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Say you are a 35 year old manager. All else equal who do you hire; a 25 year old or a 50 year old? Is it age discrimination to hire an individual that you think

by flint 11y ago

Say you are a 35 year old manager. All else equal who do you hire; a 25 year old or a 50 year old? Is it age discrimination to hire an individual that you think you'd be better able to manage?

djKianoosh 11y ago
not sure what exactly you are implying, but in my limited experience, I'd take the 50 year old over the 25 yr old in a heartbeat. you say all else equal. thats a dream world. the 50 yr old will have, very likely, a vast range of valuable life experiences (unless theyve been living in a proverbial cave all their life).. and yeah im 37 and i lead a team with a variety of ages. age is not an important factor, like at all. enthusiasm and genuine-ness is.
- shiraabel 11y ago
  You're the minority.
  - jpmec 11y ago
    also 37 which is youth-speak for "old", their opinion doesn't matter anymore :-(
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>the 50 yr old will have, very likely, a vast range of valuable life experiences And therefore be a lot less likely to recognize and take seriously the authority of a 25-year-old manager. In fact, in their mind they will probably think they should be the manager. I've seen it happen and it wasn't pretty.
  - dugmartin 11y ago
    As a 44 year old programmer myself I wouldn't say a 25-year old manager would be the problem but rather dealing with a manager with maybe 3 years of real experience. Good managers, like good programmers, are a mix of ability and experience and many inexperienced managers haven't taken the lesson from _Space Camp_ to heart: being boss and being bossy aren't the same.
Caprinicus 11y ago
If the 50 year old has the same amount of experience that the 25 year old has, they have been doing something seriously wrong. That is reality, if people want to keep working at a given position they need to constantly develop and improve to remain competitive, all else should not be equal when the older candidate has been working for 25 extra years.
- gaius 11y ago
  Real skills transcend whatever language is trendy today. A 50 year old with 25 years experience including 5 years Node.js trumps a 25 year old with 5 years Node.js and nothing else. In a sane world, anyway.
  - collyw 11y ago
    Job ads ask for experience in whatever is "hot" just now though.
  - bm1362 11y ago
    I worked with an older engineer (late 40s) when I was 21 (and with a bunch of young SDEs) and he was proficient, intelligent. His downfall was his ego and inability to make trade offs. He beat every decision, design, code review to death and couldn't see the forest for the trees. Writing in Java, he would use byte arrays or unfold loops for unnecessary performance gains. He sabotaged meetings because he would derail for such a long time on minor issues. He was only there for 6 months and jumped ship to Google.
    - gaius 11y ago
      Are you saying all older engineers are raging egomaniacs? Because that sounds pretty ageist to me.
- Alex3917 11y ago
  > If the 50 year old has the same amount of experience that the 25 year old has, they have been doing something seriously wrong. I think this is the crux of it. When most people hire someone straight out of college they're looking for someone with the potential to do great things. Whereas when they hire someone who's 50, they're looking for someone who has done great things. But since a lot of people reach 50 without having done anything especially impressive, applying what hiring managers perceive as being the same set of standards to both age groups leaves older folks less likely to get hired even without any conscious discrimination.
andylei 11y ago
in your scenario, replace "50 year old" with "black" and "25 year old" with "white". Is it race discrimination to hire an individual that you think you'd be better able to manage? its age discrimination to imagine a bunch of traits that come with a hypothetical 50 year old that don't come up with a hypothetical 25 year old and then make a hiring decision based on those traits.
- jpmec 11y ago
  replace "25 year old" with "hot". Is it discrimination to hire someone you'd rather look at all day and possibly have drinks with after work? Just sayin, it happens BTW, I'm not condoning this situation, I think it is bad. But unfortunately, this is still a very real situation that does influence people's decisions.
  - spiralpolitik 11y ago
    This is why you have diversity in hiring to avoid this level of bias. Otherwise bros are going to hire bros. (And if all the people who are interviewing you are younger than you probably aren't getting the job no matter how well you do)
lazyjones 11y ago
> Is it age discrimination to hire an individual that you think you'd be better able to manage? If you can't hire and manage people who are better than you at something (doesn't even have to be life experience or anything else age-related), you'll fail as a manager. It's risky to ignore the real drawbacks of age though: health issues, less mental and physical fitness and flexibility and a theoretically shorter future in the company. In my former company, the best programmer had several strokes in his 50's. He's recovering, but it's a difficult situation.
forinti 11y ago
I would look at my team. If I already have lots of 25 year olds, I would choose the candidate with 50 years of age. You can't substitute experience with intelligence and youth. And people always look at the diversity debate through the lens of the individual (is it fair to the individual?), when diversity could be really beneficial to the team.
zhte415 11y ago
I'd hire the one with the most I could learn from. That may be the 25 year old or the 50 year old. It could be either. >Better able to manage Managing someone older than one's self isn't hard as long as one's management is competent. They've likely seen a lot before. But it's easy to fool someone younger that they're being managed well. It should be a highlight for a manager that they've been able to manage and retain, even inspire, those older than themselves.

