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Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by baddox on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @08:29PM (#15975598)
Genuine question: is it explicitly illegal to discriminate in your outreach for job applications? Surely similar behavior happens all the time without as much outcry, like recruiting at college career fairs.
Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by drewcon on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @09:27PM (#15975870)
This was my thought exactly. I'd like to know the answer to that.

I think there's a difference b.w "we won't hire people over X yo for this job" and "90% of our applicants for this role are younger so we're just trying to spend our recruiting dollar in the most efficient way possible to reach those folks".

Alternatively, they could simultaneously being running ads targeting employees of an older age with different messaging and content to get higher conversion.

I'm interested to know at what point effective marketing crosses the line into discriminatory practice.

Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by TheSmiddy on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @11:06PM (#15976359)
At college career fairs you're selecting for people who are graduating with a relevant degree, there is no age requirements for attending college so a 55 year old who is just completing their bachelors could well be one of the people you recruit.

Just because the environment you advertise in is inherently skewed young doesn't make it discrimination, explicitly preventing people of a certain age from seeing your ad is.

Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by harryh on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @11:43PM (#15976497)
explicitly preventing people of a certain age from seeing your ad is.

But that's not what "you" are doing. All these jobs are public. Every company in America has a jobs page that anyone of any age is free to look at.

What you are doing is not paying money to force your ad in front of people in a certain age.

Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by lionelione43 on Thursday December 21, 2017 @01:00AM (#15976777)
You bring up a good point. If you choose specifically to advertise to a specific demographic, can you be fined for NOT advertising to another? Is a company that puts a job offer ad in a men's or women's magazine breaking the law?
Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by evgen on Thursday December 21, 2017 @04:21AM (#15977493)
Does the men's or women's magazine explicitly work to prevent people of the other gender from being able to read its articles? You can legally pick an environment/medium in which to run your ad that may have a specific demographic, but when you get to explicitly set viewership then you have to be much more careful.
Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by gehwartzen on Thursday December 21, 2017 @09:54PM (#15984906)
According to the EEOC, yes it is:

>"It is also illegal for an employer to recruit new employees in a way that discriminates against them because of their race, color, religion, sex (including gender identity, sexual orientation, and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.

For example, an employer's reliance on word-of-mouth recruitment by its mostly Hispanic work force may violate the law if the result is that almost all new hires are Hispanic."

Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by totalZero on Saturday December 23, 2017 @06:25AM (#15993817)
What about campus recruiting?
Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by e40 on Wednesday December 20, 2017 @09:21PM (#15975848)
If you only look for employees in places with young people, that is likely illegal. It would take a pattern of this over time. If someone found out (e.g., an inside ratted you out), and a lawyer took it on contingency (because the company doing it has deep pockets), then it could be serious trouble.
Re:Dozens of Companies Are Using Facebook to Exclude Older W... by syshum on Thursday December 21, 2017 @06:32AM (#15978033)
On it owns, isolated, it is likely not enough to find a company guilty of discrimination, however it can be used as part of a pattern of behavior to prove discrimination if other actions, inaction's, or behaviors are found to be present at the company