4 ms·

That last paragraph says a lot. If you have a company and you want employees that are “tech-natives”, whatever that may mean, that is not the same thing as disc

That last paragraph says a lot. If you have a company and you want employees that are “tech-natives”, whatever that may mean, that is not the same thing as discriminating based on age. No, not even if they are wrong, and don’t actually need a tech-native. This is just as silly as complaining that a moving company only hires people that are strong enough to lift a piano and women complain about sex discrimination because women tend to be much weaker. It must be allowed to discriminate based on ability, even if a certain ability correlates trongly with age, sex or something else.

markbnj 7y ago
And for what it's worth, the moving company analogy is extremely flawed. Most people apply for jobs in good faith. Moving companies (one of which I used to drive and load for, years ago), don't look to hire males or females. They look to hire people physically strong enough to do the job and skilled enough to do it well. They don't screen applications to weed out females. If a female applies for a moving position I think the average employer is probably going to assume she either knows what she's about or misunderstood the position. If you were to assume the latter then you might miss out on a good employee. There are plenty of women strong enough to lift furniture.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  Well this was my exact point.
farazbabar 7y ago
> It must be allowed to discriminate based on ability, even if a certain ability correlates trongly with age, sex or something else. Wow! I rarely openly disagree with strangers on the internet but wow! I am currently focused on improving diversity and inclusion within my teams and the diversity of thought, approaches and outcomes that are a direct result of this effort are a delight. Progress may not always be in the right direction or slower than one expects but zigging and zagging towards the right thing is a reward in its own.
- carmenbr 7y ago
  Some companies have a Head of D&I specifically to promote it within the company. Yes, you are in the right direction. Happy to share more details about your company?
- Grustaf 7y ago
  If there is an argument in your reply i must have missed it. My argument is that you must be allowed to hire only strong people if the job requires that, even if men in general wre much stronger. What would the alternative be?
  - nxrabl 7y ago
    I don't want to put words in GP's mouth, but they seem to be making the argument that "ability" comprises multiple considerations, one of which is the meta-consideration that employees should have a range of talents and experiences which are different from one another. In the moving company example, it would be a mistake to optimize exclusively for physical strength in the hiring process - you're going to want someone who can work out the dimensions of things in their head to tell whether that table is going to fit through that door frame, someone who can put the homeowner at ease while you put their priceless heirlooms on a truck, etc. In knowledge work, which is the domain I daresay most of us around here will actually be applying this to, there are far more of these variables, many of which are invisible to us. They impact a team's ability to, for example, devise innovative and robust solutions to problems by drawing on a wide range of inspirations, or design products that appeal to target markets beyond what any one team member might be familiar with. Valuing a diverse staff makes a reasonable proxy for these hidden variables. Your argument, as I understand it, is that a company has the right to choose some characteristic and require that characteristic to be present at or above some standard level in all of the employees it hires. Which is fine, so long as it isn't one of these [0] (in which age is included). However, I would argue that a term like "tech-native" is not a characteristic - it's a label, and it's loaded from the start. Imagine the moving company puts out a job ad saying that they're looking for "powerlifters" or "muscleheads" or something. What they _mean_ by that (or what they think they mean) is that they want people who are physically strong, regardless of any other characteristic. What they're _saying_ is that they want men, and