There seems to be some assumptions that companies prefer to hire younger people. I have yet to see that, myself (getting close to 50). When I was interviewing

There seems to be some assumptions that companies prefer to hire younger people. I have yet to see that, myself (getting close to 50). When I was interviewing people, I was looking for older people with good transferable skills. We just couldn't find anyone. However, I think that there are some caveats. When people are young, you tend to cut them some slack. You don't really know how they are going to turn out in a few years. You hire someone with the hope that they will improve quickly over the short term. When people are older, you have a track record to look at. Sometimes it is very obvious that they have had a hard time of it in their career. The end result is not that people prefer younger people to older people, it's that they prefer unknown quantities to known, poorly performing quantities. If there is someone with an exceptionally good track record over a long period of time and who can do a good interview -- my experience is that they will be snapped up quickly. I don't really buy the idea that length of employment is a serious issue either. Attrition in IT is huge and I never assume that anyone is going to last more than 2 or 3 years.