HN Explorer

Does LinkedIn Promote Ageism?

16 points by srevenant ↗ HN
LinkedIn requires start/end years for any experience and this becomes a way for people to identify a person's age. I have seen it used time and again where people look to see how old a person is, then pass simply on that alone--especially in the Tech industry. There is an article on Slashdot today about how to retrain "old IT people." The problem is the same as race, why are they singled out? In many states age is a protected class, so why is it not getting the same level of treatment as things like race? LinkedIn doesn't require you to list your race... Has anybody else observed this behavior? Perhaps they could simply give the option as the # years spent at a given location, in lieu of start/end?

14 comments

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srevenant
I had somebody tell me they like to see if anybody had any gaps in their employment. But this is probably a false indicator either way and not worth the problem of encouraging Ageism bias.
paulcole
I like talking about the 2 year gap in my resume.

I chose not to work because I had saved enough money to live inexpensively, sleep in, exercise, read books, and do whatever I wanted without having to answer to anyone.

Employers who are interested in this and "get it" are the ones I want to work for.

jeron
/r/recruitinghell worthy post
muzani
Sometimes the gaps are interesting too. Sometimes someone takes of a few months to do their own startup but it crashes and burns spectacularly, e.g. founder blow ups.

People usually drop these out of their resume because they don't want to talk about it, but it's a very positive part of their character sometimes.

It might be better to ask them about it though, because they likely won't put it on LinkedIn either.

lordCarbonFiber
I don't see the issue? Any resume you provide is going to have the dates of tenure (and probably a graduation date for that matter). Unless you're trying to argue that employers shouldn't be able to look at experience when hiring there's not much way around it. Even without ranges number of positons and the highest title reached can give you a relative age to some degree of accuracy.

I think tech's dirty secret is that there is ageism, but not against the old. You only need to look as far as the entry level jobs requiring 10 years exp to see that the system isn't really rigged in favor of young people.

dabockster
> I think tech's dirty secret is that there is ageism, but not against the old. You only need to look as far as the entry level jobs requiring 10 years exp to see that the system isn't really rigged in favor of young people.

Yep. I'm starting out my career and have been denied entry level opportunities on the basis of not having enough experience (even though you'd think entry level = minimal experience required).

soared
Which makes complete sense. If you don't have experience in a job, it makes sense an employer might not want to hire you. I got an entry level job out of college because I had years of internship experience.
srevenant
General "wisdom" is to only show the last 10 years of experience on your resume. This is for a variety of reasons, but it largely is because there is an age bias. It makes it harder when you have things older than 10 years you want to show, but the X-Y year doesn't matter more than "spent 3 years working on OSS project doing ..."

There are certainly things that try to weed out inexperienced as well, but there are also people who simply would rather hire a younger person because they have a perception that somebody older would be harder to train (right or wrong).

lordCarbonFiber
That may be market dependent because I've not seen it with the candidates I've interviewed.

I think the preception of ageism comes from the fact that more experienced employees come with with more expectations (of performance and pay). If you've been in industry ten or twenty years and havent' (by choice or by ability) then you've all but proven you're "harder" (Id say neigh impossible) to train. One of the few metrics that correlate well to performance in knowledge work appears to be ambition so it naturally results in older workers either doing very well or washing out.

The problem, as I see it, is those washouts are the ones crying "ageism" the loudest and doing their best to stifle talent entering the workforce.

srevenant
playing devil's advocate: it is easy to claim discrimination doesn't happen when you aren't affected by it--the claim that it is the cause of the individual, no the system, is the usual go-to argument. Try revisiting similar arguments above, but changing them to be about women or black people, and see how they play out.

And for a little flavor, mix in neurodiversity differences. In tech you have people who literally think and act differently. They could be brilliant, but if you expect them to behave and schmooze like your sales team, they are going to wash out. https://hbr.org/2017/05/neurodiversity-as-a-competitive-adva...

Then add to the mix privilege. People who start a few steps ahead, maybe they had better schooling and networks. Somebody who spent 20 years learning the job but starting further behind might be just as good, but just not beginning at the same starting point.

Or, it could just be the fault of the person being old and they should have already succeeded by this point in their life? Don't ask questions, just notice the age and move onto the younger candidate.

Bias and prejudice exists in everybody, we cannot avoid it.

tzakrajs
I don't and will not put more than 10 years of experience on my resume no matter how old I get. My university study does not exist on my resume either. I am hoping this will help against discrimination.
AnimalMuppet
Instead, look for jobs where more than 10 years of experience is an asset.

I've been a professional programmer for more than 30 years. I bring way more to the table than someone with 10 years of experience, and I expect to get paid for it. If you're not looking for what I have to offer, then I'm not looking to work for you.

I haven't been out of work at any point after 3 years of experience, so this attitude hasn't hurt me in terms of having work.

I'm in embedded systems, though - this approach might not work in, say, web programming.

fiftyacorn
I dont see a long history as a negative - if you are being recruited for one role, then often a technology from your past may swing it for you as the organisation has a system using this technology that no one wants to touch. So recruiting you makes sense as you can give advice on that system
JSeymourATL
> I have seen it used time and again where people look to see how old a person is, then pass simply on that alone--especially in the Tech industry.

Linkedin is simply a screening tool. And long before that, there were actual CVs on paper.

If you influence the hiring process, get curious about why people get screened-out. That's where you find the true hidden gems in talent.