Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Google Businesses The Courts News Technology

Woman Recruited By Google Four Times and Rejected Now Joins Age Discrimination Suit 634

dcblogs writes: An Ivy league graduate, with a Ph.D. in geophysics, Cheryl Fillekes, who also specializes in Linux and Unix systems, was contacted by Google recruiters four separate times over a seven year period. In each instance, she did well enough on the phone interviews to get invited to an in-person interview but was rejected every time for a job. She has since joined an age discrimination lawsuit against Google filed about two months ago by another older worker. "The amended lawsuit also alleges that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received 'multiple complaints of age discrimination by Google, and is currently conducting an extensive investigation.'"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Woman Recruited By Google Four Times and Rejected Now Joins Age Discrimination Suit

Comments Filter:
  • First (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:23PM (#50157591)

    I tried to google this but I told me the news was too old.

  • Commission (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:35PM (#50157617)

    It's very common for people to pass phone screens but fail onsite interviews. The phone screen is just an early warning system for people who have no chance. The fact that this lady got equally far in the process 4 times is probably a good thing - it means the process is consistent.

    The problem is that the recruiters actually contacted her 4 times and misled her about her chances. If you have already been rejected once, you are obviously NOT an "ideal candidate". And the reason why the recruiters did this is simple: they are paid on commission. It's a fail system, and in this case it wasted the candidate's time, it wasted the interviewers' time, and now it will waste the courts' time.

    I'm sure age discrimination is real, but that's not the issue here.

    • Can't just be the recruiters. Someone above them has to either be actively allowing them bring people back in who have already been rejected three times before or they're just so disorganized they don't keep records on that kind of thing. Given who we're talking about that seems less likely, but you never know. I can see maybe bringing someone in a second time if the first on-site interview is a "near miss", but four times? That's just weird.
      • Re: (Score:2, Redundant)

        by Darinbob ( 1142669 )

        They are that disorganized.

      • Re:Commission (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @03:35AM (#50158513)

        No, they're that huge. I've worked at Microsoft as a contractor several times in the past, and the different groups might as well be completely different *normal sized* companies, each with their own hiring process, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if Google was the same way.

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )
          Other places are huge but don't fuck up so badly as to repeat the interview process four times. It shows a failure in the HR system and is a waste of Google's time and money as well as the applicant. Other places would have a file on her from the first interview and skip the parts of the process already done for the second, and so on.
          • Re:Commission (Score:4, Interesting)

            by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @08:40PM (#50165193)

            You're thinking of Google like a smaller company, and it just doesn't work that way. I wouldn't be surprised if she was applying for different positions in completely different groups or sections of the company. I'd imagine each section manages their own hiring.

            Applying multiple times at a giant corporation is not a "fuck up". You probably need to interview specifically with the group that's doing the hiring. I'm not 100% sure how it works at Google, but when I applied at Microsoft, I was applying specifically for a particular development group, for example. When I was applying as a contractor, it was even more specific, as I was interviewed by the lead developer on the project I would be working on.

            This makes sense because while someone may be a lousy fit for one particular group, they may happen to have the skills, experience, and personality to fit in with a different group. There's little chance (with some rare exceptions) you could conduct a generic interview at Google or Microsoft to determine whether or not someone should be hired. Interviewing is also a highly subjective process, so you don't want to exclude someone based solely on another person's decision. You might lose out on otherwise great candidates who just didn't click in another interview.

      • Re:Commission (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @04:38AM (#50158657)

        Can't just be the recruiters. Someone above them has to either be actively allowing them bring people back in who have already been rejected three times before or they're just so disorganized they don't keep records on that kind of thing.

        Could be legal restrictions too.

        Not sure about USA, but here in EU, employer is legally allowed to store applicant profiles only for 6 months.

        Summary mentions four interviews during 7 years, so the earlier mention about non-selection would have expired.

      • Not weird at all. I'd guess over the span of 7 years, they were 4 different positions. Just because you aren't the perfect fit for one job doesn't mean you aren't for another. All said, I find it hard to jump from 4 failed interviews to age discrimination. Maybe they do discriminate, and maybe it is illegal, but I don't see anything from this instance that would lead me to believe so.

      • Re:Commission (Score:4, Informative)

        by larkost ( 79011 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @11:22AM (#50161215)

        Google recruiting is just that disorganized. I too got to the in-person interview stage, but did not make it though for that position. Then about a week later, ironically while I was sitting in a conference session next to several of the Google employees who interviewed me, I got an email from a Google recruiter who was trying to recruit me for that exact same position.

