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Woman Recruited By Google Four Times and Rejected Now Joins Age Discrimination Suit
dcblogs writes: An Ivy league graduate, with a Ph.D. in geophysics, Cheryl Fillekes, who also specializes in Linux and Unix systems, was contacted by Google recruiters four separate times over a seven year period. In each instance, she did well enough on the phone interviews to get invited to an in-person interview but was rejected every time for a job. She has since joined an age discrimination lawsuit against Google filed about two months ago by another older worker. "The amended lawsuit also alleges that the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) received 'multiple complaints of age discrimination by Google, and is currently conducting an extensive investigation.'"
Getting into my late 40's, I find my friends are experiencing this all over. EMC keeps contacting a buddy who is a storage architect, he designed storage hardware at sun, they never make an offer after multiple interviews, he says its because hes almost 60. Facebook keeps calling a few of my buddies, but they too never get hired and are in their 50's. I was turned down by 2 companies when they learned my age and I had a family. But I dont want to work in a sweat shop anymore, so its good to know exactly how bad some places can be. Amazon so far seems to be hiring everyone, because they burn them out quicker than they can hire.
Yeah, people are working until retirement age now, so this is a problem. (You know, that reset button that wipes out your entire life savings called divorce)
someone with her education who goes to make cheese... hey, that's really romantic. maybe she burnt out, maybe she has some social issue that prevents competent office interaction
but maybe the real issue here is resume prejudice. where the guy or gal who takes 5 or 10 years off to pursue a passion never can get back in the game. which is especially true of women and the pursuit being having children
the usa should be like the nordic countries, and have mandatory child leave for *fathers and mothers*
that way having kids dings men's careers as much as women. otherwise, as long as child rearing impacts women disproportionately, women will never achieve parity with men in the office. nevermind that men want to spend time with their children and time with dad is just as important as time with mom if we really care about strong families in this country. put your money where your mouth is on your rhetoric about strong families, the presence of a father in a child's life, and family values in general, dear social conservatives, and promote equal family leave for men and women
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
kids are easier to boss around and they don't tell the product manager that his new Maps is a piece of shit.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
My impression isn't that it's age discrimination per se, it's the culture of twentysomethings. The way they were raised, they are simply uncomfortable with anyone but their own kind. It's not that they hate old people or anything, it's just that they feel weirded out and feel they couldn't possibly work every day with such a person. It's lack of empathy with "the other". It's also a form of oikophobia, in which they welcome people from other cultures but fear and loathe people from their own.
You can trot out the tired cliches about GET OFF MY LAWN LOLZ but at a certain point, there is truth there. I never felt weirded out by working with age 50+ people, even when I was a new recruit. It was just something everyone did. But now, unless you're one of their own kind, they just get freaked out and think they can't deal with having you around day in and day out. When it comes to making a decision, they drop the black ball in the fishbowl and that's it. No regrets, they just prefer the company of their own generation.
And I can sort of see where they're coming from. What happens when they share the latest meme from Tumblr around the office? You're going to show a blank look and keep on working. You're not on Tumblr, nor Twitter, nor Facebook, and this not only weirds them out, but makes you automatically suspicious. What are you trying to hide by not making your life public? You're probably a child molester of the kind that their parents constantly warned them about. "Stranger danger!"
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Fooor sure! Any woman who doesn't look good in a dress and expect a slap on the ass once in a while is trouble! Maybe if she'd put on some makeup and hike those little tits up a bit she'd get hired, amirite?
Who cares that she was educated at Cornell and Harvard and is a crazy entrepreneur? If she doesn't learn to stop being so uppity and stop trying to outshine men she'll never make it and really, has only herself to blame!
Always really interesting to see these two topics come up on Slashdot. Ageism apparently exists, sexism doesn't.
Older people tend not to want to work long hours, which is expected in many places in the industry.
An older person won't fit well into a young company, probably won't enjoy hanging out with 20 year olds that much, etc.
Older people do, in general, have less "zest". They've seen enough, they're more measured, they don't go "OMG, my first job, how exciting is that" or "did you see that programming competition?"
Older people have more experience, and it's expected that they'd expect and ask for higher salaries.
While it's all individual, it's much easier to assume up front that a young code monkey will be more excited and willing to work for less, will fit in more easily and code 14 hours a day.
Can't just be the recruiters. Someone above them has to either be actively allowing them bring people back in who have already been rejected three times before or they're just so disorganized they don't keep records on that kind of thing.
Could be legal restrictions too.
Not sure about USA, but here in EU, employer is legally allowed to store applicant profiles only for 6 months.
Summary mentions four interviews during 7 years, so the earlier mention about non-selection would have expired.
The difference is that ageism does affect many Slashdot readers. Sexist and racism apparently not so much.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW