
Is This Legal? - larionv
Is this legal?
Just received an email from Xoriant about a new Sr. Data Engineer position.<p>Here are the requirements:<p>7-10 years of experience. NOT looking for someone with 15+ years. They will NOT be considered.
Must have experience with any Graph Database - - client uses Neptune
NOT looking for a Data Scientist. MUST be a Data Engineer who does the actual work of getting data into 1 place.
AWS experience – implementing graph database in AWS (required experience)
Python experience – for data pipelining<p>I am wondering about &quot;NOT looking for someone with 15+ years. They will NOT be considered.&quot;<p>Can they openly put this requirement into their position requirements?
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mcrae
I wonder if this is a fake job posting to satisfy a Labor Certification [0]
for a US Visa application.

For some types of Visas, the company has to prove that there are no qualified
US workers to take the position. One way of proving this is to post a job
posting and provide evidence that there are no qualified workers that have
applied.

There is of course a perverse incentive to make the job posting
extraordinarily specific such that only the intended Visa recipient could be
considered qualified.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_certification](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_certification)

~~~
toomuchtodo
Lots of H1B filings for Xoriant:
[https://h1bdata.info/listlca.php?em=XORIANT%20CORPORATION](https://h1bdata.info/listlca.php?em=XORIANT%20CORPORATION)

Maybe this role?
[https://h1bdata.info/lca.php?id=7054315&em=XORIANT%20CORPORA...](https://h1bdata.info/lca.php?id=7054315&em=XORIANT%20CORPORATION&job=DATA%20ENGINEER)
(Data engineer @ $122k/year salary, March 2019 posting date)

~~~
zootam
there's no way they'd find someone with 7-10 years of experience for $122k in
the bay area

------
Someone
I think that, in many jurisdictions, that would be indirect age discrimination
([https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-
courts/discriminat...](https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-
courts/discrimination/what-are-the-different-types-of-discrimination/indirect-
discrimination/))

------
gshdg
Assuming they’re willing to work for the pay you’re offering, I can’t think of
any reason other than age discrimination NOT to want that additional
experience.

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toper-centage
Well, a data scientist that started working 15 years ago will have a very
different skill set...

~~~
JohnFen
Why do some people seem to assume that experienced people don't keep their
skillsets current?

Experienced people know better than less experienced people how important that
is.

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9wzYQbTYsAIc
Please use ASK HN: in the title.

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ent101
IANAL, this seems to be heavily jurisdiction-dependent. For example, I know
that it is unlikely that this would be considered age discrimination in
Ontario Canada, whereas, it's likely to be considered so in California.

~~~
fxleach
I live in Ontario and I'm curious as to why you think this is unlikely to be
considered age discrimination here.

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smileysteve
Interpretation might vary;

~2013 I responded on twitter about "a dev who has 15 years of experience with
PHP" with, a response about why I would be concerned that that could mean the
developer never learned the PHP 3 (much less 4) object model.

And if you tell me you have 15 years working with "any" Graph database, that
seems like it would have some irrelevancy to the Graph Databases of today.

Of course, it's also possible to "forget" experience, at least on paper and an
interview; and changing your resume to do so, may be advantageous as you get
older.

~~~
glwtta
The posting seems to be requiring 7-10 years of work experience, not specific
to graph databases or any other technology.

~~~
smileysteve
But this is where it's subject to interpretation:

-... years of experience, working? Does mowing lawns, serving ice cream in high school count as experience?

-... years experience as a Product Owner?

-... years as a embedded devices software engineer?

-... years as an executive assistant, TA, PostGrad?

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OJFord
It may or may not be intended to discriminate age, but I can't see how to
distunguish it from filtering out 'overqualified' candidates from an
explicitly tiered position.

~~~
ryacko
Usually salary is used to filter out overqualified candidates.

Oftentimes the salary turns out to be insufficient for any candidate.

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gnargargh
If it's illegal, they still need to encounter someone willing to sue them, no?

Maybe you can report them to some non-profit watchdog, who will follow up? But
will they catch a real fine or slap on the wrists?

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aphextim
Here is what I found about the matter in a prior case from 2018:

[https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2018/06/06/screening-
candidat...](https://hrdailyadvisor.blr.com/2018/06/06/screening-candidates-
much-experience-potential-adea-violation/)

Tl:Dr - Yes it may

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psv1
Legality aside, this has a bunch of other red flags all over it. Capitalising
the _nots_ and _musts_ is so off-putting.

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paulcole
Even if it's not, are you going to do anything about it? If not, then what
does it matter?

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dawidw
Why would be illegal for company to want to hire whoever they want to?

