Slashdot Mirror
Recruiters Use 'Digital Native' As Code For 'No Old Folks'
bizwriter writes: Companies are trying to get around Equal Employment Opportunity Commission restrictions on age-discriminatory language (like "recent college graduate") by saying that they want "digital natives." So far, no one has complained to the EEOC, but that could change. "Since the 1990s dotcom boom, many employers have openly sought to hire young, tech savvy talent, believing that was necessary to succeed in the new digital economy. At the same time, age discrimination complaints have spiraled upward, according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, with 15,785 claims filed in 1997 compared to 20,588 filed in 2014.
Out of the 121 charges filed last year by the EEOC for alleged discriminatory advertising, 111 of them claimed the job postings discriminated against older applicants. The EEOC has said that using phrases like 'college student,' 'recent college graduate,' or 'young blood' violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1966. That federal law protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age."
Out of the 121 charges filed last year by the EEOC for alleged discriminatory advertising, 111 of them claimed the job postings discriminated against older applicants. The EEOC has said that using phrases like 'college student,' 'recent college graduate,' or 'young blood' violate the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1966. That federal law protects individuals who are 40 years of age or older from employment discrimination based on age."
"Digital native" is old and only luddites use that term. The new term is app appers, because app appers love apping apps!
Apps!
We call then n00bs. :^)
The bell bottoms and sideburns are a dead giveaway.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Unless you happen to be 49 years old...
At which point you wait for a second, then answer "older". Besides, don't you have anything better to do on your birthday?
Entry level implies no experience. If I applied for a position in brain surgery, I would apply for an entry-level position. I've never done that before, but how hard can it be?
How much more "native" could I be?
Anyone who has never sent an email using bang path routing, is a "digital immigrant". Now get off my lawn...
I'm a digital native.
I learned to program on a DEC-20, PDP-8, PDP-11, and later worked on VAX-11 and Alpha, for Digital. How much more Digital (tm) do you want?
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Yeah, motherfucker, I had the 80 column text card in my Apple IIe and a 1200 baud modem. I was dying of cholera and retrieving lost oxen before these kids were born.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
"Are you older than 49 or younger".
There really is no wrong answer here...
It's blatant discrimination against those who are exactly 49.
Dark Reflection
So I guess Paul Allen doesn't count as a digital native. Oh, wait -- he wrote the Intel 8088 emulator on the PDP before the CPU was even manufactured. And how about Woz? Nah, nobody would hire these people anymore, they don't have the "right" expertise.
Surely, I must qualify as digital native in spite of being born in '66. I learned Fortran V ('77 wasn't out yet) on the school system's mainframe over a 300 baud modem. When I finally got a computer and modem of my own, I had to write a simple terminal program with Xmodem so I could download a real terminal program from a BBS.
My wife informs me that she is 1/Commodore 64th digital on her father's side.