[HN Gopher] Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get H...
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Ageism Haunts Some Tech Workers in the Race to Get Hired
Author : rustoo
Score : 100 points
Date : 2024-03-13 19:42 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wired.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wired.com)
| hindsightbias wrote:
| Anti-ageism is the affirmative action for tech workers.
| meltek wrote:
| https://archive.is/GYrTa
| johnny99k wrote:
| That's why it's better to start consulting as you get older. Much
| less discrimination. We have 65+ year old consultants/developers
| at our company.
| mulmen wrote:
| Any suggestions on how to actually do this? How do I get
| started? Do I moonlight?
| gostintheshell wrote:
| I'd suggest starting with being around the interfaces between
| orgs.. Anywhere you can put your head down and work for days
| without talking to other companies is a luxury to indulge in
| sparingly if you are insuring for future employment as not
| the cheapest labor in not the cheapest land.
| mulmen wrote:
| I don't understand. How do I transition from a FTE at a
| corporation to a contractor? How do I get the first
| contract?
| pojzon wrote:
| In most cases its "by having previous connections" or
| "pure luck".
|
| If it would be easy - everyone would be doing consunlting
| coz it pays way better and work-life balance is also
| better.
| twojobsoneboss wrote:
| Is work life balance really better when you have to worry
| bout finding your next gig and also that everything's on
| you (don't have a team/others to fall back on)?
| gostintheshell wrote:
| If your FTE role is general developer you are jumping
| with no experience and will need to be lucky. If your
| last FTE role is sales engineer or professional services,
| you are already proficient in many of the skills and
| networked. If you aren't sure how to get a first contract
| you didn't really choose the right FTE role yet.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| 100% agree! Or have a "lifestyle" business. If you are
| experienced you should think about learning how to hunt and
| kill on your own.
| paxys wrote:
| The article calls it an "open secret" in the industry, but it
| isn't even much of a secret. Most companies have explicit "manage
| up or manage out" policies for engineers, which means that if you
| have been at a certain level for too many years you get fired and
| replaced by someone younger. They say you need to work hard and
| get promoted to senior staff/principal/director/VP, but then the
| promo budget says only 2 people in the org can get promoted to
| those ranks every year. So what about everyone else?
| antisthenes wrote:
| > So what about everyone else?
|
| They probably just move laterally to another tech company with
| a decent pay bump. Not the worst outcome.
| paxys wrote:
| Doesn't quite work as you'd expect if you are 50+ and
| applying as an SDE.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| No. They get kicked out of the field.
|
| Like someone said, it's an open secret.
| panzagl wrote:
| Depends on how you define 'the field'- if you mean SV
| cutting edge unicorn selling ad stuff, then yes. If you
| include some place like Lockheed Martin or Northrup Grumman
| doing boring non-cutting edge stuff like aerospace or
| signal analysis, then no.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Of all the companies you chose those 2?
|
| Curiously I was specifically thinking of people that
| worked in LM.
|
| One worked there for decades, didn't want to manage
| people and they just kicked him to the curb.
| torginus wrote:
| >doing boring non-cutting edge stuff like aerospace or
| signal analysis
|
| hehe, how the world has changed
| sterlind wrote:
| so web apps are sexy and cutting edge, while sensor
| fusion is boring and stale? I'm not a defense contractor,
| but that take just seems wild.
|
| most of SV isn't cutting-edge tech. most SV devs are
| generalists.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Apparently. Why else were companies scooping up bootcamp
| grads for 200k+ to make yet another CRUD app? They
| clearly feel that investment will be worth it.
|
| Compensation of course isn't the best factor for
| determining cutting edge. Defense contractors for
| instance, can work on some truly novel tech but salaries
| in government has hard caps. But it is telling of
| something when the above scenario was true not too long
| ago.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> A recruiter told him that he wouldn't be appealing to
| employers and opined that Six should be chief technology
| officer at this point in his career, not a software developer,
| Six says._
|
| I have been flat-out told that I should ask for less, because
| of my age. I have had recruiters hang up on me, as soon as they
| figured out my age.
