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That's a really interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing it. Certainly it feels dystopian reduce everyone to their resumes and strip all shreds of their iden

That's a really interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing it. Certainly it feels dystopian reduce everyone to their resumes and strip all shreds of their identity from themselves. "Entity 4571, I see that you have achieved primary qualifications and meet the requirement of 2 years of experience; we may now proceed to interrogatory verification of qualifications." However, I pretty strongly disagree. When evaluating a resume, there's no legitimate reason to consider the name, age, address, or gender of a candidate. Contrariwise, there are significant problems with people considering that information anyway. Therefore, it seems like that information shouldn't be present. You say "does it really seem healthy to ignore value of cross-generational achievements," but that's the same thing as saying "throw out the resumes of any young people who apply, we already have enough of them." Now, if you're fine with the plan of explicitly deciding to hire only a man/woman/old/young/person-from-the-right-neighborhood/school, that's a different discussion, which I won't get into here, but if you're going to do that, it should at the least be done very intentionally and not in some sort of informal "eh, guessing based on their name, this is the wrong sort of candidate" way.

deleted 8y ago
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perlgeek 8y ago
> However, I pretty strongly disagree. When evaluating a resume, there's no legitimate reason to consider the name, age, address, or gender of a candidate. I mostly agreed, except with age. When I have two candidates who have roughly the same amount of experience or achievement, but one of them is far younger than the other, that tends to be more impressive.
- barbecue_sauce 8y ago
  That's pretty blatant age discrimination.
  - perlgeek 8y ago
    How so? To the best of my understanding, not hiring somebody because of age would be age discrimination. Inferences about learning speed or motivation based on achievements per years don't sound like age discrimination to me.
    - bg4 8y ago
      Because you're essentially saying: All other things equal, I'll choose the candidate based on their age.
      - kodablah 8y ago
        No, GP is essentially saying: It's clear one accomplishes more in a smaller amount of time. That's far different from all else being equal. Granted, using age has less value than using time-in-field, but they are often proportional. Also, granted, you could argue that amount accomplished is a poor metric to use, especially when joined with speed.
    - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
      That's exactly what age discrimination is.
    - CobrastanJorji 8y ago
      What can you infer about learning speed based on age that you can't infer based on years of experience?
- mbrumlow 8y ago
  Why? Maybe the older candidate only recently started to do the work. And this just the first thing the young person did? I always get weird when people make a big deal about things people do at some young age. Most of the time the age is not important for the things we praise young people for doing. Most of the time it was just something their parents pushed them into to doing that any of many kids could have done had they just had the right parents.
- laurentl 8y ago
  I don’t really see how you can hide (a rough idea of) age in an anonymous cv though. I’m guessing you still have the dates in front of the diplomas and previous jobs, or at the very least how long was spent at each previous job. It stands to reason that someone boasting 10+ years of experience is at least 30, and probably around 35.
- CobrastanJorji 8y ago
  What if you replace age with "experience?" A candidate who has been working for 10 years as a software engineer but is worse at it than a candidate who has been working for 2 years is a worse candidate, if you're looking to hire someone who can grow. However, I don't think it should matter at what age those candidates' years of experience started. Is it impressive that a 22 year old has 6 years of professional experience? Yes, certainly. Does it mean that they'll be better than a 40 year old with 6 years of equivalent experience? It's possible, but I suspect it'd be a weak signal at best.
YorkshireSeason 8y ago
That's a really interesting perspective. For what it's worth, that's a modern variant of Marx & Engels argument against equality (opportunity or outcome). They say equality is a bourgeois tool to deal with capitalism's shortcomings. They stipulated that there will be no equality (neither of opportunity nor of outcome) in a communist society, and that that was a great thing. Instead of equality (opportunity or outcome) they suggested "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" [1]. The idea behind this line of thought is that equality matters only if you don't have enough, but communist society will provide so much surplus that envy simply disappears, and equality withers. It is interesting to ponder the correctness of this line of thought, e.g. do the slim in the rich world envy the obese, despite the latter consuming more food? Traces of this argument go back to Aristotle. Marx & Engels erred in that they assumed capitalist modes of production cannot produce vast amounts of surplus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...
- golemotron 8y ago
  The other error was assuming that envy ever goes away. People compete for status, attention and countless other intangibles even when their physical needs are met.
  - YorkshireSeason 8y ago
    when their physical needs While all basic physical needs are certainly met in the developed world, it's questionable if most people's (or at least most men's) sexual needs (which could be classified as physical) are fully met. It's difficult sometimes to shake off the feeling that some status competition is sexual competition that dare not speak its name.
    - JohnWilcox 8y ago
      Not that anyone will see this, but unfortunately for all of us, what is totally missing from this line of thought is the religious restraints regarding jealousy and coveting that are direct responses to the most primitive impulses of humans, that the more you have the more it's not enough, especially when you didn't work for it. It is just as true for the elite who don't work for what they have, as well as the parasitic savages that have been allowed to infest the civilized world (ironically, to enrich and empower the elite) that become ever more greedy and covetous with every bit of thing they are given without having earned or deserved it.

