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Job applicants over 40 filtered out by employers

• philovivero 9y ago
  Cool. Zero comments. This is a bigger problem in tech than a lot of other industries. Welcome to the meritocracy!
  • chank 9y ago
    Not sure if sarcasm or not. This study would imply anything but meritocracy.
    • vixen99 9y ago
      It's a meritocracy in the eyes of the employers. As the article states, for employers, merit is assessed on tbe basis of applicants' ability to learn new things, being adaptable and flexible and being driven and taking initiative. What we don't know is whether employers are correct in their assumption that 40-plus applicants can't cut it on those considerations.
• Keyframe 9y ago
  Time for some heavy stick and penalties, laws exist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination#Legal_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination#Lega... Challenge is to prove it.
  • fludlight 9y ago
    An employment lawyer chimed in on this in another thread. Apparently discrimination laws are generally only enforceable at the end of employment, but discrimination is much more prevalent at the beginning. It's much harder to prove that some didn't get hired for a prohibited reason than it is to prove they got fired for one.
• SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
  Since it is not legal for employers to require you to give your age as part of an application, doesn't this simply encourage candidates to lie about their age? One way that age is given away on resumes is to look at work history or date of college graduation. In lieu of the current situation, is it not advisable to simply not give the date of graduation and only provide the previous 5-10 years of work experience on resume? It isn't a perfect approach, but it makes it more difficult to discriminate since by the time you have a face-to-face interview with the employer you are already well along in the interview process.
  • tootie 9y ago
    If you list enough experience or your college dates, it can be inferred.
    • ClassyJacket 9y ago
      I think that's what they were referring to by saying "In lieu of the current situation, is it not advisable to simply not give the date of graduation and only provide the previous 5-10 years of work experience on resume?" It seems like the point is you might be better off not listing university years or more than 5 years of experience, so your age cannot be inferred before they talk to you. Of course, 90% of people will have social media accounts that will make this useless if the employer tries hard enough.
      • tootie 9y ago
        I'm a actually going to start scrubbing my LinkedIn and resume and see what happens.
        • dep_b 9y ago
          I'm working remotely for a startup where my bosses are 25. When I stepped into the office in person for the first time they immediately commented they didn't expect me to be this old. Probably wouldn't hire me if they knew they had to manage somebody 15 years older. Graduated 5 years ago. Didn't list any experience longer than 10 years ago because I didn't want anyone to think I was actually going to do Java and PHP every in my life. Age: almost 40. Thinking about doing a master and hiding my bachelor once I have it, it'll probably help ;)
• nether 9y ago
  "You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? They take them out back, and shoot them." - Primer
  • ronilan 9y ago
    This reminds me of the off topic question I always had about YC - "if it is an incubator for fungus - is it valuable?"
    • cyphar 9y ago
      "And there was value in the thing, clearly, that they were certain of. But what is the application? In a matter of hours, they had given it into everything from mass transit to satellite launching, imagining devices the size of jumbo jets. Everything would be cheaper. It was practical, and they knew it. But above all that, beyond the positives, they knew that the easiest way to be exploited is to sell something they did not yet understand." I've always been quite impressed by the writing in Primer. The dialogue is a massive departure from the clean world of Hollywood but it makes it feel far more frantic but also real.
• daxfohl 9y ago
  I didn't have too much trouble last year at 41. Took a couple months to get any traction at all, but then suddenly got a few interviews and eventually some offers all in quick succession. Maybe I was lucky though. After reading this story I'm definitely more inclined to stick with the position I have rather than to try to go out on my own again. Another talking point: the trend of waiting until late 30's to have kids greatly compounds this problem.
  • tootie 9y ago
    I've been actively searching the last few months and my resume is getting rejected on sight despite many years of experience doing exactly what the requirement states. I honestly don't know if it's agism, their expectation that I'll demand more salary or It's just written poorly.
    • justrudd 9y ago
      If you don't mind me, a 40 something taking a couple of months off from work, asking what area of the world you're doing your search?
      • tootie 9y ago
        New York.
    • ams6110 9y ago
      When you're past entry level, you need to be getting jobs through your network not by cold-calling or submitting resumes in response to ads. I've changed jobs three times since I was 40, but in all cases I knew people at my new employer who could sell me internally. I don't think it's so much age as it is that employers don't want to take as much risk on an unknown person for more senior level positions.
      • tootie 9y ago
        It's how I got my last job. I haven't actually been hired off my resume in 10 years. Almost all of my network today do the crap I'm trying to get away from.