|
| I gave up, after a while, (but I am still producing quite a bit
| of code -just for free). I guess that is considered an optimal
| outcome, by today's tech industry, but I am quite aware that I
| have the skills and experience to make other people millions. I
| have never been particularly interested in scooping up large
| piles of dosh, myself. I just really enjoy the work.
| facesofdang wrote:
| It's also possible they figured out you were ChrisMarshallNY
| sethammons wrote:
| fwiw, each org I have been at that had the up-or-out policy had
| a "terminal" career stage where it no longer applied. In other
| words, juniors needed to work to midlevel, midlevel to senior.
| However, senior was a terminal role and as such you did not
| have to progress further up the ladder.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _senior was a terminal role and as such you did not have to
| progress further up the ladder_
|
| There is a selection bias against CEOs who never establish a
| terminal phase :).
| WalterSear wrote:
| Everyone else gets replaced by someone cheaper who still
| believes that sacrifices will be rewarded. That's the open
| secret.
| VirusNewbie wrote:
| I worked hard this last year. I got about 40k more than I was
| expecting in bonus/stock.
| hinkley wrote:
| You should probably couch that in terms of % of base comp
| or you're going to get people's hopes a lot higher than is
| reasonable.
|
| I don't think I saw substantially more than 10k in Seattle,
| or heard rumors of non-sales coworkers seeing much more
| than that. Inflation adjusted maybe twice that, still less
| than half of yours. But you might also make 3x what we made
| because goddamn are condos expensive down there.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Dunno where you've worked but up-or-out ejects most people
| destined for "out" long, long before they reach the point where
| ageism is even a consideration.
| hinkley wrote:
| I think GP may be more referring to the notion that an older
| employee is going to have a flatter trajectory. If they come
| in as a 3 they expect to leave as a 3 or 4. Versus the
| children who come in at a 2 and plan to leave as a 5.
| paxys wrote:
| Are you saying that no company has ever fired an experienced
| engineer?
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I mean of course that's not what they are saying. Are you
| just picking a fight?
| karaterobot wrote:
| They even said "most", probably to avoid the exact question
| you asked.
| paxys wrote:
| Okay, and the linked article isn't saying that _every_
| old person faces age discrimination in the industry. It
| 's safe to say that most don't. That doesn't mean it
| isn't a problem, or that the problem should be ignored.
| javajosh wrote:
| Discrimination is what happens when you don't have good
| measurement for capability. People have to make decisions, and in
| general you have more applicants than roles, so you use
| heuristics. Obviously its wrong (and illegal) but it's not going
| to change until you offer a reasonable alternative that measures
| technical and social (personality/EQ) merit.
| ska wrote:
| > Discrimination is what happens when you don't have good
| measurement for capability.
|
| This is obviously not the general case for discrimination,
| often it flies in the face of good measurements. Do you mean in
| this particular case, that because we don't have good metrics
| for developers, discrimination easily slips in?
| imbusy111 wrote:
| I did feel a disadvantage myself when I was job searching a few
| months ago, but for me it was my personal attitude coming through
| more than anyone judging me by my age.
|
| I felt that I just cannot get excited anymore about some of the
| bullshit the company leadership is throwing around, and neither
| could I overlook the massive mistakes the companies are making
| based on my own interview questions. But I do understand that a
| very small minority of these companies will actually succeed
| regardless of the nonsense. Otherwise the venture capital logic
| does not work.
|
| Also my pay expectations were higher than most junior employees,
| cause I have a mortgage, family, etc. and I can see how it might
| be hard to justify paying for my experience when you're building
| yet another standard webapp.
|
| Luckily for me, I was able to find a spot with experienced
| leadership building something actually new.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Lol. Yeah once you've heard the HR hype a few times you know
| how hollow it is and just want to fast forward past it. Glad
| you found what you need.
| ttyprintk wrote:
| This.
