8 ms·

I'm 40, in tech years that's like 1000. I also see value in hiring experience but explicitly factoring by age discriminates against a protected class in the USA

by edoceo 10y ago

I'm 40, in tech years that's like 1000. I also see value in hiring experience but explicitly factoring by age discriminates against a protected class in the USA. I think a lawsuit is in my future if I use this for placement at my company. Of course, if you simply rebranded to talk about "experience" rather than "age" then solvelem probbed. Also, age != experience != skill.

mamurphy 10y ago
It's good to note that this would be a worry, and the name Oldster is troubling, as it's common definition is "an old person." However, aside from that, they do seem to toe the line with phrases like "veteran," "Experience never gets old" and "senior advertising professionals" without explicitly referencing age anywhere. And, at least arguably, an "Oldster" is any experienced professional who uses their site, regardless of age.
rplst8 10y ago
I thought age 40 and over was the protected class WRT age.
- mikeash 10y ago
  Federal law only covers people over 40, and it only covers favoring younger people over older people. Favoring older people is legal. State laws may vary, check your local jurisdiction to see if they add more.
- jrs235 10y ago
  Correct. At least at the federal level. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states do have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination. If your state or local jurisdiction doesn't protect young(er) workers against discrimination and only the federal law applies, then an employer can discriminate against the young but not the old.
  - jnagro 10y ago
    state law might have different wording too...
    - brixon 10y ago
      A state law can make a federal law stronger, but states cannot make federal laws weaker.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
Ensorceled 10y ago
> age != experience != skill Or, as a former boss of mine put it: "He has one year of experience ten times."
- madengr 10y ago
  Or maybe one year of experience, each in a specialized topic, which are all intertwined. I have 20 years experience in RF engineering, and probably a few years each in sub-disciplines that combine to form a full system. That is pretty valuable, especially being able to head off problems, due to prior experience with them.
  - shubb 10y ago
    A whole career of very short jobs isn't great though. One particularly valuable kind of experience is seeing a project through and understanding how early decisions went awry later on. Some older coders I work with might not have obsessively learned the latest framework, but they can identify issues like "that's the kind of subsystem that one person ends up maintaining, and then they leave and it's awful", or "We did something similar in the 1990s, and it didn't go so well because it is overly complex. Is there a simpler way to do this?".
    - user5994461 10y ago
      > One particularly valuable kind of experience is seeing a project through and understanding how early decisions went awry later on. That's a good take on it, and the application of it vary with companies and industries. A waterfall EE project at a old school company could hardly deliver any stage in 6 months. A software project at a fast executing startup could have gone through 2 major delivered projects in that time.
    - madengr 10y ago
      Ha ha, I guess I'm screwed as I work in a job shop where no project lasts longer than 6 months. I love it though. Better that than the same project for several years.
  - 10y ago
tptacek 10y ago
I'm 40 and don't feel that way at all.
- mixmastamyk 10y ago
  …and not an "unknown," perhaps laid-off, looking for work, correct?
  - tptacek 10y ago
    So, look, it could be that I have a lot of extra self confidence because my career has been decent to this point. But really, I mean I don't feel even slightly threatened by the technical ability of 20-something coders. I was warned throughout much of my career that I'd eventually have to head off to management to keep afloat, but, nope, that was bogus advice. I can go into more detail here but I'm derailing things slightly already. It is not my contention that ageism isn't a thing. I'm sure it is --- I mean, I'm confident it's a real problem. I'm just pushing back on the "40 is 1000 in tech years" snark. No, it isn't.
    - mixmastamyk 10y ago
      Sure, but I find the problem isn't competing against twenty somethings once you're hired (could be done with one lobe tied behind your back, haha). It's getting hired by them at all, and very difficult if you're not "internet famous."
      - danenania 10y ago
        Having recently interviewed lots of developers (in NYC), my experience was that there's such a shortage of senior and even solidly mid-level talent out there currently that an employer would have to be crazy to turn down anyone for non-merit based reasons. We would have hired a 300 year old sea turtle if it could get the job done... internet fame definitely not required. Perhaps the problems are more at the margins (junior level devs, choosing between people of similar ability), but unless the market changes drastically, I can't see a competent engineer having too much trouble regardless of age, at least in locations with a big enough tech scene.
Declanomous 10y ago
I worked for a recruiter for a while, and the euphemism used for age was 'seasoned'. "Company X isn't looking for anyone seasoned" "Company Y is open to seasoned individuals" Companies would also look for people who were a certain number of years of out school. Like, "5 to 10 years experience post-degree." Sure, that could technically mean a 45 year old who went back to school at 35 is qualified for the position, but there is a 0% chance the company would hire that person. The other recruiters would talk about these things pretty explicitly outside of emails. There were a lot of interesting justifications: Older people are harder to train Older people are difficult employees because they are stuck in their ways/used to getting their way Older people expect more benefits/vacation/pay Older people use more sick time Older people don't keep up with developments in the field Discrimination wasn't limited to age. The recruiters were just as happy to help their clients discriminate on race, or gender, or familial status. Really anything. In my experience, age was the only protected class that recruiters would try to suss out how the hiring managers felt about while they were trying to determine the ideal candidate. It seemed to me that the other prejudices would only come to light after the recruiter had a relationship with the hiring manager and had sent them a number of candidates in the past. There were still a lot of euphemisms though. This was just my experience though, and I was working for a small firm. I have no idea what the rest of the field is like at all.
- robalfonso 10y ago
  I always find this kind of thinking to be counter productive - we are all going to be older. The people hiring, the people recruiting, they will all find the same bias working against them in the future - why not do future you a favor and not perpetuate the bias.
  - Declanomous 10y ago
    Some of these recruiters were pretty old themselves. The had a number of justifications for perpetuating the institution of prejudice. Most common were "don't hate the player, hate the game" excuses. They were just working within the system, they don't have any ability to affect the system Hiring managers aren't going to work with us if we send them candidates they are prejudiced against. They'll just work with someone else, or run their own ads, and they'll still be prejudiced. Interviewing with that person would be a a waste of the candidate's time, and they wouldn't want to work for someone like that anyway. Some of the recruiters didn't have justifications, since they didn't feel it was wrong. They just felt they were getting their. Their attitude was pretty much that's the way the cookie crumbles / them's the breaks.
jameshart 10y ago
Not an HR lawyer, but I believe that as long as you weren't exclusively hiring through here, using a site like this as part of your hiring strategy could in fact be used to demonstrate that you are seeking out candidates from a broad range of backgrounds. If you only advertise a role in youth-oriented venues that might itself be grounds for being accused of discriminatory hiring practices, so also considering candidates through a channel like this would help defend against that accusation.
emodendroket 10y ago
Older workers are a protected class but younger workers are not. So specifically recruiting older workers is actually no problem.
amorphid 10y ago
I am 42, and I don't agree with your assessment. I didn't get my first full time software dev gig until age 40 (learned to code over previous few years). The primary thing my employer cares about is my contribution to the company's mission. If lose sight of that, and try selling the value of my many years of X, I am missing the point. To put it another, my age is not coupled to my value. It's up to me, at any age, to focus on what it takes to make my employer more successful. Employer: "I need a developer who can do A, B, and C." Me: "That's me!" Employer: " I can't ask you how old you are, but maybe sometime you can tell me what it was like to start your career at a time when computers read your code off punchcards and ran it on vacuum tubes." Me: "Nah, I started when computers ran on steam and looked like a building sized abacus. All kidding aside, why do you need A, B, and C? Let's talk about how I can help you make mad stacks of greenbacks." Employer: "I like making money! OK, I here's what we're working on..."
happy-go-lucky 10y ago
+1 for age != experience != skill