• notadoc 9y ago
  Harsh and an obvious problem for those over 40 and industry in general, but is this simply the natural result of companies optimizing for maximum productivity at the lowest possible cost to them? Many 40+ year olds have families or other life obligations outside of work, and thus they may not be as willing to put in absurd hours that a young employee could be squeezed for. The older employee also might be more likely to take weekends off, and want to use vacation time. Additionally, someone over 40 is supposed to be in or near their peak earning years, which lasts ten to twenty more years (or did historically anyway) so their expenditure is going to be significantly more than someone with a few years of experience. I realize it's one of the lamest analogies possible, but for many companies, employees are quite literally a cog in a larger machine, and so they want the cheapest possible cog at a reasonable quality level that works the longest before breaking down (quitting, getting fired, burning out, etc). To fight this, I'd bet those over 40 would have to aim to get into important management and executive positions, which are less likely to be swapped out for less experienced, less demanding, and cheaper labor.
  • nhebb 9y ago
    > Many 40+ year olds have families or other life obligations outside of work Why is this a (seemingly) common belief? It seems backwards to me. I had a lot more obligations outside of work in my 20's and 30's when my kids were young than after 40. I'm in my early 50's, and I have more free time now than ever.
    • mahyarm 9y ago
      The first few years of childhood are absolutely time consuming. You have less and less obligations as they get older and reach teenagehood. They want to spend less time with you!
    • notadoc 9y ago
      I suspect it's because many people are having kids later in life nowadays due to career, education, circumstance, priorities, happenstance, etc. I personally know tons of people in their late 30s and early 40s having their first child, or maybe their second.
• noncoml 9y ago
  So, age discrimination is not tech specific, but unlike other industries, tech workers change jobs much more often and that creates the illusion that the problem is more tech industry related.
• Banthum 9y ago
  >A questionnaire study directed at a selection of employers shows that there are three characteristics that the employers consider to be important and are worried that employees over the age of 40 have begun to lose: the ability to learn new things, being adaptable and flexible and being driven and taking initiative. Open question - is there any research on to what degree these three worries are true?
  • kem 9y ago
    Not really an expert in this particular area, but the research I'm aware of kind of suggests if anything the opposite is true, depending on what you mean by "the ability to learn new things." There's some cognitive decline, but it tends to start after 25 or so, and it's mostly associated with slowed speed per se rather than learning ability. There's also some controversy in that the declines might be associated with serious health conditions, that are associated with age, rather than age per se. The other things you mention either stay the same or increase with age, which strikes people as kind of counter-intuitive, which speaks to stereotypes people have.
• krapp 9y ago
  Welp. Guess it's freelancing and minimum wage shift-work until I die, then.
  • thesagan 9y ago
    Right? Sometimes I wonder about sticking around in this business.
    • a3n 9y ago
      No need to wonder or worry, when you get old enough people will help you decide.
  • itg 9y ago
    Sometimes I really do wish I went into an industry where experience matters, such as law or medicine.
    • collyw 9y ago
      Someone needs to clean up the crap left by all these 20 somethings. We have 3 developers all nearly or over 40 cleaning up the mess done by someone who appears to have been in his early 20's. The system works, but it could have been done with a fraction of the complexity.
  • woogiewonka 9y ago
    Sorry to hear freelancing is not working well for you. What's your line of work?
    • krapp 9y ago
      Mostly web development in PHP and Javascript (kitchen sink "hack my Wordpress/Business Catalyst" stuff,) but I have experience with C++ and C# from a business application programming degree that I can't find any work with. All the programming I've done for the last couple of years has been for personal projects. My actual job is in an Amazon fulfillment center, though.
• ruleabidinguser 9y ago
  Whats the logic here? Are applicants >40 generally worse performers?
  • hackits 9y ago
    No one has mentioned that sometimes older people don't fit into the culture of the business.
    • ThomPete 9y ago
      So funny to be called older people when you are 43 and party with the best of them. Anyway. This is why I decided to start my own company again after 4 1/2 years at Square. This way age becomes an asset rather than a liability.
      • hackits 9y ago
        I think if you're 43 and can party with young people in there 20's then you've screwed up somewhere along the way.
        • ThomPete 9y ago
          In what regard?
      • flukus 9y ago
        How do you recover? I'm only 33 and while I can still party with the best of them it takes it out of me. No more $1 drinks until midnight on Thursdays and being back at work at 8am.
        • ThomPete 9y ago
          I don't recover I just don't do it as often as I used to :) I have two kids how wake me up between 5-6 am.
    • a3n 9y ago
• SQL2219 9y ago
  If only there were some kind of physically demanding test for employment, I would then punish all those youngsters by going to the front of the line.
• ThomPete 9y ago
  I am 43 I know this is true. Even for people in their thirties. This is why I decided to start my own company again after 4 1/2 years at Square which was probably the last time I ever would be working for someone else. This way age becomes an asset rather than a liability.
