6 ms·

Regardless of location, Facebook is hiring from demographics that typically don't support Trump. Young, STEM-educated people skew left. If you want Trump suppo

Regardless of location, Facebook is hiring from demographics that typically don't support Trump. Young, STEM-educated people skew left. If you want Trump supporters to even things out you're probably going to either: A) hire older devs from less traditional software dev backgrounds. B) Still pull from Young+STEM but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish.

neilsimp1 6y ago
> but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish. Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. And I am saying this as a young, STEM-educated person who skews left.
- dordoka 6y ago
  At least in EU, discriminating based on political beliefs goes against art. 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Pardon my ignorance but, is that allowed in the US?
  - GhostVII 6y ago
    Political beliefs are not a protected class in the US.
    - Natsu 6y ago
      Except in California, oddly enough.
  - xnyan 6y ago
    No, broadly speaking there are no national laws in the US agaisnt firing someone for their political views. It is complicated but basically in the US, at the national level there are a few protected classes (age, gender religion, race, disablity) and you can’t make the decison to fire someone based on these reasons. You can fire people for any other reason or no reason, so in practice this protection is limited and genreally favors the employer. Some US states have their own addtional labor protections.
    - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
      That’s true, nationally no. But it is against the law in California where the companies of the topic are mostly located.
      - xnyan 6y ago
        You are correct, but I believe my fundamental conclusion is also correct. Simply put there are a few reasons you can’t fire someone and almost infinite number of reasons you can. California has more protections than others but the balance of power still overwhelmingly stays with the employer.
  - sarabande 6y ago
    I believe that is allowed in some US states, because political affiliation is not a federally protected employment class, and some, but not all, states prohibit it.
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    In the US it seems it is slightly more complicated https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lesstenseflow 6y ago
  > Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. You don’t think this is happening already? I’m not sure what companies you’ve looked at but most big tech firms have left wing political cultures on an official level, with “culture“ departments and events promoting and sharing various culturally left-wing talking points everyone is supposed to be on board with. Try saying “I actually don’t think america is a deeply racist country in 2020, there’s a huge amount of opportunity here which is evidenced by the number of people (ostensible victims of racism from India, mexico, etc) who line up to come here. Oh and by the way I think natal women are entitled to privacy from men in their bathrooms (like 95% of Americans believe)” during a lunch interview and see how fast you get the “thanks for your time we’ll be in touch.” Or just say “I voted for the current president” if you prefer something shorter. Alternately, talk about supporting BLM, BDS, and how terrible America is as a country—no one will bat an eye. For the record I hold views from both of the above “columns” but I know which ones I’m allowed to share at work (the left leaning “progressive” ones) and which ones I need to keep to myself, namely, everything else. EDIT: downvoters: please set me straight here and let me know what part of my comment is inaccurate or untrue.
untog 6y ago
Why would your hiring process factor in whether someone is a Trump supporter to even things out? Hiring someone based on political affiliation seems pretty awful.
jcadam 6y ago
Who wants to work for a company where they're living in constant fear of being outed as a non-leftist and losing their job? I get the frequent recruiting emails from FB and (much less frequently) Google, but am really too afraid to pursue them.
- jcadam 6y ago
  And the downvoter(s) prove my point. Read between the lines: I'm saying that there are a lot of people selecting themselves out of the candidate pool for the large SV tech companies based on the perception of SV corporate culture being promulgated through the media and forums like this one, further reinforcing the group think in those organizations. That should make you happy.
  - ilikehurdles 6y ago
    What an obnoxious strawman you're holding up. If you're not sending political manifestors on the company's listserv you're probably fine. There are right-leaning people at every company. Even facebook. Especially facebook.
    - thu2111 6y ago
      That's clearly not the case. People have been harassed by coworkers at Google for something as anodyne as using the word "family": https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staff-complained-word-FAMILY-offensive-homophobic-referring-children.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staf... And there are far more stories like that which didn't get into the press. The right leaning people at tech companies certainly exist. They don't tend to spend all day insisting their coworkers are fired for having left wing views. That's why these firms seem left-leaning - it's those people who kick up all the fuss and make all the demands.
- dirtydroog 6y ago
  Not sure why you're being downvoted. I can't imagine working for either company, especially in SV. I would be walking on eggshells lest someone hear, or overhear, something 'toxic' and my career gets ruined. It'd be safer to just not talk to anybody, or limit conversations to work topics only. That's an awful work environment. My demographic would make me a target, not a colleague.
commandlinefan 6y ago
> Young, STEM-educated people skew left. That's a surprising conclusion... I always thought they skewed libertarian.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  Initially and used to. Now, SV absolutely and without question is left leaning overall. To not see it means you’ve never been anywhere near or that you personally are so far left they look center or right ;)
- spamizbad 6y ago
  Kinda surprised this isn't common knowledge here, or that people think its localized to SV? Here's a link: http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ Software Engineers: 79 Democrats for every 21 Republicans. Similar story for engineering overall (The most "conservative" engineering profession being chemical engineering) IT: 71 Democrats for every 29 Republicans. You can blame it on SV but the truth is our industry's age skews young: We are 38 years old on average compared to the workforce average of 43. Source: https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths-debunked/ https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths... Young voters and college-educated tend to vote more Democratic: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e... You could argue the fact that the profession is predominantly male might mitigate some of this but the problem there is that the gender gap closes once you look at genders on a college-education basis: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-midterm-vote-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-mi... What I'm trying to say is that if we assume political affiliation does not correlate with skill (it doesn't AFAIK), and you hire based on merit, and you hire nation-wide, your software development team will skew left. And if your hiring focuses on major urban hubs it will skew even more left. If you want to introduce artificial "balance" you are going to have to do affirmative action for political beliefs. This is challenging, as it's trivial for any individual to lie / reinvent themselves as a desirable political hire. If I wanted a job bad enough, and I knew they preferred hiring a certain political persuasion, I absolutely would pretend to be whatever they wanted me to be.

neilsimp1 6y ago

> but filter out anyone whose social media indicates them as being left-ish. Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. And I am saying this as a young, STEM-educated person who skews left.

dordoka 6y ago
At least in EU, discriminating based on political beliefs goes against art. 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Pardon my ignorance but, is that allowed in the US?
- GhostVII 6y ago
  Political beliefs are not a protected class in the US.
  - Natsu 6y ago
    Except in California, oddly enough.
- xnyan 6y ago
  No, broadly speaking there are no national laws in the US agaisnt firing someone for their political views. It is complicated but basically in the US, at the national level there are a few protected classes (age, gender religion, race, disablity) and you can’t make the decison to fire someone based on these reasons. You can fire people for any other reason or no reason, so in practice this protection is limited and genreally favors the employer. Some US states have their own addtional labor protections.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    That’s true, nationally no. But it is against the law in California where the companies of the topic are mostly located.
    - xnyan 6y ago
      You are correct, but I believe my fundamental conclusion is also correct. Simply put there are a few reasons you can’t fire someone and almost infinite number of reasons you can. California has more protections than others but the balance of power still overwhelmingly stays with the employer.
- sarabande 6y ago
  I believe that is allowed in some US states, because political affiliation is not a federally protected employment class, and some, but not all, states prohibit it.
- raverbashing 6y ago
  In the US it seems it is slightly more complicated https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discriminate-based-on-political-beliefs-or-affiliation.html https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/can-employers-discri...
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
lesstenseflow 6y ago
> Hiring based on political beliefs, or in this case, presumed political beliefs, sounds like a dangerous road to go down. You don’t think this is happening already? I’m not sure what companies you’ve looked at but most big tech firms have left wing political cultures on an official level, with “culture“ departments and events promoting and sharing various culturally left-wing talking points everyone is supposed to be on board with. Try saying “I actually don’t think america is a deeply racist country in 2020, there’s a huge amount of opportunity here which is evidenced by the number of people (ostensible victims of racism from India, mexico, etc) who line up to come here. Oh and by the way I think natal women are entitled to privacy from men in their bathrooms (like 95% of Americans believe)” during a lunch interview and see how fast you get the “thanks for your time we’ll be in touch.” Or just say “I voted for the current president” if you prefer something shorter. Alternately, talk about supporting BLM, BDS, and how terrible America is as a country—no one will bat an eye. For the record I hold views from both of the above “columns” but I know which ones I’m allowed to share at work (the left leaning “progressive” ones) and which ones I need to keep to myself, namely, everything else. EDIT: downvoters: please set me straight here and let me know what part of my comment is inaccurate or untrue.

untog 6y ago

Why would your hiring process factor in whether someone is a Trump supporter to even things out? Hiring someone based on political affiliation seems pretty awful.

jcadam 6y ago

Who wants to work for a company where they're living in constant fear of being outed as a non-leftist and losing their job? I get the frequent recruiting emails from FB and (much less frequently) Google, but am really too afraid to pursue them.

jcadam 6y ago
And the downvoter(s) prove my point. Read between the lines: I'm saying that there are a lot of people selecting themselves out of the candidate pool for the large SV tech companies based on the perception of SV corporate culture being promulgated through the media and forums like this one, further reinforcing the group think in those organizations. That should make you happy.
- ilikehurdles 6y ago
  What an obnoxious strawman you're holding up. If you're not sending political manifestors on the company's listserv you're probably fine. There are right-leaning people at every company. Even facebook. Especially facebook.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    That's clearly not the case. People have been harassed by coworkers at Google for something as anodyne as using the word "family": https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staff-complained-word-FAMILY-offensive-homophobic-referring-children.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6605539/Google-staf... And there are far more stories like that which didn't get into the press. The right leaning people at tech companies certainly exist. They don't tend to spend all day insisting their coworkers are fired for having left wing views. That's why these firms seem left-leaning - it's those people who kick up all the fuss and make all the demands.
dirtydroog 6y ago
Not sure why you're being downvoted. I can't imagine working for either company, especially in SV. I would be walking on eggshells lest someone hear, or overhear, something 'toxic' and my career gets ruined. It'd be safer to just not talk to anybody, or limit conversations to work topics only. That's an awful work environment. My demographic would make me a target, not a colleague.

commandlinefan 6y ago

> Young, STEM-educated people skew left. That's a surprising conclusion... I always thought they skewed libertarian.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
Initially and used to. Now, SV absolutely and without question is left leaning overall. To not see it means you’ve never been anywhere near or that you personally are so far left they look center or right ;)
spamizbad 6y ago
Kinda surprised this isn't common knowledge here, or that people think its localized to SV? Here's a link: http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ http://verdantlabs.com/politics_of_professions/ Software Engineers: 79 Democrats for every 21 Republicans. Similar story for engineering overall (The most "conservative" engineering profession being chemical engineering) IT: 71 Democrats for every 29 Republicans. You can blame it on SV but the truth is our industry's age skews young: We are 38 years old on average compared to the workforce average of 43. Source: https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths-debunked/ https://www.visier.com/clarity/four-common-tech-ageism-myths... Young voters and college-educated tend to vote more Democratic: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/election-exit-polls.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/11/08/us/politics/e... You could argue the fact that the profession is predominantly male might mitigate some of this but the problem there is that the gender gap closes once you look at genders on a college-education basis: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-midterm-vote-divisions-by-race-gender-education/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/11/08/the-2018-mi... What I'm trying to say is that if we assume political affiliation does not correlate with skill (it doesn't AFAIK), and you hire based on merit, and you hire nation-wide, your software development team will skew left. And if your hiring focuses on major urban hubs it will skew even more left. If you want to introduce artificial "balance" you are going to have to do affirmative action for political beliefs. This is challenging, as it's trivial for any individual to lie / reinvent themselves as a desirable political hire. If I wanted a job bad enough, and I knew they preferred hiring a certain political persuasion, I absolutely would pretend to be whatever they wanted me to be.