by edoceo 10y ago

mamurphy 10y ago

It's good to note that this would be a worry, and the name Oldster is troubling, as it's common definition is "an old person." However, aside from that, they do seem to toe the line with phrases like "veteran," "Experience never gets old" and "senior advertising professionals" without explicitly referencing age anywhere. And, at least arguably, an "Oldster" is any experienced professional who uses their site, regardless of age.

rplst8 10y ago

I thought age 40 and over was the protected class WRT age.

mikeash 10y ago
Federal law only covers people over 40, and it only covers favoring younger people over older people. Favoring older people is legal. State laws may vary, check your local jurisdiction to see if they add more.
jrs235 10y ago
Correct. At least at the federal level. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states do have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination. If your state or local jurisdiction doesn't protect young(er) workers against discrimination and only the federal law applies, then an employer can discriminate against the young but not the old.
- jnagro 10y ago
  state law might have different wording too...
  - brixon 10y ago
    A state law can make a federal law stronger, but states cannot make federal laws weaker.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

Ensorceled 10y ago

> age != experience != skill Or, as a former boss of mine put it: "He has one year of experience ten times."

madengr 10y ago
Or maybe one year of experience, each in a specialized topic, which are all intertwined. I have 20 years experience in RF engineering, and probably a few years each in sub-disciplines that combine to form a full system. That is pretty valuable, especially being able to head off problems, due to prior experience with them.
- shubb 10y ago
  A whole career of very short jobs isn't great though. One particularly valuable kind of experience is seeing a project through and understanding how early decisions went awry later on. Some older coders I work with might not have obsessively learned the latest framework, but they can identify issues like "that's the kind of subsystem that one person ends up maintaining, and then they leave and it's awful", or "We did something similar in the 1990s, and it didn't go so well because it is overly complex. Is there a simpler way to do this?".
  - user5994461 10y ago
    > One particularly valuable kind of experience is seeing a project through and understanding how early decisions went awry later on. That's a good take on it, and the application of it vary with companies and industries. A waterfall EE project at a old school company could hardly deliver any stage in 6 months. A software project at a fast executing startup could have gone through 2 major delivered projects in that time.
  - madengr 10y ago
    Ha ha, I guess I'm screwed as I work in a job shop where no project lasts longer than 6 months. I love it though. Better that than the same project for several years.
- 10y ago

tptacek 10y ago

I'm 40 and don't feel that way at all.