|
| Interviewers and executives are often younger than me. I never
| make the claim that I've seen this or that mistake being made
| before. If I need to inject something, I say "anyone read [that
| book on JAX]" or "happy to help setup a long-term Kanban for
| Kubernetes if we go that way".
| mech422 wrote:
| Heh - most are younger then me as well ... I had an
| interviewer about 15 years younger then me ask "what was the
| most important thing I learned about DevOps"... my reply was
| "dont deploy on Friday" :-) I got the job (and a chuckle) :-D
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I used to work for someone that LOVED to deploy on Fridays.
| She would make us all stay late if whatever she wanted to
| finish this week was not done yet. So many 7pm on Friday
| deployments, ick.
| gosub100 wrote:
| I've had a similar attitude issue, not due to lack of
| excitement but just being more blunt, assertive, and fearless
| than I was as a junior. I'm not a total jerk completely missing
| a verbal filter, but I definitely have a shorter fuse and ended
| up getting let go last year for being rough with an inept
| coworker (politics were against me as a consultant too). I
| guess I need to cage my rage a little bit.
| adr1an wrote:
| Or, you can blow some steam with a sport. Repressing feelings
| can turn to be for worse (yeah, it's cliche to say it but not
| less truthful)
| jasondigitized wrote:
| This. A lot of younger folks confuse assertiveness with being
| confrontational. I made a tactful suggestion that maybe our
| agendas are too full because we start every meeting ten
| minutes late. That was too confrontational according to my
| boss. Lol. I just can't be quiet when table stakes stuff like
| this is happening.
| outside1234 wrote:
| Yes - this. I can't just forget all of the wisdom I've gained
| over the years and throw myself into another meat grinder.
| flashgordon wrote:
| Damn how and where are you actually finding employers like
| these? In the bay area you are pretty much SoL and moving is
| not an option.
| mech422 wrote:
| Yeah - I have 40+ yoe, and I could see a lot of places don't
| need a 'senior'.. they just need a couple more junior coders.
|
| Also, you tend to get a bit jaded - I basically ignore
| companies that are going 'to change the world!!!' :-P
|
| I broke my own rule and went to a startup that actually seems
| to have a useful product, rather then just big dreams...
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| Frustrating for everyone on board. Juniors don't get the
| training and experience they need to progress, Seniors don't
| get the compensation they deserve, and wizards are just
| having their time wasted when they get called and hear a
| salary that they probably made 20 years prior.
|
| I guess it works, or the cost to do all that is low,
| otherwise so many places wouldn't do it.
| mech422 wrote:
| I guess... I can see everyone thinks they're company is
| special and needs 'rock stars' and '10x's but generally 1
| senior for every 5-10 juniors is fine for most places.
|
| The salary thing is annoying - for a while it seemed like
| most jobs were listing salaries because of CA/CO/MA
| requiring it. But it seems to be going back to the old
| "D.O.E" thing again :-/
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| 1 senior for 10 juniors is not a sustainable ratio unless
| the average person is a senior for 10x as long as they
| were a junior -- meaning, I guess, that in a 30 year
| career, you are "junior" for three years on average. I
| understand that this has been "sustainable" in the past
| because the industry was expanding, but can that continue
| forever?
| jghn wrote:
| I say this as a greybeard myself, but as someone who been on
| the interviewer/hiring manager side of quite a few interviews
| with older candidates, it's a lot more common than they realize
| that they're just *bad*. Yes, there are many good ones, and yes
| the wisdom they have is a huge benefit. But plenty of them
| think this applies to them when it does not.
|
| The most common issue is they've long since let themselves go
| technically. They've been flexing the same 2 or 3 muscles for
| ages, and let everything else atrophy. They haven't been
| staying abreast of current changes, and by that I don't mean
| jumping on the latest fad but rather knowing that the fads
| exist. So it winds up being the case that they have few
| useful/transferable skills and their "wisdom" really isn't all
| that useful outside of the exact niche they'd found themselves
| in for decades.
|
| And then another large chunk of them wind up being jerks. I've
| been this person myself. Whether it being standoffish, crapping
| over what the company is doing without a full understanding of
| why they're doing it, or even just clearly being defensive
| about ageism.
