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Judges Reinstate Charges In Google Age Discrimination Suit
theodp writes "A California appeals court has reinstated former Stanford prof Brian Reid's age-discrimination suit against Google, ruling that a lower Court erred in siding with Google and rejecting Mr. Reid's claims. From the Court Decision (PDF): 'We conclude that Reid produced sufficient evidence that Google's reasons for terminating him were untrue or pretextual, and that Google acted with discriminatory motive such that a factfinder would conclude Google engaged in age discrimination.' As side notes, helping Reid make his case is CS Prof Norman Matloff, while Google's actions are being defended by Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati of pretexting-was-not-generally-unlawful fame."
If you emphasize, to the point of absurdity (as many people who were interviewed by Google seem to claim), the types of behaviours associated with young people in school environments (note that experienced people who go "back to school" at older age approach it in quite different manner) then it is pretty much transparent that your intention is to exclude anyone outside your target social category, in this case centered around a certain age group.
The answer to this is of course quite simple: Instead of subjecting them to stress-inducing, memory corrupting Spanish Inquisition style interrogation, you simply give them a task to accomplish, in a controlled environment, which would require all of the necessary skills you seek in your employees. Then you evaluate the results along with them, explaining any points of your displeasure. No possibility of any age-related (or any other) discrimination will be then credibly brought forth by anyone and -- as a bonus -- the people you hire will have a proven ability to accomplish the tasks expected of them. Or is this too far out a solution for all of you pointy-haired Human Resources types out there who can only grok questionaires and checklists?
Not if they run afoul of the labour laws (for which we should be all very, very thankful to our predecessors).
Whiner
This has NOTHING TO DO with age. Yes, there may be age discrimination there, but this is not it.
The reason they ask this questions is precisely why you can type a city in google maps, it comes up, zoom in an out in the blink of an eye.
Guess what, if you don't know the best sorting algorithm for a certain situation (and you only know that if you know how does it work), you will pick the wrong choice.
Samples from the web? It is not gonna cut it when you're trying to be the best.
To get in, people have to study, hard, and even then, it will only get you so far.
how long until
If your assertion that people are simply "unprepared" for the wholly "reasonable", "job skill relevant" and "completely age non-discriminatory" interview process at Google is true, then I am sure Google has a healthy mix of technical employees which spans accross various age groups, with middle-aged people (good experience at reasonable salary levels) being the bulk of employees ...
Right?
Right?!
I do not know what it it is whith all these Google worshippers around here willing to completely destroy their own personal credibility in defense of a emotionless corporate entity which is incapable of having even one singular good thought about its martyrdom-seeking defenders.
Wake up and realize that Google is just another large corporation, like many others were before it, and many others will be after it, with its own unique mountains of follies, mistakes and prejudices of its employees and bosses. Your personal emotional attachment to such an artificial, amoral, sentience-free entity is just making you look sad and silly.
Unless, of course, you hold a good chunk of Google's stock, in which case you are simply duplicitous.