mixmastamyk 10y ago
…and not an "unknown," perhaps laid-off, looking for work, correct?
- tptacek 10y ago
  So, look, it could be that I have a lot of extra self confidence because my career has been decent to this point. But really, I mean I don't feel even slightly threatened by the technical ability of 20-something coders. I was warned throughout much of my career that I'd eventually have to head off to management to keep afloat, but, nope, that was bogus advice. I can go into more detail here but I'm derailing things slightly already. It is not my contention that ageism isn't a thing. I'm sure it is --- I mean, I'm confident it's a real problem. I'm just pushing back on the "40 is 1000 in tech years" snark. No, it isn't.
  - mixmastamyk 10y ago
    Sure, but I find the problem isn't competing against twenty somethings once you're hired (could be done with one lobe tied behind your back, haha). It's getting hired by them at all, and very difficult if you're not "internet famous."
    - danenania 10y ago
      Having recently interviewed lots of developers (in NYC), my experience was that there's such a shortage of senior and even solidly mid-level talent out there currently that an employer would have to be crazy to turn down anyone for non-merit based reasons. We would have hired a 300 year old sea turtle if it could get the job done... internet fame definitely not required. Perhaps the problems are more at the margins (junior level devs, choosing between people of similar ability), but unless the market changes drastically, I can't see a competent engineer having too much trouble regardless of age, at least in locations with a big enough tech scene.

Declanomous 10y ago

I worked for a recruiter for a while, and the euphemism used for age was 'seasoned'. "Company X isn't looking for anyone seasoned" "Company Y is open to seasoned individuals" Companies would also look for people who were a certain number of years of out school. Like, "5 to 10 years experience post-degree." Sure, that could technically mean a 45 year old who went back to school at 35 is qualified for the position, but there is a 0% chance the company would hire that person. The other recruiters would talk about these things pretty explicitly outside of emails. There were a lot of interesting justifications: Older people are harder to train Older people are difficult employees because they are stuck in their ways/used to getting their way Older people expect more benefits/vacation/pay Older people use more sick time Older people don't keep up with developments in the field Discrimination wasn't limited to age. The recruiters were just as happy to help their clients discriminate on race, or gender, or familial status. Really anything. In my experience, age was the only protected class that recruiters would try to suss out how the hiring managers felt about while they were trying to determine the ideal candidate. It seemed to me that the other prejudices would only come to light after the recruiter had a relationship with the hiring manager and had sent them a number of candidates in the past. There were still a lot of euphemisms though. This was just my experience though, and I was working for a small firm. I have no idea what the rest of the field is like at all.

robalfonso 10y ago
I always find this kind of thinking to be counter productive - we are all going to be older. The people hiring, the people recruiting, they will all find the same bias working against them in the future - why not do future you a favor and not perpetuate the bias.
- Declanomous 10y ago
  Some of these recruiters were pretty old themselves. The had a number of justifications for perpetuating the institution of prejudice. Most common were "don't hate the player, hate the game" excuses. They were just working within the system, they don't have any ability to affect the system Hiring managers aren't going to work with us if we send them candidates they are prejudiced against. They'll just work with someone else, or run their own ads, and they'll still be prejudiced. Interviewing with that person would be a a waste of the candidate's time, and they wouldn't want to work for someone like that anyway. Some of the recruiters didn't have justifications, since they didn't feel it was wrong. They just felt they were getting their. Their attitude was pretty much that's the way the cookie crumbles / them's the breaks.

jameshart 10y ago

Not an HR lawyer, but I believe that as long as you weren't exclusively hiring through here, using a site like this as part of your hiring strategy could in fact be used to demonstrate that you are seeking out candidates from a broad range of backgrounds. If you only advertise a role in youth-oriented venues that might itself be grounds for being accused of discriminatory hiring practices, so also considering candidates through a channel like this would help defend against that accusation.

emodendroket 10y ago

Older workers are a protected class but younger workers are not. So specifically recruiting older workers is actually no problem.

amorphid 10y ago

I am 42, and I don't agree with your assessment. I didn't get my first full time software dev gig until age 40 (learned to code over previous few years). The primary thing my employer cares about is my contribution to the company's mission. If lose sight of that, and try selling the value of my many years of X, I am missing the point. To put it another, my age is not coupled to my value. It's up to me, at any age, to focus on what it takes to make my employer more successful. Employer: "I need a developer who can do A, B, and C." Me: "That's me!" Employer: " I can't ask you how old you are, but maybe sometime you can tell me what it was like to start your career at a time when computers read your code off punchcards and ran it on vacuum tubes." Me: "Nah, I started when computers ran on steam and looked like a building sized abacus. All kidding aside, why do you need A, B, and C? Let's talk about how I can help you make mad stacks of greenbacks." Employer: "I like making money! OK, I here's what we're working on..."

happy-go-lucky 10y ago

+1 for age != experience != skill