|
| My point isn't to dump on older candidates. Again, I sometimes
| am one :) But as is often the case, plenty of older candidates
| refuse to look in the mirror.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| >or even just clearly being defensive about ageism.
|
| I mean, that makes sense? I would be just as defensive about
| racism or sexism if the vibe came off in an interview.
|
| >They haven't been staying abreast of current changes, and by
| that I don't mean jumping on the latest fad but rather
| knowing that the fads exist.
|
| I guess it depends on the domain. Sure, I can see web moving
| fast and the someone who focused on at best JQuery may not be
| needed for a company on Vue or React or whatever. Other
| domains don't change as radically though, or the tools are
| usually not as hard to transfer to as some think. People can
| underestimate the fundamentals at times as they try to expect
| 10 years of Swift experience out of a candidate.
| hatthew wrote:
| Anecdote about older folks not staying abreast of the latest:
| A few years ago, I was being interviewed by a programmer far
| my senior (in both experience and age). I have my github link
| on my resume, and the interviewer noticed and asked "What's
| GitHub?"
| magicalist wrote:
| Eh, I mean I've interviewed lots of just absolutely terrible
| candidates of all ages. Part of the problem seems to be that
| perception of this group is based on a narrative about their
| age in the first place.
|
| (Not to mention, you meet someone for an hour, what do you
| really know about them? You can evaluate them for a job, but
| why are we spinning yarns about their internal motivations?)
| wheaties wrote:
| I feel this. I got the "you look older than your profile pic"
| comment during an interview last year. That one was fun. Dude
| wanted to know if I could even code anymore.
| 77pt77 wrote:
| Once that impression has been made (and it takes a fraction of
| a second) it's effectively engraved in stone and can't be
| changed.
|
| You disproving their assumption by showing you can code will
| only elicit extreme disgust from them.
| supportengineer wrote:
| "If you ever feel the need to defend yourself, you have
| already lost."
| pojzon wrote:
| Where is this quote from ?
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Isn't that illegal in the US and opens up doors for lawsuits?
| Izkata wrote:
| Likely yes:
| https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/discrimination/agedisc
| (second paragraph)
|
| I'm not sure what if means by "certain" applicants and
| employees, but my guess would be jobs where it's relevant,
| like physical labor, are excluded.
| duderific wrote:
| I would imagine it's extremely hard to prove though. The
| prospective employer could just maintain that the applicant
| "wouldn't be a good culture fit" or similar.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| Disparate Impact laws mean that it's not always necessary
| to disprove a pretext.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| How about: We're not sure the team will be comfortable working
| with someone so experienced.
|
| Pretty obvious what that was about.
| antod wrote:
| Sheesh - what a lame statement. All the juniors I've worked
| with are very keen to learn from us old timers, and likewise
| their enthusiasm and energy rubs off on us. It's a win-win as
| far as I'm concerned.
| gostintheshell wrote:
| I think some organizations, groups or individuals are more
| about having all the right traits and buzzword experience
| on the CV and are more afraid of being disillusioned about
| anything that is part of that kind of goal than interested
| in really solving problems or learning skills to actually
| do so.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| lame, but legally sound. The typical back handed rejection
| is "overexperienced". It at least tried to make the
| candidate feel better.
| geodel wrote:
| Indeed, we can intensify or we can reduce fault lines.
| Labeling old or young folks with worst stereotypes will not
| solve problems apart from giving jollies to some on social
| media.
|
| So far for me working with young people has been lot of fun
| and learning on both sides.
| gopher_space wrote:
| I need to find a lawyer and see how much a conversation like
| that is worth.
| riotnrrd wrote:
| Similar questions netted me about $7000 from the Google age
| discrimination class-action lawsuit.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| In my past experience, Apple was full of graybeards who could
| code circles around younger devs. They're the ones who knew how
| to build and maintain high quality software.
|
| I'm not sure if it's the same way now, but I was highly impressed
| with my former coworkers' caliber.