deleted 8y ago

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perlgeek 8y ago

> However, I pretty strongly disagree. When evaluating a resume, there's no legitimate reason to consider the name, age, address, or gender of a candidate. I mostly agreed, except with age. When I have two candidates who have roughly the same amount of experience or achievement, but one of them is far younger than the other, that tends to be more impressive.

barbecue_sauce 8y ago
That's pretty blatant age discrimination.
- perlgeek 8y ago
  How so? To the best of my understanding, not hiring somebody because of age would be age discrimination. Inferences about learning speed or motivation based on achievements per years don't sound like age discrimination to me.
  - bg4 8y ago
    Because you're essentially saying: All other things equal, I'll choose the candidate based on their age.
    - kodablah 8y ago
      No, GP is essentially saying: It's clear one accomplishes more in a smaller amount of time. That's far different from all else being equal. Granted, using age has less value than using time-in-field, but they are often proportional. Also, granted, you could argue that amount accomplished is a poor metric to use, especially when joined with speed.
  - barbecue_sauce 8y ago
    That's exactly what age discrimination is.
  - CobrastanJorji 8y ago
    What can you infer about learning speed based on age that you can't infer based on years of experience?
mbrumlow 8y ago
Why? Maybe the older candidate only recently started to do the work. And this just the first thing the young person did? I always get weird when people make a big deal about things people do at some young age. Most of the time the age is not important for the things we praise young people for doing. Most of the time it was just something their parents pushed them into to doing that any of many kids could have done had they just had the right parents.
laurentl 8y ago
I don’t really see how you can hide (a rough idea of) age in an anonymous cv though. I’m guessing you still have the dates in front of the diplomas and previous jobs, or at the very least how long was spent at each previous job. It stands to reason that someone boasting 10+ years of experience is at least 30, and probably around 35.
CobrastanJorji 8y ago
What if you replace age with "experience?" A candidate who has been working for 10 years as a software engineer but is worse at it than a candidate who has been working for 2 years is a worse candidate, if you're looking to hire someone who can grow. However, I don't think it should matter at what age those candidates' years of experience started. Is it impressive that a 22 year old has 6 years of professional experience? Yes, certainly. Does it mean that they'll be better than a 40 year old with 6 years of equivalent experience? It's possible, but I suspect it'd be a weak signal at best.

YorkshireSeason 8y ago

That's a really interesting perspective. For what it's worth, that's a modern variant of Marx & Engels argument against equality (opportunity or outcome). They say equality is a bourgeois tool to deal with capitalism's shortcomings. They stipulated that there will be no equality (neither of opportunity nor of outcome) in a communist society, and that that was a great thing. Instead of equality (opportunity or outcome) they suggested "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" [1]. The idea behind this line of thought is that equality matters only if you don't have enough, but communist society will provide so much surplus that envy simply disappears, and equality withers. It is interesting to ponder the correctness of this line of thought, e.g. do the slim in the rich world envy the obese, despite the latter consuming more food? Traces of this argument go back to Aristotle. Marx & Engels erred in that they assumed capitalist modes of production cannot produce vast amounts of surplus. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_ability,_to_each_according_to_his_needs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_each_according_to_his_abi...

golemotron 8y ago
The other error was assuming that envy ever goes away. People compete for status, attention and countless other intangibles even when their physical needs are met.
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  when their physical needs While all basic physical needs are certainly met in the developed world, it's questionable if most people's (or at least most men's) sexual needs (which could be classified as physical) are fully met. It's difficult sometimes to shake off the feeling that some status competition is sexual competition that dare not speak its name.
  - JohnWilcox 8y ago
    Not that anyone will see this, but unfortunately for all of us, what is totally missing from this line of thought is the religious restraints regarding jealousy and coveting that are direct responses to the most primitive impulses of humans, that the more you have the more it's not enough, especially when you didn't work for it. It is just as true for the elite who don't work for what they have, as well as the parasitic savages that have been allowed to infest the civilized world (ironically, to enrich and empower the elite) that become ever more greedy and covetous with every bit of thing they are given without having earned or deserved it.