by flint 11y ago

Say you are a 35 year old manager. All else equal who do you hire; a 25 year old or a 50 year old? Is it age discrimination to hire an individual that you think you'd be better able to manage?

djKianoosh 11y ago

not sure what exactly you are implying, but in my limited experience, I'd take the 50 year old over the 25 yr old in a heartbeat. you say all else equal. thats a dream world. the 50 yr old will have, very likely, a vast range of valuable life experiences (unless theyve been living in a proverbial cave all their life).. and yeah im 37 and i lead a team with a variety of ages. age is not an important factor, like at all. enthusiasm and genuine-ness is.

shiraabel 11y ago
You're the minority.
- jpmec 11y ago
  also 37 which is youth-speak for "old", their opinion doesn't matter anymore :-(
enraged_camel 11y ago
>>the 50 yr old will have, very likely, a vast range of valuable life experiences And therefore be a lot less likely to recognize and take seriously the authority of a 25-year-old manager. In fact, in their mind they will probably think they should be the manager. I've seen it happen and it wasn't pretty.
- dugmartin 11y ago
  As a 44 year old programmer myself I wouldn't say a 25-year old manager would be the problem but rather dealing with a manager with maybe 3 years of real experience. Good managers, like good programmers, are a mix of ability and experience and many inexperienced managers haven't taken the lesson from _Space Camp_ to heart: being boss and being bossy aren't the same.

Caprinicus 11y ago

If the 50 year old has the same amount of experience that the 25 year old has, they have been doing something seriously wrong. That is reality, if people want to keep working at a given position they need to constantly develop and improve to remain competitive, all else should not be equal when the older candidate has been working for 25 extra years.

gaius 11y ago
Real skills transcend whatever language is trendy today. A 50 year old with 25 years experience including 5 years Node.js trumps a 25 year old with 5 years Node.js and nothing else. In a sane world, anyway.
- collyw 11y ago
  Job ads ask for experience in whatever is "hot" just now though.
- bm1362 11y ago
  I worked with an older engineer (late 40s) when I was 21 (and with a bunch of young SDEs) and he was proficient, intelligent. His downfall was his ego and inability to make trade offs. He beat every decision, design, code review to death and couldn't see the forest for the trees. Writing in Java, he would use byte arrays or unfold loops for unnecessary performance gains. He sabotaged meetings because he would derail for such a long time on minor issues. He was only there for 6 months and jumped ship to Google.
  - gaius 11y ago
    Are you saying all older engineers are raging egomaniacs? Because that sounds pretty ageist to me.
Alex3917 11y ago
> If the 50 year old has the same amount of experience that the 25 year old has, they have been doing something seriously wrong. I think this is the crux of it. When most people hire someone straight out of college they're looking for someone with the potential to do great things. Whereas when they hire someone who's 50, they're looking for someone who has done great things. But since a lot of people reach 50 without having done anything especially impressive, applying what hiring managers perceive as being the same set of standards to both age groups leaves older folks less likely to get hired even without any conscious discrimination.

andylei 11y ago

in your scenario, replace "50 year old" with "black" and "25 year old" with "white". Is it race discrimination to hire an individual that you think you'd be better able to manage? its age discrimination to imagine a bunch of traits that come with a hypothetical 50 year old that don't come up with a hypothetical 25 year old and then make a hiring decision based on those traits.

jpmec 11y ago
replace "25 year old" with "hot". Is it discrimination to hire someone you'd rather look at all day and possibly have drinks with after work? Just sayin, it happens BTW, I'm not condoning this situation, I think it is bad. But unfortunately, this is still a very real situation that does influence people's decisions.
- spiralpolitik 11y ago
  This is why you have diversity in hiring to avoid this level of bias. Otherwise bros are going to hire bros. (And if all the people who are interviewing you are younger than you probably aren't getting the job no matter how well you do)

lazyjones 11y ago

> Is it age discrimination to hire an individual that you think you'd be better able to manage? If you can't hire and manage people who are better than you at something (doesn't even have to be life experience or anything else age-related), you'll fail as a manager. It's risky to ignore the real drawbacks of age though: health issues, less mental and physical fitness and flexibility and a theoretically shorter future in the company. In my former company, the best programmer had several strokes in his 50's. He's recovering, but it's a difficult situation.

forinti 11y ago

I would look at my team. If I already have lots of 25 year olds, I would choose the candidate with 50 years of age. You can't substitute experience with intelligence and youth. And people always look at the diversity debate through the lens of the individual (is it fair to the individual?), when diversity could be really beneficial to the team.

zhte415 11y ago

I'd hire the one with the most I could learn from. That may be the 25 year old or the 50 year old. It could be either. >Better able to manage Managing someone older than one's self isn't hard as long as one's management is competent. They've likely seen a lot before. But it's easy to fool someone younger that they're being managed well. It should be a highlight for a manager that they've been able to manage and retain, even inspire, those older than themselves.