|
| Ageism isn't an inevitability, it's a choice.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I worked with them (not as an Apple employee). I had
| _tremendous_ respect for their work.
|
| Apple's quality has been declining recently. I have been trying
| to get both SwiftUI and Core/CreateML into something I can
| ship, and keep slamming into walls.
| DragonStrength wrote:
| It was true when I left a year ago. I was surprised to find the
| next hire after me was 20 years my senior. I actually felt like
| my mid-30s "youth" worked against me at times there.
| costanzaDynasty wrote:
| The jokes on them. The generations are getting smaller and
| smaller. The lack of junior roles is making that pool even
| smaller. A giant bubble is forming. They spent the last 5 years
| talking about diversity and how great it is and how it makes
| better teams. Now every job is 5+ YOE. Do as I say, not as I do
| tech.
| pojzon wrote:
| AI changes the landscape alot.
|
| Even as an experienced engineer the sheer amount of knowledge
| you get access to from a single prompt without having to read
| any tutorial or book can change a Junior into Senior very
| quickly.
|
| I just hope it wont face the same issue google had:
|
| - starting with good answers and evolving into mud
| mrcode007 wrote:
| It only works for established technologies. New inventions
| are by definition not in the training dataset. What then?
| bdcravens wrote:
| Unfortunately the majority of jobs aren't really innovation
| roles.
| greedo wrote:
| AI won't be as impactful in generating good results (though
| it may result in middle management firing devs/admins since
| they think they're easily replaceable).
|
| As an example, I asked claude.ai to generate an ansible
| playbook for patching a Docker cluster. It created one,
| something I'd expect a junior admin to be able to whip up
| pretty easily. Then I noticed something funky. The playbook
| was OS agnostic, just using some where clauses to handle
| debian, RHEL, etc. Nice stuff, but wrong. One of the tasks
| was to clean the cache after apply updates. The AI got apt
| correct (autoclean), but assumed incorrectly that yum had the
| same parameter. Just a small detail that would have shown up
| when the playbook was run, but when it can't handle the small
| details, why bother?
| NortySpock wrote:
| Because it wrote 90% of the code and you had two quick
| things to inspect and fix?
|
| Sounds like a healthy tradeoff to me.
| pjerem wrote:
| For now, my feelings are that AI can be really helpful if you
| know the field. You need to be senior to know how to ask
| things and to understand the answers.
|
| For anyone not understanding the domain, AI is just a
| glorified stack overflow but with hallucinations.
|
| Hallucinations can be fought but you need to suggest that you
| got the wrong answer and why. And that requires a deep
| understanding of the domain.
|
| Honestly I'm really frightened that we collectively accept
| that AI is an acceptable source of truth and that it's ok to
| make decisions from its output or worse, use it as a learning
| material.
| axus wrote:
| Claude, compose an email response to shift the blame from
| my latest AI-induced screwup.
| pojzon wrote:
| Point was - it will speed up junior to senior transition.
| Not that it will replace seniors with juniors.
|
| We will also need less senior ppl, coz AI will be "good
| enough", most stuff we are faced with isn't really that
| complex.
| smrtinsert wrote:
| > can change a Junior into Senior very quickly
|
| Not to derail the thread, but its really not that simple.
| People are subject to their own biases and knowledge gaps.
| Long form responses do not fix either of those issues though
| they might help with the latter. If it really upskilled
| everyone that cleanly its effect on roles would've happened
| by now. I've noticed a lot of people frankly do not have the
| natural "context length" needed to really take advantage of
| AI and there are those that are really benefitting from it,
| but they're in the smallest minority.
| swatcoder wrote:
| When I was coming up a long while back, there were exciting
| employers that filled their ranks with ambitious recent grads and
| lavished them with ping pong tables and soda fountains in the
| "war room" full of knock-off Aeron chairs and various
| configurations of conference tables. We'd work crazy hours and
| move fast with tools we didn't really understand. Most of us
| would get laid off multiple times as the companies we were
| working for evaporated, but a few would find themselves in the
| right place at the right time and win the lottery.