        Note that this was an internal Google recruiter, not a "bounty hunter". They really are that disorganized.

        And if her interviews went anything like mine, the in-person has MUCH higher standards than the phone screen, and does not necessarily have much bearing on the job I was being interviewed for (three interviewers asked me repeated questions about how hard links are implemented in on-disk filesystem structures for a Mac Sysadmin position).

    • by Overzeetop ( 214511 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @07:09AM (#50159133) Journal

      You know, they should implement some kind of a search engine on their HR database so that they can look up past interviewees to prevent multiple recruitment gaffs like this. Now, I know that not everyone can write a custom search engine in house, but I hear that both Microsoft and Yahoo have up-and-coming search engine technology they might be able to license and implement that would let them mine their existing data.

      • Google actually INTENTIONALLY recruits people multiple times. Unlike many other companies, they realise that people grow, people develop, and sometimes people are just having a bad day.

        In any case, they want to ensure that they haven't passed up any arbitrary candidate just because they failed one in-person interview.

        N.B.: I worked for Google. I didn't get hired by the first committee, but was hired by the second committee...

    • by sjames ( 1099 )

      Unless the consistent part of the process is that she is 'too old'.

    • by Jawnn ( 445279 )

      I'm sure age discrimination is real, but that's not the issue here.

      Unless you have more information than TFA provides, you can't know this. Age discrimination is often subtle and should not be dismissed as glibly as you have tried to do.

    • Google intentionally recruits people multiple times. They understand sometimes a person has a bad day, and that they grow and develop. Unless you don't utterly fail the phone screen, you're very likely to get called in a few times, just to make sure that they're not turning you down for arbitrary decisions. (Chances are good that an arbitrary situation won't show up 4 times in a hiring committee")

      Which brings me to the second point. It's highly unlikely these people will win, as Google hires by committee...

  • by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:37PM (#50157629) Journal

    Getting into my late 40's, I find my friends are experiencing this all over. EMC keeps contacting a buddy who is a storage architect, he designed storage hardware at sun, they never make an offer after multiple interviews, he says its because hes almost 60. Facebook keeps calling a few of my buddies, but they too never get hired and are in their 50's. I was turned down by 2 companies when they learned my age and I had a family. But I dont want to work in a sweat shop anymore, so its good to know exactly how bad some places can be. Amazon so far seems to be hiring everyone, because they burn them out quicker than they can hire.

    Yeah, people are working until retirement age now, so this is a problem. (You know, that reset button that wipes out your entire life savings called divorce)

    • by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:51PM (#50157667)

      We don't really know what the facts of the case are, but I wonder what it is about people that lead them to believe they're being discriminated against based on a particular factor, like age, race, etc? I've gone to plenty of in-person interviews where I didn't get the job. I could often tell when I didn't answer the questions as well as I'd have liked. For instance, I'm a pretty decent programmer, but my math skills are not outstanding. If the interviewer asks a bunch of math-intensive questions, it's nearly always game over for me. I've had other interviewers ask me really abstract problems, such as how to calculate the number and types of elevators a particular-sized building needed. Honestly, I had no fucking clue. I'm a videogame programmer, not an architect. I reasoned it out as best I could, and obviously I didn't guess well enough.

      Has anyone ever had an experience where they were positive they had a good chance at the job, but nothing came of it? Honestly, I don't think I ever have. Rather, the ones I came away from feeling really good about were generally the ones in which I was offered a job. I'm also sort of curious why someone would interview at the same company four times. Good lord, after the second or third time being rejected, I would have told the next interviewer to piss off, and let them know exactly why.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by chipschap ( 1444407 )

        I'm also sort of curious why someone would interview at the same company four times.

        Because she wanted to sue. No, I'm not being facetious here. I don't for a moment doubt that age discrimination is going on at companies like Google, but it seems obvious enough that the woman wanted to sue. Not saying that she shouldn't --- probably she should.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @03:59AM (#50158569)
        Yes, I had an interview that went extremely well and I didn't get hired. I interviewed right before another person that was friends with people already working there. I'm sure the only reason they interviewed me was so they could meet some bs company requirement of interviewing X number of candidates before hiring.
        I had a mediocre interview another place but my former manager was best friends with the VP so I was hired.
        The people you know can matter more than qualifications.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @06:54AM (#50159079) Homepage Journal

        Sometimes there are ways you can tell. I was once asked at length about my name, which sounds Islamic. The guy was trying hard to find out if I was a Muslim, without actually asking the question directly. The only reason he would care is if he wanted to discriminate against Muslims. I thought about trying to work that fact that I'm not religious into the answers, as he seemed to be hoping I would, but instead I just ended the interview early and left.

