Can geeks be good programmers and developers and network admins, and also be good looking?
Everyone in The Social Network was, but that’s Hollywood and Facebook. LinkedIn thinks no, and so did a bunch of IT and hacker-types, who, we are lead to believe, complained about the good looking women Toptal used in its job ads.
Now, this is the same group that rushes to download games like SoulCalibur, whose central character is the very busty, not to mention anatomically improbable, yet stunningly iconic Ivy Valentine. But never mind that. The harrumphing over the use of “suggestive” models in Toptal’s ads prompted LinkedIn to block the ads and lock out Toptal, creating a public kerfuffle when the developer networking site’s CEO blasted the action on the company blog.
“We saw extreme sexism within the tech community, from an industry leader and advertising partner that we work with quite extensively: LinkedIn,” began CEO Taso Du Val.
As lawyers are prone to say, no one’s hands here were entirely clean here. Toptal mixed real engineers with stock photos of models, and LinkedIn cavalierly turned off the ad campaign without a heads-up to Toptal. However, the picture in the ad here is of a real engineer.
Help Wanted: Nudity Required
Imagine, now, the apoplexy an ad headlined “Nude models wanted” would cause at LinkedIn. At least until someone read the fine print and figured out it was a call for infants.
The ad was part of a Quora collection of job ads that included some that would have the EEOC on the next plane. There’s even a job-wanted ad from a convicted drug smuggler who points out in his ad that he co-owned and managed a $100-million, 120-person global smuggling operation. “I am en expert in all levels of security,” the ad notes.
Whoever was behind the ad must have been reading those job-hunting guides that talk about the transferability of skills. But I wouldn’t have played up my expertise in security; the job seeker was caught and sentenced to 10 years while everyone else got away. Personally, I’d go for logistics management.
Are You Inspired?
LinkedIn (yes, again) came up with an Inspiration Index, based on how its users score their answer (from 1 to 100) to “How often do you feel inspired by your work?” For recruiters and HR professionals the results are:
- Hospitality – 76
- Pharmaceuticals – 73
- Education Management – 72
- Financial Services – 72
- Non-profit Organization Management – 71
Unemployment, Spanish Style
Imagine now if that question were asked in an unemployment office. Oh, right, they’re there because they don’t have a job, which is a good enough reason why, in Spain where unemployment is 27 percent, a flash mob choose that very location to offer inspiration of its own.