|
| Only a few of those companies from era that remain, and most of
| the people who stayed in that game ended up with a four page long
| CV with a dozen unknown or comically failed employers, with all
| sorts of inflated titles.
|
| But there was this other set of companies that were obnoxiously
| boring, with middle aged engineers in goatees working sane hours
| in semi-private offices and cubicles with peers they'd been
| working besides for 10 and 20 and 30 years. They'd been around,
| they had a business model that was proven, and they had the
| institutional knowledge to sustain it.
|
| Many of those companies are still around and many of them are
| still stocked up with middle aged engineers in goatees with short
| CV's spanning many years.
|
| I think the proportions between these two company styles varies
| based on how how much money is being shoved into the industry,
| and I think it can be hard for an older engineer who dallied with
| the kids for too long to situate themselves at the more stable
| workplaces. They often don't really fit in with either culture.
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| aka, seemingly boring enterprise software is the place to go.
| Some of them are actually very good places.
| johnnyanmac wrote:
| It's a safe and stable place to go. Of course, if everyone
| wanted safety there wouldn't be so much rush into startups or
| entertainment industries, especially by young starry-eyed
| creatives.
| elwell wrote:
| > middle aged engineers in goatees
|
| This is a 2x'er; full neckbeard is 10x.
| decafninja wrote:
| The difference in comp can be substantial.
|
| If we're talking about FAANG tier or similar, then a junior
| FAANG engineer can be making as much as an enterprise company
| staff engineer with decades of experience about to retire in
| their 60s.
|
| Even if we're not talking about FAANG tier, interviewing around
| I've been given offers at tech companies that were up to 1.5x
| my enterprise senior SWE comp.
|
| Work life balance is gamble either way. I've seen enterprise
| companies paying 150k working their employees on death marches,
| and tech companies paying 500k where everyone leaves at five.
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| Ageism is pretty much only talked about when it affects older
| people. Younger people - broadly millenials and younger - have
| just had to make piece with the ageism they've faced their entire
| lives and continue to face. I understand that one day I'll be old
| too, but my sympathies are limited and it'll be nothing truly new
| for us when people start dismissing us for being old, since
| people have been dismissing us for being young plenty. It'll
| probably hurt a little more since I tend to identify more with
| younger people than Gen X or older millenials, but in the end it
| won't be anything I'm not used to. So consider this me playing
| the world's smallest violin.
| raziel2p wrote:
| how do you think ageism affects young people?
| screachymodem wrote:
| Hang in there buddy. We hire qualified people of all ages who
| like to learn and get their work done. I'm GenX and I've heard
| all the age stuff before in my youth as well.
|
| (1) Be yourself (2) Provide value (3) Take on some of the
| boring stuff that adds to business continuity
|
| Number 3 is not sexy, but good management notices.
| antod wrote:
| That is such a weird take for a young software dev to have -
| you are uniquely positioned in an intersection of both age and
| the industry you're in to have faced extremely little ageism.
| Compared to just about anyone else working their way up and
| gaining experience elsewhere, you've had it easy. The lack of
| perspective is staggering.
|
| You'd fully deserve that violin played for you later on in your
| career.
| andybak wrote:
| > younger people [...] faced ageism their whole lives.
|
| You didn't really read that part through before posting, did
| you?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Everyone had to get educated one way or the other and hit the
| pavement for a job. It's just natural to need to prove yourself
| when you're at the least valuable point in your career.
|
| Facing that again when at your most experienced and valuable
| makes a lot less sense.
| pojzon wrote:
| The thing about ageism in IT is a matter of statistics.
|
| If you hire a bad junior you are few thousend in back.
|
| If you hire a bad senior you are tens of thousends in back.
|
| Noone wants to make bad decisions, so we use stereotypes we know
| to prefilter. Its not very pragmatic but lets be honest as
| engineers we know world is not pragmatic.