        For age discrimination it is often in the form of being asked excessively about how much energy you have, what commitments you have outside of work, that kind of thing. Being asked if you intend to work full time, or where you will be in 10 years when you only have 5 to go before retirement. Pretending to reminisce about ancient technologies in an attempt to guess your age. It's a bit like when women are asked, sometimes indirectly, if they have a family or are thinking of having one or might get married any time soon. I know a couple of women who would remove their wedding rings before interviews because of that.

        Of course, it's much easier if you can just send two nearly identical CVs, one with a lower age (or apparent age, i.e. just delete some of your older work history) and one gets an interview while the other does not. It's mostly done to detect racial bias, but it works just as well for age. Even something a simple as having an old fashioned name has a measurable effect.

        • I'm in my early 40s and in my last set of interviews, I would work into the conversation that I'm married, have kids, and believe in a work/family balance. I wanted to be "discriminated" against. I didn't want to work for a company that expected me to work consistently more than 45 hours a week. The market is way too good for qualified, experienced developers to just accept anything. I am sure I was declined one job offer because of "discrimination". I was offered another job that was a much better fit th

          • by BVis ( 267028 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @08:21AM (#50159651)

            Well, you'd think so. Try living near enough to an urban center so that recruiters/HR think that you can commute in, but in reality that's a 2 hour trip for everything except driving and paying a fortune for parking (and even then is probably closer to 90 minutes with traffic). Once they find out you're not willing to make that trip 5 days, or (holy shit) you want to work REMOTE, you stop getting called or getting your applications looked at.

            Originally I was taking the approach that I'm a valuable asset and I should be able to ask for a better situation than what I have now (asking for more money, work from home/remote, not working with assholes, etc). What I found was that, in general, employers don't like it when you ask for stuff. What they want is people who will take what they are given and smile. So now I don't mention any of that in the interview process. It's a giant waste of time, to find out that, while they do want to hire you, they want to give you half your current salary and will write you up for not having your ass in the seat at 0830 and only leaving when your boss thinks you should leave (which is always more than 8 hours, but they don't tell you that), but that's the only way to get the offer in the first place, and then you can negotiate for what you want. Or, they'll tell you the offer is final, and everyone's wasted their time.

            The way we hire people is fucked up. Over-entitled employers still think the pressures of supply and demand don't apply to them, and they insist that they still have the FSM-given right to treat their workers like shit; that extends to the hiring process. It's not that you're a valuable asset to the company, it's that you cost the company money and therefore are a terrible person. Then companies wonder why they can't keep good talent. It has to be greedy lazy employees! Yeah, that's it! They're all lazy and greedy! Couldn't be the fact that we treat them like shit at all!

    • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:55PM (#50157685)

      Getting into my late 40's, I find my friends are experiencing this all over. EMC keeps contacting a buddy who is a storage architect, he designed storage hardware at sun, they never make an offer after multiple interviews, he says its because hes almost 60. Facebook keeps calling a few of my buddies, but they too never get hired and are in their 50's. I was turned down by 2 companies when they learned my age and I had a family. But I dont want to work in a sweat shop anymore, so its good to know exactly how bad some places can be. Amazon so far seems to be hiring everyone, because they burn them out quicker than they can hire.

      Yeah, people are working until retirement age now, so this is a problem. (You know, that reset button that wipes out your entire life savings called divorce)

      Any theories on why this is happening?

      My thought is it might be culture thing, unless the new hire is coming on as a team lead or manager they're probably going to be working under someone in their 20s or 30s. I'm wondering if this is simply a case of people feeling weird having a subordinate 10-20 years younger than themselves or bringing a 45 year old onto a team with a bunch of twenty-somethings.