no woman is going to read that posting and think that the poster is expecting women to apply. And when the candidate gets to the interview, the interviewer is going to try out that label on that candidate, and the label will inevitably be overloaded with connotations far beyond "physical strength" - with the best will in the world, the interviewer will end up selecting men at even a higher rate than they apply, because "masculinity" is part of the implicit set of characteristics attached to that label. The use of language in the want ad, rightly or wrongly, appeals to a certain type of candidate, and not only indicates but reinforces a preference for that type of candidate. What would have been wrong with just saying "Must be able to lift 100 lbs", or "Must be comfortable with social media"? The term "tech-native" is an opaque neologism that doesn't mean anything other than the big ball of mixed-up stereotypes the HR person had in their head when they typed it, and a company that asks for "tech-natives" either doesn't know what they really want, or isn't willing to tell us straight out. Either way, we should be celebrating companies who don't use bs terms like that, which is exactly what OP is doing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group
krilly 7y ago
How is growing up playing games on an iPad a better indicator of ability than decades of experience in the industry? You wave away the idea that these recruiters may be wrong in their criteria as if that's irrelevant, but that's the whole point of discrimination. If all black people were criminals then racists would be correct in their views. This dissonance is the core of the issue.
- Grustaf 7y ago
  I’m not saying it is, just that they think it is. I think they are allowed to think that.
RichardCA 7y ago
I think the main idea is that words like "tech-native" are really just weasel-words that can be used as a post-hoc justification for rejecting someone. If my first immersion in tech was BASIC on a PDP-8 in the 70's when I was 12, does that make me tech-native or not?
- Grustaf 7y ago
  Why wouldn’t it? And if they don’t actually believe in the tech native concept, why would they use it? You think they dislike people over 40 out of principle and just come up with excuses to avoid them, even when they fit their profile?
- dragonsky67 7y ago
  Depends upon how you define it. I think most people who use the term tech native and digital native are referring to people who grew up with social media. If you are looking for somebody to do your social media campaign, then go with the "tech native". If you are looking for somebody to develop the next blockbuster social media platform, maybe you will need somebody who has done time in the trenches learning how to develop robust software.
markbnj 7y ago
> That last paragraph says a lot. If you have a company and you want employees that are “tech-natives”, whatever that may mean, that is not the same thing as discriminating based on age. "[W]hatever that may mean," indeed. It doesn't mean anything, and that's the problem. "The right sort of people," is what it really says, and it's not the first time in history that it's been used. All stereotypes are ineffective and self-defeating. If in your own mind you've associated "good engineers == tech native == young" then you'll probably miss out interviewing a lot of good engineers. And from their perspective that definitely constitutes discrimination. They never have a chance to demonstrate what they can do. I think this is fortunately pretty rare in actual practice. I'm 58 and speak from some experience.
- dragonsky67 7y ago
  I love to hate the terms "tech native" or "digital native". In my experience of my kids and their friends they have far less knowledge about the workings of the technology they spend their days using than technology users even 20 years ago. I suppose it's because we were self selecting as being interested in tech and as the tech was more primitive had to know more about it to get it working. Even so, if you want to employ somebody who knows how to make the technology sit up and dance, employ somebody over 40 who was using computers when they were 10. If you want to employ somebody who knows how to read twitter and facebook then just pick the next kid in the street with their head buried. Good luck in getting their attention long enough for them to do your work though.

markbnj 7y ago

And for what it's worth, the moving company analogy is extremely flawed. Most people apply for jobs in good faith. Moving companies (one of which I used to drive and load for, years ago), don't look to hire males or females. They look to hire people physically strong enough to do the job and skilled enough to do it well. They don't screen applications to weed out females. If a female applies for a moving position I think the average employer is probably going to assume she either knows what she's about or misunderstood the position. If you were to assume the latter then you might miss out on a good employee. There are plenty of women strong enough to lift furniture.

Grustaf 7y ago
Well this was my exact point.

farazbabar 7y ago

> It must be allowed to discriminate based on ability, even if a certain ability correlates trongly with age, sex or something else. Wow! I rarely openly disagree with strangers on the internet but wow! I am currently focused on improving diversity and inclusion within my teams and the diversity of thought, approaches and outcomes that are a direct result of this effort are a delight. Progress may not always be in the right direction or slower than one expects but zigging and zagging towards the right thing is a reward in its own.

carmenbr 7y ago
Some companies have a Head of D&I specifically to promote it within the company. Yes, you are in the right direction. Happy to share more details about your company?
Grustaf 7y ago
If there is an argument in your reply i must have missed it. My argument is that you must be allowed to hire only strong people if the job requires that, even if men in general wre much stronger. What would the alternative be?
- nxrabl 7y ago
  I don't want to put words in GP's mouth, but they seem to be making the argument that "ability" comprises multiple considerations, one of which is the meta-consideration that employees should have a range of talents and experiences which are different from one another. In the moving company example, it would be a mistake to optimize exclusively for physical strength in the hiring process - you're going to want someone who can work out the dimensions of things in their head to tell whether that table is going to fit through that door frame, someone who can put the homeowner at ease while you put their priceless heirlooms on a truck, etc. In knowledge work, which is the domain I daresay most of us around here will actually be applying this to, there are far more of these variables, many of which are invisible to us. They impact a team's ability to, for example, devise innovative and robust solutions to problems by drawing on a wide range of inspirations, or design products that appeal to target markets beyond what any one team member might be familiar with. Valuing a diverse staff makes a reasonable proxy for these hidden variables. Your argument, as I understand it, is that a company has the right to choose some characteristic and require that characteristic to be present at or above some standard level in all of the employees it hires. Which is fine, so long as it isn't one of these [0] (in which age is included). However, I would argue that a term like "tech-native" is not a characteristic - it's a label, and it's loaded from the start. Imagine the moving company puts out a job ad saying that they're looking for "powerlifters" or "muscleheads" or something. What they _mean_ by that (or what they think they mean) is that they want people who are physically strong, regardless of any other characteristic. What they're _saying_ is that they want men, and no woman is going to read that posting and think that the poster is expecting women to apply. And when the candidate gets to the interview, the interviewer is going to try out that label on that candidate, and the label will inevitably be overloaded with connotations far beyond "physical strength" - with the best will in the world, the interviewer will end up selecting men at even a higher rate than they apply, because "masculinity" is part of the implicit set of characteristics attached to that label. The use of language in the want ad, rightly or wrongly, appeals to a certain type of candidate, and not only indicates but reinforces a preference for that type of candidate. What would have been wrong with just saying "Must be able to lift 100 lbs", or "Must be comfortable with social media"? The term "tech-native" is an opaque neologism that doesn't mean anything other than the big ball of mixed-up stereotypes the HR person had in their head when they typed it, and a company that asks for "tech-natives" either doesn't know what they really want, or isn't willing to tell us straight out. Either way, we should be celebrating companies who don't use bs terms like that, which is exactly what OP is doing. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group

krilly 7y ago

How is growing up playing games on an iPad a better indicator of ability than decades of experience in the industry? You wave away the idea that these recruiters may be wrong in their criteria as if that's irrelevant, but that's the whole point of discrimination. If all black people were criminals then racists would be correct in their views. This dissonance is the core of the issue.

Grustaf 7y ago
I’m not saying it is, just that they think it is. I think they are allowed to think that.

RichardCA 7y ago

I think the main idea is that words like "tech-native" are really just weasel-words that can be used as a post-hoc justification for rejecting someone. If my first immersion in tech was BASIC on a PDP-8 in the 70's when I was 12, does that make me tech-native or not?

Grustaf 7y ago
Why wouldn’t it? And if they don’t actually believe in the tech native concept, why would they use it? You think they dislike people over 40 out of principle and just come up with excuses to avoid them, even when they fit their profile?
dragonsky67 7y ago
Depends upon how you define it. I think most people who use the term tech native and digital native are referring to people who grew up with social media. If you are looking for somebody to do your social media campaign, then go with the "tech native". If you are looking for somebody to develop the next blockbuster social media platform, maybe you will need somebody who has done time in the trenches learning how to develop robust software.

markbnj 7y ago

> That last paragraph says a lot. If you have a company and you want employees that are “tech-natives”, whatever that may mean, that is not the same thing as discriminating based on age. "[W]hatever that may mean," indeed. It doesn't mean anything, and that's the problem. "The right sort of people," is what it really says, and it's not the first time in history that it's been used. All stereotypes are ineffective and self-defeating. If in your own mind you've associated "good engineers == tech native == young" then you'll probably miss out interviewing a lot of good engineers. And from their perspective that definitely constitutes discrimination. They never have a chance to demonstrate what they can do. I think this is fortunately pretty rare in actual practice. I'm 58 and speak from some experience.

dragonsky67 7y ago
I love to hate the terms "tech native" or "digital native". In my experience of my kids and their friends they have far less knowledge about the workings of the technology they spend their days using than technology users even 20 years ago. I suppose it's because we were self selecting as being interested in tech and as the tech was more primitive had to know more about it to get it working. Even so, if you want to employ somebody who knows how to make the technology sit up and dance, employ somebody over 40 who was using computers when they were 10. If you want to employ somebody who knows how to read twitter and facebook then just pick the next kid in the street with their head buried. Good luck in getting their attention long enough for them to do your work though.