| cod1r wrote:
| I definitely feel like it's the opposite. A lot of jobs require a
| proven track record with the number of years being like 5+ YOE. I
| graduated last may and still haven't gotten any offers. That
| being said, it's probably just me having a skill issue XD.
| balls187 wrote:
| Yeah it does cut both ways.
|
| In industry with just enough experience to be useful but not
| enough wisdom to avoid being exploited.
|
| Who wants to hire someone with kids, a mortgage and a life
| outside of work?
| kevinventullo wrote:
| For what it's worth, it's a lot harder to get a job right now
| than it was even just a few years ago.
| andrewstuart wrote:
| "Call this an unfair generalization if you must, but old people
| are no good at everything."
|
| - Moe Szyslak
| teunispeters wrote:
| One of the more subtle ways this is exhibited is by only
| preferring certain recent tech stacks, or orienting interview
| questions around computer science concepts that are only quite
| modern - especially if either of these have nothing to do with
| the toolset actually used. (or, asking for a recent transcript!).
| I've seen ALL of this in the time I've been looking for work,
| repeatedly.
|
| It's very annoying, but most can be overcome if one's got time
| and patience.
| paxys wrote:
| Don't forget the "culture fit" interview.
| ein0p wrote:
| I interview a lot of candidates and the quality of a lot of the
| recent grads makes it seem like I won't be hurting for income
| until the day I croak. I've been interviewing people on and off
| for about 20 years now, and the talent pool has gotten much worse
| in the past decade. Might be because a lot of kids are choosing
| the field to "get rich", might be just general deterioration of
| education idk. Case in point: over the past month I interviewed 8
| fresh grads. Only one was actually good and got an enthusiastic
| vote from me. What to do with this is not clear to me. If
| anything you need to be much better educated to make a serious
| dent in this field today compared to 20 years ago.
|
| Which is to say, companies discriminating against the older
| workers are doing so to their own detriment, in my opinion.
| steelframe wrote:
| Sure ageism is a thing, but I can't help but think that long
| experience in industry can be sort of a "get another job"
| superpower.
|
| After a couple of decades in industry, I've formed so many
| professional relationships that it's hard for me to imagine that
| I might have any real trouble finding another job if I lost my
| current one. I mean, I guess I could be delusional and find it to
| be really tough at some point, but it hasn't happened so far.
| People I've worked with have gone on to start their own companies
| or have risen to senior director roles. In fact for the job
| before the one I have now a senior director practically yanked me
| out of my previous company and shoved me into his current
| company.
|
| I don't think about recruiters sticking their noses up at me
| because of my age or buzzwords on my resume and such at all. If I
| want in somewhere, I just email someone I've worked with
| previously and ask if they think there might be something at
| their current company for me. It usually doesn't take long for
| their hiring manager to be asking me for an intro meeting. Only
| then does a recruiter get involved, and they're not screening me.
| They're setting up an interview loop. Often with people hand-
| picked by the hiring manager.
|
| Look, I know ageism is real and it does happen and has a real
| impact on people. But on the other hand, if you've been working
| for 20+ years in industry and have generally left a good
| impression on your co-workers, how can you not have contacts
| sprinkled around in your industry who can give you a leg up on
| the job-finding process?
| syngrog66 wrote:
| no, really?!?!
|
| I have C code older than some of the young dev coworkers I've
| had. I have software running on embedded devices in the field (in
| gas stations, for example) thats older than some of them too.
| m0llusk wrote:
| My experience includes taking on a lot of various challenges and
| doing what it takes to ship quality products on time. But when I
| interview very little of that comes up or has much weight.
| Current interviewers usually want an immediate demonstration of a
| relevant skill in considerable detail. The idea that someone who
| has shipped many different types of product can adapt quickly
| doesn't seem to be considered valid. Not only that, there seems
| to be a lot of weight put on knowing Agile and being able to take
| orders instead of going on whatever engineering tangent comes up.
| It seems like engineers who have developed a particular set of
| desirable skills have a great advantage and those with a lot of
| proven general talent are mostly not even in the game.
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