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Ideally yes, but if the discrimination is there in the process (by recruiters/interviewers intentional or not) then that's hard to do. People will think they're
by fossuser 5y ago
Ideally yes, but if the discrimination is there in the process (by recruiters/interviewers intentional or not) then that's hard to do. People will think they're 'ignoring age and filtering for competence' when they're not totally.
If you tell recruiters "this role can only be filled by someone 40+" it immediately forces that competence filter within those bounds. If there is a lot of under valued talent there that could be a strategic hiring advantage.
Obviously don't do this for all roles, but some age restricted 'tribal elder' roles or something for each team would be interesting imo.
- marcosdumay 5y agoOh, sure, when the entire society is discriminating, not discriminating may require active initiative. Things like this one "we don't care if you are old" announcement surely help. But you don't need to discriminate on the reverse direction, and doing that is probably harmful.
- fossuser 5y agoI definitely agree with this sentiment in nearly every case - goal of society should be one where these kinds of characteristics are irrelevant and discriminating in some other way to correct is generally a bad idea. It was mostly a thought experiment about how a software company could gain a hiring advantage in a clever way (if old people are undervalued by the market for dumb reasons). At least in the case of age the categories are clear (as opposed to more nebulous socially defined groupings of people).
- ritchie1270 5y agoSeems to me that "we prefer older workers for this position" looks a lot like affirmative action. Do you feel the same about that?
- marcosdumay 5y agoDepends on how you communicate "prefer". I would not write that in an ad without context, and it would fell like a very assholey thing to say in a rejection (similar to "you don't have culture fit").