      • For what it's worth I've known "old" tech workers who don't "act" old, and I've known ones who do. So even though many companies may use "culture fit" as coded language for "too old" (or "too foreign"), there is still some truth to it. I've had to work with someone who acted like a grouchy old man and it wasn't enjoyable.
        • by Darinbob ( 1142669 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @01:36AM (#50158033)

          That's what "culture" often means. The word makes little sense elsewhere. Anything I can think of that's "culture" a good corporation will want to mix up anyway; otherwise you get monoculture. If you're got a group that's all gamers, then that is bad. If you've got a group that's all dope heads, then that is really bad too (and I've seen that group). If it's a group that's all foodies stuck together in a clique, then that's also bad.

          The other thing that "culture" means can be just a code word for "we all work 80 hours a week here, and we don't enforce that because it's obviously illegal, but if you don't voluntarily work 80 hours a week too then you're just not the right fit for the culture." Which also in a roundabout way is also age discrimination, or at least discrimination against people who know better or who would rather have a life.

          • Where I work it tends to mean, "ability to cope with extreme disorganization and non-existent project management, and all the inefficiency and duplicated effort that entails, without becoming murderous".
        • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @02:06AM (#50158197)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • the old guys knew how to roll with the changes and adapt

            Some old guys do. Some get fixated on how things used to work a decade or more ago and insist that everything new is rubbish. The trick is to only hire the former...

        • by jlowery ( 47102 )

          What? You've never had to work with grouch young men? I have! Age has nothing to do with it.

      • Any theories on why this is happening?

        My thought is it might be culture thing, unless the new hire is coming on as a team lead or manager they're probably going to be working under someone in their 20s or 30s. I'm wondering if this is simply a case of people feeling weird having a subordinate 10-20 years younger than themselves or bringing a 45 year old onto a team with a bunch of twenty-somethings.

        It's not about bringing age, but rather experience, or even wisdom.
        When I was working in video games, I frequently went to companies where, only by myself, I was doubling the experience of the whole team, because I had 15 years of experience in game programming (I started at 20).

        In fact, it's a matter about what the company values.
        If the company values experience, you'll find a diversity of people.
        If the company values technology, you'll only find young male guys.
        Sadly, most tech companies are obsessed with

      • by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @01:57AM (#50158153)

        While older people feel comfortable working with younger people- the reverse is not true.

        I've had younger people specifically tell me they hired a team like them that they could hang out with after work.

        It feeds on itself once you have a younger team in place. Back in 2009, Scotus gutted age discrimination protection and it's exploded since then.

        PRE- ACA, increasing insurance premiums were a cause for not hiring- and for laying off large groups of older employees as they reached 50 to 55.

        Back then- an older person's insurance could be 12x the cost of a younger person's insurance (now it's 3x).

        • by dbIII ( 701233 )

          I've had younger people specifically tell me they hired a team like them that they could hang out with after work.

          That's a danger sign. A monoculture can get way out of touch and try to sell the next big thing which turns out that only they and their friends are interested in. The most effective software house I worked for had people from a variety of ages and professions (aircraft tech, doctor, physicist, non-destructive testing etc) - "here's how we do it in industry X" sometimes provided a massive shor

      • I think perhaps a large part of it is that managers feel insecure about managing somebody who is older and more mature - we are brought up to see parents and the older generation as authority, and despite teenage rebellions etc, it sticks deep. In some companies they seem to have cracked it; probably the trick is to get older, more experienced people in as 'team granddads' (I should probably say 'grandparents' in this days and age), who not only have a lot of knowledge to give workwise, but also have the ab

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • If they want an expert in certain technologies, then they will have to hire someone who's older.

    • by Maxo-Texas ( 864189 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @01:52AM (#50158135)

      Infosys cuts the chase. When I forwarded the resume of a friend of mine to them, they kicked it back saying they *required* the high school graduation year. Not proof of graduation (tho why high school graduation should matter to someone with a degree plus experience anyway...).

      You see, college degrees might be obtained at any age. But highschool degrees are mostly earned at 18. So they are asking for the applicants age.

    • I'm even seeing this in my early 40s. Where as before I could just waltz in, display a little attitude and walk out with a job, I'm getting passed over for candidates *clearly* less experienced than me, in companies where even the boss looks like a kid to me.

      Its a bit frusturating, to be honest. I'm bloody good at what I do.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:45PM (#50157647)

    and see the age discrimination. I've been to their SF and Kirkland, WA campuses about two dozen times, and very few people I saw were over thirty. When I interviewed there, they said I was a good fit due to my age. Yes, that's age discrimination, but I can't argue that they were wrong.

    • by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:57PM (#50157693) Homepage Journal

      kids are easier to boss around and they don't tell the product manager that his new Maps is a piece of shit.