~~~
m-p-3
That would be discrimination of a person indirectly based on their age
(personal characteristic you cannot change), which is a big no no.

In order to be non-discriminatory, a person has to be hired according to their
ability to do the job, without consideration to their ethnicity, age, skin
color, etc. A language can be learned, so requiring someone to speak specific
languages to apply is non-discriminatory.

~~~
dawidw
> ability to do the job, without consideration to their ethnicity, age, skin
> color, etc.

What about modelling? Do those rules apply also there?

[https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2018/11/218140/choco-
media-...](https://www.refinery29.com/en-gb/2018/11/218140/choco-media-models-
black-women-agency)

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skeptycal
If this is for a job post in the US: It is illegal under U.S. federal law to
discriminate against an employee, either intentionally or through a disparate
impact, on account of his or her race, color, religion, sex (including
pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic
information.

US employees who believe they have been discriminated against can file a
lawsuit, but it is difficult to prove and historically not viable.

############################################# A quick look at the Xoriant
website shows they have operations in the US(mostly NJ and CA) and India. A
non-native English speaker who is not familiar with US law could have posted
this with good intentions ... but I do not think it is likely.

The job postings on their US website do not have this strange pattern of NOT's
and all that mess, but they do have some minor grammatical errors and obvious
incomplete sentences. The India careers site is actually much nicer. It has
more specific requirements and clear qualifications. There is this sentence
with the specific year ranges:

Job Description: Senior Technical Lead - (1800003277)

Role: ... "As an experienced Big Data Technical Lead, you should have 12-16
years of experience in IT, with minimum of 3 years of full-time exposure in
projects involving Big Data / Hadoop." ...
#############################################

Perhaps they are using some dataset that shows the most successful hires for
this job involve people with a certain number of years of experience ... less
means "not enough experience - too much effort to train", more means "retiring
soon - not worth training"

I don't know of a dataset like this, but it seems likely there is one. I would
love to see it! I'm sure many companies do this, but you can't actually _say_
this. You have to keep it to yourself and use it as part of a decision along
with other factors. You certainly shouldn't advertise this.

#############################################

Glassdoor gives them a 3.6/5 review. Highest category is work/life balance.
93% approve of the CEO. Most of the employees on here were approached by
campus recruiters (39%) or general recruiters (20%). 62% report a positive
interview experience. 24% were negative. They have an average benefits plan.

Indeed.com gives them a 4.1/5 rating. Again, highest category is work/life
balance.

Xoriant was recognized as one of the "Best Companies to work for - 2019" by
Silicon India. [May 2019 issue [https://special.siliconindia.com/vendor/best-
companies-to-wo...](https://special.siliconindia.com/vendor/best-companies-to-
work-for-%25E203-2019-xoriant-cid-9139.html) ]

The salaries they pay are in the average to slightly above average range.

Xoriant was actually founded in 1990, just after the 1987 HFT crash. They
provide professional, secure, and cutting edge management and analysis of data
for small to medium sized business worldwide. Their CEO Girish Gaitonde prides
himself on his responsive agility, growing intelligence, efficient decision-
making, and valuable experience.

They recently acquired CloudIO, expanded a new Global Delivery Center, and
seems to be winning many awards. They are larger than their next 3 competitors
[who all claim to be "one of Xoriant's rivals" ... using Xoriant by name and
giving them free press as the leader in their sector] [There are actually 2
competitors who have a higher market cap, ASG and Blackberry, listed 9th and
10th. Nobody discusses them ... not my industry ... I have no idea why .. I
don't think those two have a focused strategy to compete.]

#############################################

This is more likely a strange fake job opening [I didn't see this position
offered], a really bad recruiter, or a crazy person who had a bad experience
with a senior data scientist and thinks that this ridiculous rant will attract
professional talent who can fix their problems.

This email does not seem to represent the company, their values, other reviews
online, current and former employee reviews, or any news items I could find.
If the sender's email address was really from Xoriant, I'd bet the official
recruiter [contacts are listed on the job postings] would love to hear from
you about your experience with their recruiter. Attaching a copy of that email
would help as an example reference for discussion...

In any event, it is an interesting post. If I were looking for a job, I would
ignore it and block the sender of those emails from now on to keep this junk
out of my head. It would steal focus from my main goal of finding a good group
of people to work with. At the same time, I would look at the Xoriant website
and apply directly. The company does sound interesting if this is your line of
work.

just my 2 cp ...

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duongsang97
:)

