Subj : Overcoming age discrimination, an idea (was: Software Job Market Myths)
To   : comp.programming,comp.software-eng
From : rem642b
Date : Thu Aug 18 2005 12:36 am

> From: CBFalconer <cbfalco...@yahoo.com>
> Even in the US employers can draw age conclusions from experience,
> etc. and quietly drop you in the circular file.  They just can't
> openly use it as a criterion.  This requires careful trimming of the
> resume to at most the past 30 years.  Even then, you will appear to
> have sprung full grown from the ashes.

Trimming to the past 30 years isn't enough to avoid suffering age
discrimination that happens to anyone over 40. Trimming has to be to 20
years at most.

To avoid the sprung-full-grown appearance, I have an idea: Water down
anything more than fifteen years ago by writing like it was an
entry-level job, like my first job out of college, and merge anything
over 20 years ago with the stuff 15-20 years ago into a single "more
than 15 years ago" section, and make it really sound like 5 years work
and no more. "Talk up" the very most recent 5 years to make it sound a
lot more professional than the middle ten years (5-15 years ago). Do
you think that would get me past the nobody-over-40-need-apply barrier,
to where they would actually look at my software accomplishments? And
since several people have recently told me that I look about 35-40
years old, even at the interview they might not realize I'm over 40?

.