Job Ads You Can’t See on Facebook If You’re Older (2017) | Hacker News Reader

Job Ads You Can’t See on Facebook If You’re Older (2017)

projects.propublica.org

70 pointskawera38 comments

This had a huge discussion within the window of dupeage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15974603

Oh, sorry, I hadn't seen that story before.

No worries!

This is because it's much cheaper to get completed applications (conversions) in a younger demo.

Young people are more likely to be looking for jobs than older people, and thus click job ads more. [1] Higher click through rate means much lower cost per click. Based on the numbers in my stat link, you could likely net the same amount of new job applications spending $3000 on millennials as spending $9000 on other demos.

This is a user friendly feature - younger people want to see these type of ads more by far. By the data, older people do not want to see these type of ads.

Nothing to do with worker effectiveness or how HR treats older applicants.

[1] " About 60% of Millennials are currently open to a new job opportunity and are by far the most likely generation to switch jobs. To support that, 21% of Millennials in 2016 reported switching jobs within the past year, compared to roughly 7% of gen Xers and other non-Millennials. " https://www.forbes.com/sites/larryalton/2018/01/22/millennia....

I was thinking much the same there, that it might simply be cheaper or be shown to be more effective to advertise to these groups, and perhaps there's no issue if they're not discriminating at the point of interview?

That said, that may make sense but still be illegal.

Those numbers you are quoting in [1] is BECAUSE of the bias.

I recently got a Facebook ad for a UC Berkeley coding boot camp that was explicitly targeting males 22-34. Fortunately Facebook gives you details on why you’re targeted for an ad.

Screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hpbeves1kf7bvkt/fb_ad.JPG?raw=1

In that case, this isn't a job offer, nothing illegal.

It would be illegal if it were UC Berkeley doing it for marketing their regular degree program, however:

https://www2.ed.gov/policy/rights/guid/ocr/ageoverview.html?...

But, I believe this is a UC extension thing, which I don't think is eligible for federal financial aid, so this rule does not apply.

So who has standing to sue? How can I prove I /didn't/ see a job posting because I'm too old, and what damages could I claim as a result of it?

It would be difficult to sue for not being the recipient of an advertisement. While it may feel off it is most likely not illegal, because it is an ad and not part of the hiring process.

In the same way that the big bech 4 host hackathons(ie recruiting events) at colleges and not retirement communities or really anywhere other than places where the highest population of the target demographic congregates.

But old people can be at college. That's the material difference; campus police are not going around blocking old peoples' view of advertisements.

To provide a counterpoint, you can't legally advertise the fact that there are no blacks in your housing development, however true that may be. In fact, there are many types of dogwhistling that are also banned when it comes to advertisement of housing.

> it is an ad and not part of the hiring process.

If you were a qualified but rejected applicant, this ad targeting could demonstrate a pattern of behavior when you sued the employer for discrimination.

There are no grounds to sue.

In the US, companies cannot discriminate against 40+ ages for hiring. But that in no way applies to advertisement.

If Facebook puts a job ad billboard in Seattle (mostly white), but not in Atlanta (mostly black), there's no illegal discrimination.

And for good reason: Marketing is always about reaching the most likely targets.

It could be argued that actively filtering a job advertisement to be shown to younger people only is similar enough to allowing the ad to be seen by all ages, and then filtering out older applicants when they inquire about the ad. You're just moving the "age filter" to a different step of the process.

Another scenario: company creates company-jobs.com, which contains all their job postings. The homepage requires you to select your age range before accessing the listings, and only choosing "18-30" results in them being displayed. You're acquiring the individual's age range in advance - exactly the way an ad network does - in order to decide whether job listings should be displayed to a person belonging to that age group.

Direct analogy: the ad network is operating as a recruiter for the company. Recruiters are not allowed to discriminate based on age. End of story.

This is not the case in USA, under the legal theory of "disparate impact".

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disparate_impact

That does not apply to advertising.

It could apply to say, requiring candidates to provide credit scores which disadvantages a protected class.

> But that in no way applies to advertisement

Are you sure that's true? Quite a few job-boards exist purely so large companies can show they've explicitly attempted to target veterans and so on.

Well... Try remaking your facebook profile with one difference.... Date of Birth.

See what happens.

About five years ago I started spamming my Facebook profile with noise (odd interests, fake political beliefs, hometown, birthday etc) I do get a ton of hilariously bad ads.

All you could do is to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB - www.nlrb.gov) that you are qualified for a job that has been specifically targeted for someone who is 'younger'. They will investigate the charge, and if they find it has merit they can sanction the company placing the ad. I don't think Facebook is at risk here for facilitating but that is for a lawyer (of which I am not one) to decide.

It's an open secret in Silicon Valley that most tech companies prefer younger workers. Recruiters do what hiring managers ask for. Most hiring managers won't say it explicitly- they'll say things like 2-5 years experience from top schools or from the FANG companies with experience in modern technologies.

It's not age discrimination to ask for relevant job skills and education.

Exactly

How does putting a 2-5 year experience range filter for job skills or education better than saying 2 or more years? Someone with 6 years of experience doesn't have fewer job skills than someone in the 2-5 year range.

FB has publicly defended this in the past. See https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/addressing-targeting-in-recru...

Note: That post is a response to the OP, and a rather weak response saying it "may not in itself be discriminatory — just as it can be OK to run employment ads in magazines and on TV shows targeted at younger or older people"

But propublica's article is also weak. Its Facebook examples are stuff like "ad targeted to ages 21-60"

So that could be damning, but without seeing the whole ad campaign it's hard to tell. If they have nearly identical ads with different age brackets running the gamut, I dunno if that's a problem. But boy does it look like a problem.

What would be a legitimate use case to segment your ad targeting for recruiting purposes? Perhaps highlighting certain perks like paid maternity/paternity leave, but even that isn't usually highlighted in job ads (at least the ones I see.)

Even if there are legitimate and pragmatic use cases for this, the likelihood of abuse seems high.

Cost per click is going to be vastly lower, since young people look for jobs much more often. You'll get applicants at a third of the price.

Just spitballing, I'd tailor my messaging to women aged 30-45 to address our position on helping people return to the workforce, while for over-45s I'd talk about our open policy towards hiring older workers. For each, I'd probably choose photography that featured a representative individual. Yeah, I'm totally stereotyping the audience, but I'm also addressing common issues for jobseekers in those age groups.

To be clear, I don't think that's what these companies are doing or they would have spoken up in their defence. And you also have to be careful that you express openness to, rather than preference for, a certain type of worker.

That's pretty much what Facebook said in it's rebuttal, linked in another comment.

Campaign budgets are limited and you need to optimize your ads so they show up for demographics most likely to respond and be accepted.

instead of (perhaps illegally) recruiting for people of a certain age group, why not just search for people who liked (for example) Fortnite or Harry Potter or similar categories?

Sure, you might get a few false positives (showing your ad to a few older people) or false negatives (missing some of the target group), but it probably works just fine and isn't technically age-oriented. The company could just say that it likes people who are into hobbies (eg - reading fantasy novels or mobile games).

If they don't want me because of my age, I certainly don't want to work for them and provide my skills to them.

Also, it's a bit sad that Verizon can't afford an editor or reviewer to tell them to use "you're" correctly...

"Here, your more than just a number. Practice data story-telling, analytics, and more."

Maybe it's a similar concept to the Nigerian prince scam emails purposefully containing misspellings.

If you catch it and raise an eyebrow you aren't the mentality they are looking for.

Didn't know this was a thing, but it makes sense. Clever... evil, but clever.

"18-35"

I just realized how soon I'm going to be "older" for demographic purposes.

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