An article in InfoWorld reveals a "motion for conditional certification of collective action status" has been filed in Federal Court:
Just over a year ago, two job applicants filed a lawsuit against Google. They claimed they were rejected because of their age; both were over 40.
A federal court in San Jose, Calif., is now being asked to decide whether many others who sought jobs at Google and were also rejected can join this case.
The motion is being made for a selective class-action:
The court is being ask to make this an "opt-in" case -- meaning potential parties must decide whether to join this action. The plaintiff's motion, if it succeeds, will require Google to provide the names and contact information of every applicant over age 40 who interviewed in-person for a job in one of the three engineering areas. The affected parties will then be contacted.
Have any Soylentils interviewed with Google lately?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:12AM
If there was age discrimination they would not have made it to an on-site interview.
To wildly speculate I would imagine the individuals had quite great paper credentials but couldn't actually put out the goods when it came to Google's more skill based interview system. And I don't think this is uncommon. There lots of companies, filled with individuals who have amazing credentials on paper, who somehow manage a phenomenal level of collective incompetence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:39AM
Let's say I want you to weed me out before an on-site interview. For your convenience, where on my paper credentials should I indicate my age?
(Score: 2) by b0ru on Friday July 01 2016, @08:14AM
I'm not defending google, but to be fair, you can gauge someone's age group based on other metrics, for example, their experience e.g. worked at X for N to M years, Q years ago, and so on. The programming languages and technologies they're familiar with are probably also indicative; someone who writes Forth compared to someone who is an 'expert' in python web crap. Long story short, you leak this sort of information all over you resume without putting down your date of birth.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by John Bresnahan on Friday July 01 2016, @08:25AM
When did you get your degree(s)? Or are you planning on leaving you educational history off of your resume after awhile?
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @04:27PM
Most resume 'experts' I have been using say just put the school and degrees. Do not put the years.
The rest of the resume leaks that info though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @10:16AM
FWIW I've posted stuff on Usenet groups long ago enough to not be a 20 year old. I'm also old and young enough to remember that Google acquired Deja News and its Usenet archive...
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 01 2016, @08:21PM
Those in Google might just Google for your age. ;)
If they do that to me, well, it just seems no one wants to hire a 2400 year old Samian these days.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by PocketSizeSUn on Friday July 01 2016, @08:09AM
Well this is a few years ago but I did find the on-site interview to be quite fun. Most of the interviewers were quite professional and interested in the how and why. But there was at least one specific type-A hyper, young, know it all that could definately be construed as an ageist. If they hired more like him and continued to allow him to be in the line of hires then yes Google would eventually be running into reasonable claims of age discrimination hiring.
There is also the recent school graduate problem that permeates the bay area that any company there would have to actively push against and Google strikes me as the kind of place that runs with it rather that push back against it.
So I respectfully disagree. The HR side running the show up to the on-site interview is quite conscious of not considering age and trying to get the best candidates in the door. They just don't have or exercise much control over the actual on-site interview aside from scheduling the meeting(s) and taking the final votes.
From another perspective I think working at Google when I was recently out of school would have been a blast and after a couple decades in the business it is far down most list of places to work. YMMV.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @02:19PM
One way to tell for sure: how many over-40 employees has Google hired in the past 5 years?
(Score: 1) by JavaDevGuy on Friday July 01 2016, @03:35PM
They would if they had not put their date of birth on their CV.
The following 'wild speculation' then sounds rather agist in it's own right as it seems to imply that as developers over 40 they were unable to be technically compitent. As a technical leader of teams of all ages I've never seen a correlation between age and quality of work. The spread of competence has generally been age agnostic.
BTW If some one can point to a data set than my anecdotal evidence I'd be interested to see if my experience maps to the reality of the situation.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:37AM
They should have extolled the virtues of Communism during the interview. Then Google would snatch them right up.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @07:41AM
They should talk about apps! And blogging! And blogging about apps! And hosting containers in the cloud with docker! Containers full of apps!!
Drop your pants and let see your dockers!!!!
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 01 2016, @11:36PM
And jump around like a monkey yelling "developers, developers, developers!"
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @08:37AM
I have to face it that a lot of us have design skills, as in taking something from nothing and building things that have never been built before.
However, with today's importing of almost anything imaginable, design skills are not much in demand.
I feel almost like a mechanical engineer looking for work, but what I find are openings for mechanics.
Today's businesses do not need someone to design their trucks. Rather what they need are people to maintain the trucks they bought from someone else.
Knowing things like metallurgy, stress analysis, and modelling is not what the employer needs. What he needs are people who know what parts fit their truck and change the oil.
From what I see, there is still a glut of people with "college" educations that are trained with stuff no-one needs... while the trade schools ( like ITT and the like ) are churning out people who may not know a damn about computer architecture or data structures, but they do know how to install Microsoft updates and know how to configure the Microsoft system of the day.
Any of 'em give much a damn if you can't tell them the integral of sin(x(t))? That kind of stuff was only needed to get a grade from academicians from whom you could buy a rating to try to impress a prospective employer. Today, that seems like an incredibly wasteful way to get into debt big-time, learning skills for which there are few paid applications.
