5 ms·
“Attractability” of a candidate was not limited to their skills. As in some parts of the world today we know that these things are largely orthogonal to perform
by quietthrow 7y ago
“Attractability” of a candidate was not limited to their skills. As in some parts of the world today we know that these things are largely orthogonal to performance at job. As rational and simple as that sounds today, back in the day knowing these details was equally rational and simple. We just find it difficult to get that point of view since we didn’t live in that time. This is the same as ageism today. “Young people are just smarter”. What do you think people will say on hacker news 30 years from now when they read that was the thinking of some of today’s tech leaders
- jimmaswell 7y agoIs the belief really that age is irrelevant to mental performance, or do we just want people to be able to continue being employed for moral reasons?
- tasuki 7y agoOh, of course it is related. Also, apart from declining mental performance, with age comes valuable experience.
- Waterluvian 7y agoI've seen that in action. An older dev was an absolute burden on a hack day moving at a snail's pace. But for long term architecture he always had super valuable "oh I didn't think of that" things to say. He was so awesome to have on the team, at the cost of sometimes having to watch him crawl toward a few lines of code. Not a hard choice in my opinion. Of course I've seen the whole spectrum. Useless old people. Useless young people. It's best to simply be a meritocracy.
- erikpukinskis 7y agoIt’s the same issue as gender or race discrimination. There are often differences in means, but because within group differences are an order of magnitude larger than between group differences, from the perspective of any two individuals trying to understand each other, group membership gives you no meaningful information. Knowing the averages will actually make you worse at assessment.
- lrem 7y agoAlso: this one is more present today. I can just not mention I'm married, while still reaping the benefits of being attractive.
- scarface74 7y agoTrue. But I do just the opposite. Even though they aren’t allowed to ask me if I am married, I go out of my way to mention off handedly that I am married. I want them to “discriminate” against me if they have the type of culture that expects people to work for 60 hours a week regularly.
- lrem 7y agoHehe. I've been going around telling how my wife is nine months pregnant, asking how the paternity benefits are.
- cosmodisk 7y agoAny success getting a job after mentioning it?
- a1pulley 7y agoI mentioned my newborn in all of my job interviews because I didn't want any surprises on either side of the table. I interviewed at six places and got five offers - two at FANGs, three at unicorns. I don't think there's a culture of discrimination against young fathers at large companies, and I don't think it's necessarily bad if there is at early-stage, high-growth start ups.
- cosmodisk 7y agoAny company worth working for would accept it as a fact of life- most people end up having kids at some point. If the opposite is the case,well, it's better to stay away from them.