      • I think you have a causation issue there. Kids don't realise that Maps is a piece of shit as they are the trendy hipsters who designed it.

        It's a corporate culture thing. Google isn't hiring 60 year old seen it all done it all wish everything had a fully verbose file menu at the top types because that's not the path they are going down. The end result is an incestuous corporate culture. Heck one of the interview questions could be "is maps a steaming pile of shit" and that would separate the young from the o

        • by henni16 ( 586412 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @04:08AM (#50158583)

          I don't know if maps is a steaming pile, but I do know that the new maps and especially street view are really, really sluggish in comparison to classic.
          As a n00b driver in a big city with heavy traffic I loved being able to "drive" through key points of an unknown route the day before to see what the streets were like, what lane would be best before entering a 5-lane-roundabout, what the parking situation near the destination looked like etc.
          F_ck that with the new version, too slow; even on an i7, there's almost no such thing as having a _quick_ look.

  • Today, Fillekes' LinkedIn profile describes her career as a "cheese maker at Mohawk Drumlin Creamery." In 2014, "I bought a dairy farm in upstate NY. I designed and built an on-farm creamery to produce farmstead sheep's milk cheese and yogurt," she wrote.

    someone with her education who goes to make cheese... hey, that's really romantic. maybe she burnt out, maybe she has some social issue that prevents competent office interaction

    but maybe the real issue here is resume prejudice. where the guy or gal who tak

    • someone with her education who goes to make cheese...

      I wonder if the geek would have the same sarcastic reaction if she had designed and opened a craft brewery instead of an artisan dairy --- she milks sheep not cows.

      Sheep have been raised for milk for thousands of years and were milked before cows. The world's commercial dairy sheep industry is concentrated in Europe and the countries on or near the Mediterranean Sea.

      The dairy sheep industry is in its infancy in the United States. There are approximately 100 dairy sheep farms in the U.S. They are found mostly in New England and the Upper Midwest. There are several large commercial sheep dairies in New York and California.

      While sheep usually produce less milk than goats and much less than cows, sheep milk sells for a significantly higher price per pound, almost four times the price of cow milk.

      Most of the sheep milk produced in the world is made into cheese. Some of the most famous cheeses are made from sheep milk: Feta (Greece, Italy, and France), Ricotta and Pecorino Romano (Italy) and Roquefort (France). The U.S. is a large importer of sheep milk cheeses. Sheep milk is also made into yogurt and ice cream.

      Modern sheep dairies use sophisticated machinery for milking: milking parlors, pipelines, bulk tanks, etc. Ewes are milked once or twice per day.

      Cheese from the ewe, milk from the goat, butter from the cow . . . Spanish proverb.

      Sheep 101: Dairy Sheep [sheep101.info]

  • Bull (Score:2, Interesting)

    by iamacat ( 583406 )

    Interviews are done by individual rank and file developers who are generally not compensated or recognized for doing this extra work in addition to their primary project. It's very unlikely that there was some top down directive to not hire people based on age. It's possible that younger interviewers have an unconscious preference for people similar to themselves, but dozens of folks who interviewed her would not be acting in consort or with malicious intent.

  • by blind biker ( 1066130 ) on Tuesday July 21, 2015 @11:57PM (#50157695) Journal

    From my observations (not just personal) I came to the conclusion that, if you are out of job at 45, you're fucked, especially (but not limited to) in tech and science/research.

    • It depends.

      I've found that government tech jobs don't discriminate against age.

      Many private industry jobs do but not always. It depends upon whether or not the hiring manager is an old fart or not but that is not always the case. Sometimes, they're being directed to sift out a particular age group for the job by their superiors. Mostly for low wage or "obedience" issues. Young people haven't become stubborn yet and are wiling to put up with more bullshit.

      They also don't happen to have children that inte

    • I'm 40 and I'm pretty sure I could get a job within a couple weeks if I lost my current one tomorrow. We'll see what the landscape looks like when I'm 45.
  • wait.. really? http://www.isitdownrightnow.co... [isitdownrightnow.com]

    doesn't look down... but i could google it...

  • Clearly a shoo-in (Score:5, Interesting)

    by lucm ( 889690 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @12:01AM (#50157707)

    "For 40 years, I programmed in C, C++ and Python, primarily in the Unix and Linux environments. In 2014, I bought a dairy farm in upstate NY. I designed and built an on-farm creamery to produce farmstead sheep's milk cheese and yogurt. "

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/ch... [linkedin.com]

    To superficial people out there: yes, there's a picture in her profile. Semi-SFW.

