over 10 years (rough estimate of 1.8 trillion cups if we use the 500M number above) burning themselves isn't even statistically significant.
It sucks, hard, that this lady had to spend the last few years of her life in that kind of pain (skin grafts are no joke), but the idea that it's McD's fault is nuts.
700 people over 10 years (rough estimate of 1.8 trillion cups if we use the 500M number above) burning themselves isn't even statistically significant.
It sucks, hard, that this lady had to spend the last few years of her life in that kind of pain (skin grafts are no joke), but the idea that it's McD's fault is nuts.
> Severity of the injury does not change my evaluation of the matter seeing as how it was entirely self inflicted.
The jury in the case did not find the injury to be entirely self-inflicted.
People on online, tech-related forums, IME, tend very often to have a much more exclusive view of responsibility than either the law or society at large.
Which probably shouldn't be surprising; its easy to see how exclusive views of responsibility and crisp if/then/else logic can easily appeal to the same aesthetic sense.
The jury in the case did not find the injury to be entirely self-inflicted.
People on online, tech-related forums, IME, tend very often to have a much more exclusive view of responsibility than either the law or society at large.
Which probably shouldn't be surprising; its easy to see how exclusive views of responsibility and crisp if/then/else logic can easily appeal to the same aesthetic sense.
Applying the principles of comparative negligence, the jury found that McDonald's was 80% responsible for the incident and Liebeck was 20% at fault.
The principle at work is by selling something vastly more dangerous they were responsible for the extra damage due to increased temperature. In other words at a normal serving temperature she would have suffered but not nearly that much.
PS: The same thing applies in cases like a defective airbag. Yes, the manufacture is not responsible for causing the accident, but they are responsible for increase in damage due to a defect. Or more broadly MD was not responsible for that specific accident, but they know in general terms there would be accidents and they would be making those accidents worse.
The principle at work is by selling something vastly more dangerous they were responsible for the extra damage due to increased temperature. In other words at a normal serving temperature she would have suffered but not nearly that much.
PS: The same thing applies in cases like a defective airbag. Yes, the manufacture is not responsible for causing the accident, but they are responsible for increase in damage due to a defect. Or more broadly MD was not responsible for that specific accident, but they know in general terms there would be accidents and they would be making those accidents worse.
I get the legal principle, really, I do, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily correct or that I agree with it.
I used to think this way, but I've seen suits that did in fact turn out to be "what could the law firm possibly have been thinking?" baseless. For instance, that guy who claimed to be entitled to own half of Facebook.
If I'm not mistaken that case was concluded to be outright fraud, so it's probably a bad example to use here.
chucksmart(2)
"Sanctuary"
"Sanctuary"
"Sanctuary"
I hate the trend of new sites putting the stock information for each company mentioned in the article.
How did this became a thing ? Do ppl need that data to be shoved in the face like that ?
How did this became a thing ? Do ppl need that data to be shoved in the face like that ?
Is it a trend? Note that this is the Wall Street Journal. I think they are targeting a readership that is particularly interested in stock information.
WSJ and Bloomberg are famous for that feature, because they are popular with finance nerds.
I am not sure, I have been seeing it pop up on every article being posted on HN and reddit.
There have been a lot more Bloomberg articles submitted to HN lately.
WSJ, Bloomberg, and I think Yahoo! Finance all do that, and it kind of makes sense for them to.
No, this is all about class action procedures.
1. As in most such cases, the named plaintiff is there only to satisfy the technical requirement that a representative be named to represent the class.
2. The underlying claim, then, in the absence of any direct proof of discrimination in any given case, is based on an "effects" theory: Google stats show that it has an average workforce whose age is considerably lower than what other stats show is the average age of computer programmers; this "proves" that latent discrimination is happening; ergo, the class is entitled to massive damages because Google's hiring practices single out older people and treat them unfairly by rejecting them as job applicants on unlawful grounds.
3. Google recently settled an age discrimination case in which there appears to have been real evidence that they treated an older worker unfairly. This case now seeks to take the evidence in that one instance, combine it with stats evidencing a young workforce at Google, and hope this is enough to justify the class action claim.
4. This is as flimsy a basis on which to sue as one might imagine but its point is to try to pry open Google's confidential employment files to hope to find real evidence somewhere in the mix. In other words, it is a fishing expedition.
No particular sympathy here for Google. I am sure it does treat older workers unfairly at some level. The tech industry does this across the board. But that does not make this lawsuit something attractive. It is a stick-up suit, pure and simple, from all surface indicators. Given how flimsy it actually is, I predict it will go nowhere in the long term. There may yet be a potent case lurking against Google over its policies. This just is not it.