Subj : Re: Overcoming age discrimination, an idea (was: Software Job Market Myths)
To   : comp.programming,comp.software-eng
From : JXStern
Date : Fri Aug 19 2005 03:44 am

On Wed, 17 Aug 2005 23:36:30 -0700, rem642b@Yahoo.Com (Robert Maas,
see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t) wrote:
>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).

Exactamundo.

> Do
>you think that would get me past the nobody-over-40-need-apply barrier,

It will help.

>to where they would actually look at my software accomplishments? 

Nobody cares about your accomplishments, just your current buzzwords.

>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?

Sure, but in any hands-on job, "old" starts at about 27.  "Senior"
means about 24.  "Architect" means you've read the manual.

J.

.