An ace mechanic probably won't be able to tell you the mathematical formulas to calculate stress on engine parts, but he knows very well what parts fit your truck - and how to quickly find and replace a malfunctioning one.
There are a lot of people, ( me included ), that thought there was going to be some reward for staying up late nights and foregoing social interaction to study differential calculus and get the high grade. I know a lot of people who drank that kool-aid. Honors grad? Boy, did you pay!
I thought at the time I would be preferred because I demonstrated a dedication to my skill. That may be the case had I been a brick mason specializing in executive homes.
But to "work for the man", he wants the fastest, most profitable solution, which is a mix between time to market, and marketing. Marketing and legal responsibility avoidance techniques go a long way for covering up a lack of engineering. A few hours of clever marketing and legal words to avoid the flack from malfunctioning products costs a lot less than making sure one has a robust product in the first place. The fact Microsoft even exists today is a testament to this paradigm.
Had a car manufacturer pulled this kind of stuff on the public, they would have disappeared long ago.
Go ahead and party. This is America. We don't build the stuff here. We buy it from somewhere else, mark it up, and sell it to someone else. Social skills is what makes the American machine run. Acquire the social skills to tell the men who actually build stuff that they need to train the overseas guy how its done so the company can transfer its manufacturing operation there. Uncle Sam agrees! While Uncle Sam may jail a kid for smoking a joint, he will let huge overseas tax havens alone... it's all in the social skills of knowing which hand to shake.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jdavidb on Friday July 01 2016, @12:02PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @01:00PM
Any of 'em give much a damn if you can't tell them the integral of sin(x(t))?
Let me bing that for you...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @05:53PM
If you - any of us - are anywhere near as smart as you - we - seem, then we should be starting businesses, designing products, and chasing sales.
I know, we don't want to be money-grubbers. None of us do.
But if we do not we will continue to be taken advantage of by those whom do.
~childo
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @08:53PM
Mod parent up.
Very sound advice.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by shanen on Friday July 01 2016, @08:42AM
Never interviewed with the google, but that was because I was convinced that my advanced age was an absolute barrier to any serious consideration. Some of my coworkers were actually actively recruited by google. That's directly, though I don't recall whether any of them mentioned going as far as an interview. At least 3 of them (that I know of) did go to the google, and all of them were young.
Of course I am curious enough about the google to study it quite a bit, and I've read quite a number of books about it. Most of them make it sound like a very pleasant place to work, but I am also convinced that the focus has shifted. "Don't be evil" has become an afterthought and the new focus is on shareholder value = maximizing advertising revenue, leading to the new slogan "All your attention are belong to us, the google."
Not really a unique approach, but I think Facebook may be winning, assuming there is such a thing as "attention" left after Facebook gets through with it. Look at what they've done to the word "friend"...
All of this is intuitively obvious to the most casual observer. The problem is that almost no one can see things casually. They are all almost completely blinded by their various biases, prejudices, preconceptions, and confabulations.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Friday July 01 2016, @08:44AM
Oh yeah. One more reason I've never applied to the google. Based on my study, I'm absolutely convinced I could not move the google in a less negative direction. The google is locked on course now.
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @01:12PM
the google ... the google ... the google ... the google ...
I think the Facebook may be winning, assuming there is such a thing as "attention" left after the Facebook gets through with it.
FTFY. Let's be the consistent. The Facebook is no less the evil than the google.
(Score: 1) by shanen on Saturday July 02 2016, @05:07AM
I didn't say otherwise, but I don't think all of our choices should be between least evil alternatives. That is NOT meaningful freedom.
Hmm... Do I have my sig over here?
#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice{5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech) and your negative mods prove you are a narrow prick.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @10:00AM
Is your name/email on that list?
Do you want your employer to know? Your next employer?
Do you want all those annoying recruiting firms who get a per-hire fee and do so love to tell you about all the jobs in every industry rhyming with yours?
Do you want the world to know?
This list is an extremely monetizeable dataset!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @10:29AM
Shut up, Dice! Go back to the other site!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @11:16AM
This guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @01:50PM
Active recruitment is different from applying.
They are perfectly fine poaching people of an extended age, but what is in question is whether the same holds true for people actively inquiring about employment at google.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 01 2016, @04:25PM
They've run me through their process multiple times.
Every time turned into a multi-month clusterfuck, with people apparently interviewing me hard for a job that bore no resemblance to my resume. In every case Google was still trying to interview me when I'd already accepted another job elsewhere because Google just couldn't shit or get off the pot.
I'm sure they're brilliant people. I'm sure they're pushing the envelope on technologies my feeble intellect cannot even conceive. I'm sure that I'm missing the opportunity to take bold strides into the superfuture with the Google Space Navy. I'm sure I'm stuck with the financial losers of the world elsewhere.
But they can't hire me. They just can't achieve that one simple step.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday July 01 2016, @05:16PM
" ... was not Googley enough" (quote taken from the article). What the hell is Googley? Is there some definition? From the article it seems you should be in your 20:s, "cool" and be willing to work like a slave. But I doubt that is what the HR people over at Google had in mind - or not.