4 ms·

A 64-year-old engineer is suing Google for age discrimination

4 points by Libertatea 11y ago

mak4athp 11y ago
While age discrimination may exist at Google, and the legal case may have merit, the article does a horrible job of communicating where. It makes it sounds like the guy had a bad interview (perhaps because of the interviewer) and didn't move on. That happens all the time, every day, to every sort of candidate. Often it's because of legitimate issues with candidate, and many times because of incidental circumstances surrounding the interviewer. It would have been interesting to see something more suggestive of discrimination.
dudul 11y ago
I don't know if the poor interview can really prove discrimination. Yes the conditions sound like they were awful (I mean, coding exercise over the phone? wtf), but based on my experience interviewing at Google is pretty terrible, regardless of your age. How is he gonna prove that he was treated unfairly when it is well known that Google interviewers are terrible? To be clear, I do believe that there is a significant bias against older folks in tech. I have witnessed it when I was trying to hire a 50+ year old guy and encountered strong resistance from my supervisor.
- spacemanmatt 11y ago
  Maybe it's possible he has a case if the same awful interview is more awful because of his age. I think it will be interesting to see how it unfolds, regardless.
more_corn 11y ago
Um. That's the standard Google interview process. Everyone goes through it. Contacted by an overzealous recruiter who gushes about qualifications but has no real understanding of what it would mean to be qualified. Annoying and frustrating phone interview with someone who doesn't actually understand the questions or answers (and who is hard to hear and understand). The phone interviewer just has a list of questions and correct answers. Slightly different answer? Sorry. Better answer than the one on the list? Sorry, I don't understand what these mean, your answer doesn't match. The false positives come with staggering frequency. If you were to put the same candidate through the process twice you'd get two different results. Google is terrible at interviewing, but the good thing for their legal case is that they are uniformly terrible without regard to age, race, ethnic origin or sexual preference. Google employees go through mandatory annual diversity and anti-discrimination training. Hiring managers have an additional managing within the law training. Google also hosts optional classes to help employees identify and overcome unconscious bias. They're about the least discriminatory company I've ever heard of and actively encourage diversity in the company and the world. They just suck at hiring.

4 points by Libertatea 11y ago

While age discrimination may exist at Google, and the legal case may have merit, the article does a horrible job of communicating where. It makes it sounds like the guy had a bad interview (perhaps because of the interviewer) and didn't move on. That happens all the time, every day, to every sort of candidate. Often it's because of legitimate issues with candidate, and many times because of incidental circumstances surrounding the interviewer. It would have been interesting to see something more suggestive of discrimination.

dudul 11y ago

I don't know if the poor interview can really prove discrimination. Yes the conditions sound like they were awful (I mean, coding exercise over the phone? wtf), but based on my experience interviewing at Google is pretty terrible, regardless of your age. How is he gonna prove that he was treated unfairly when it is well known that Google interviewers are terrible? To be clear, I do believe that there is a significant bias against older folks in tech. I have witnessed it when I was trying to hire a 50+ year old guy and encountered strong resistance from my supervisor.

spacemanmatt 11y ago
Maybe it's possible he has a case if the same awful interview is more awful because of his age. I think it will be interesting to see how it unfolds, regardless.

more_corn 11y ago

Um. That's the standard Google interview process. Everyone goes through it. Contacted by an overzealous recruiter who gushes about qualifications but has no real understanding of what it would mean to be qualified. Annoying and frustrating phone interview with someone who doesn't actually understand the questions or answers (and who is hard to hear and understand). The phone interviewer just has a list of questions and correct answers. Slightly different answer? Sorry. Better answer than the one on the list? Sorry, I don't understand what these mean, your answer doesn't match. The false positives come with staggering frequency. If you were to put the same candidate through the process twice you'd get two different results. Google is terrible at interviewing, but the good thing for their legal case is that they are uniformly terrible without regard to age, race, ethnic origin or sexual preference. Google employees go through mandatory annual diversity and anti-discrimination training. Hiring managers have an additional managing within the law training. Google also hosts optional classes to help employees identify and overcome unconscious bias. They're about the least discriminatory company I've ever heard of and actively encourage diversity in the company and the world. They just suck at hiring.