    • Re:Clearly a shoo-in (Score:5, Informative)

      by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @12:48AM (#50157865) Homepage

      TFA states here last interview with Google was in 2013 and the bought the farm in 2014.
      These do not overlap. Her LinkedIn profile would have been different in 2013.
      It may very well be that she got into dairy farming due to being jaded with the job market.
      She may only be joining the case because she's no longer interrested in IT jobs (which certainly will become impossible after the case).

    • by lophophore ( 4087 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @08:29AM (#50159715) Homepage

      "For 40 years, I programmed in C, C++ and Python, primarily in the Unix and Linux environments"

      Really. Is your name Ken? I didn't think so.

      You can't pull bullshit around smart people. Though maybe you don't notice it so much at a dairy farm.

      C was not seen out side of Bell Labs until 1973 at the earliest, most likely 74 or 75, so *maybe* that is true. But the C Programming Language was published in '78, so I call BULLSHIT.

      C++ was just a gleam in Stroustroup's eye until about 1983, so I call more BULLSHIT.

      Python first hit the streets in '89 or '90, so more BULLSHIT.

      Unix, unless you were at Bell Labs, was not seen anywhere until the earliest, 1974, so maybe not bullshit, but I'd still call more BULLSHIT.

      And linux is not even 15 years old, so there's no way that anybody has been programming on Linux for 40 years, so still even more BULLSHIT.

      Stupid recruiters can't tell the difference between bullshit and tasty chocolate, but Google does not have stupid recruiters.

  • by DNS-and-BIND ( 461968 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @12:27AM (#50157805) Homepage

    My impression isn't that it's age discrimination per se, it's the culture of twentysomethings. The way they were raised, they are simply uncomfortable with anyone but their own kind. It's not that they hate old people or anything, it's just that they feel weirded out and feel they couldn't possibly work every day with such a person. It's lack of empathy with "the other". It's also a form of oikophobia, in which they welcome people from other cultures but fear and loathe people from their own.

    You can trot out the tired cliches about GET OFF MY LAWN LOLZ but at a certain point, there is truth there. I never felt weirded out by working with age 50+ people, even when I was a new recruit. It was just something everyone did. But now, unless you're one of their own kind, they just get freaked out and think they can't deal with having you around day in and day out. When it comes to making a decision, they drop the black ball in the fishbowl and that's it. No regrets, they just prefer the company of their own generation.

    And I can sort of see where they're coming from. What happens when they share the latest meme from Tumblr around the office? You're going to show a blank look and keep on working. You're not on Tumblr, nor Twitter, nor Facebook, and this not only weirds them out, but makes you automatically suspicious. What are you trying to hide by not making your life public? You're probably a child molester of the kind that their parents constantly warned them about. "Stranger danger!"

    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 )
      It's rather amusing that you, as an outsider, attempt to define what we, 20 somethings, feel and how we think. It's even funnier when you realize how wrong you are.

      Having a person older than you by a fair margin be your subordinate might be somewhat strange, but not for very long and certainly not enough to cross the person off the hiring list. Working with older people in general, though? I've been doing that all my life... And so has basically anyone who's had to work, and not merely get a fat check fro
  • Ageism v sexism (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Any Web Loco ( 555458 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @01:01AM (#50157895) Homepage
    Always really interesting to see these two topics come up on Slashdot. Ageism apparently exists, sexism doesn't.
    • ... v racism (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Kunta Kinte ( 323399 ) on Wednesday July 22, 2015 @09:00AM (#50160003) Journal
      Thank you for that observation. Apparently racism does not exist as well. Just read the comments [slashdot.org] on any diversity article. Almost every top rated comment proclaiming racial bias does not exist in tech. And you are a SJW for saying so.

      The difference is that ageism does affect many Slashdot readers. Sexist and racism apparently not so much.

  • It's not just google. Age-ism in Silicon Valley is institutionalized.

  • I've interviewed people who looked good on paper but were completely devoid of people skills in the interview. I've interviewed people who clearly hadn't bathed in quite some time. I've interviewed people who were so verbally aggressive they'd be a constant source of problems. Over the years what's amazed me is the number of people who can't at least fake "normal team player kind of person" in an interview. I suppose that's the point of interviews.

Most public domain software is free, at least at first glance.

Working...