  • YZF 9y ago
    I've struggled with this for the last 15 years ;) the "romantic" me wants to start my own company but it seems a lot less risky to get a well paying job working for "the man" than starting your own company. I can write code but I'm not sure I can do what needs to be done to run a business. Did you get investors? Any tips? Did you have a specific idea you wanted to pursue? I've also been pretty fortunate to always have interesting stuff to work on while getting paid very well and always have options. People I've worked with would generally work with me again and/or want to hire me.
  • tcbawo 9y ago
    I've often wondered whether this industry is similar to Hollywood with its ageism. Once you get in, there are often many roles available. But at some point, you need to start creating roles for yourself (if you can).
• prawn 9y ago
  With general increases in the age to receive a pension (increasing six months every two years in Australia), but challenges in finding employment, what bridging options are there? What's the landscape going to look like for 50 year olds if re-skilling after a lay-off doesn't always help?
• subru 9y ago
  I will be 40 next year. Humans are expendable; we have to make our own worth. If we don't do that, we end up like I am right now: a year from 40, homeless, broke, in a lot of debt, out of work, failed startup, facing a felony on false accusation. Life is challenging for me now, and this article directly applies to me. Oh, and there's that thing about being a white male and suicide. Now imagine being a kind of intimidating looking type in a very non white anti trump area. Tribalism is real. Had I stuck with my tribe early on I'd be more secure. My demise is probable at this time. I am solid in my desire to self terminate yet lack the ability to overcome fear of death. I stay alive but it's closer than ever. It's almost a humane thing to let me go. I wouldn't wish my brain on anyone. Good luck all.
  • woogiewonka 9y ago
    Have you tried freelancing? Not sure what it is you did before but could be worth a shot? I'm making now more than I ever had being employed and don't have to answer to anyone but myself.
    • 77pt77 9y ago
      Do you have any specific tips on how to get started getting work? Also, are you over 40?
      • woogiewonka 9y ago
        I'm 31. I couldn't find any work so I went out freelancing. I am a UX UI designer and started on Upwork. It's not a good long term solution in terms of projects but I believe it's a great place to start. What worked for me was not to compete on price. I priced myself above most freelancers and it seemed to work. Now more and more of my business is coming from referrals but I still get good projects from Upwork. I turn down about 90% of requests on there. It starts off a bit slow but snowball quickly. I say all of this without knowing your industry but I'm sure the same principles can be applied to any type of work, may just need to look for other avenues of initial leads.
• ErikVandeWater 9y ago
  How did they actually test this? Without details, there is no new information. As well, do we know that there are no confounding variables in these findings? As a hypothetical employer I might think these roles are lesser roles, so if you are older I would wonder why you had not been able to secure a greater economic situation. Second, as consumer facing roles, attractiveness is a benefit, with those over 40 having less of it. It is not discrimination on the basis of age, but attractiveness that would be the cause.
  • SOLAR_FIELDS 9y ago
    This is a tough one, because it's rooted in reason. The employer asks themselves "This guy is applying for an entry-level or junior role at a very senior age, why are they doing so? I must be on guard for potential problems because if this guy is still applying for these kinds of roles at this age there must be something wrong with him/her". The worst part about this is that it's somewhat rooted in truth in a lot of cases - but it shouldn't be a preclusion to an interview at least. I try to view things as objectively as possible and give objective examinations to avoid this kind of bias. With consumer-facing roles, I think that is an acceptable bias to have. After all, the courts have ruled that Hooters can discriminate on basis of gender for their consumer facing roles (not back end such as chefs though). For joe schmoe engineer that only writes code and rarely/never talks to the end user though there is no excuse.
    • Broken_Hippo 9y ago
      I don't agree that most consumer-facing roles should be able to discriminate in such a way. Does it matter if your wal-mart cashier is older or younger in the same manner that it does at Hooters - or any other establishment that is based on looking at people? I'd argue not. Hooters - and modeling agencies, nudie bars, and so on - actually have a business based on how their employees look. Stores, offices, and so on? The truth is that it doesn't matter. Unlike Hooters, they wouldn't lose a large base of their customers.
• woogiewonka 9y ago
  31 here. Couldn't find work for 6 mo despite being well qualified for positions I applied for. My guess: too many applicants for the same position. Ended up going the freelancer route, couldn't be happier now. Sorry, I know this doesn't relate to age (I don't think) but just wanted to say that.
  • 77pt77 9y ago
    How do you put your freelance work on your resume? Do you list projects, companies, time spans? If you apply to a "regular" job, how are those references checked?
    • erichurkman 9y ago
      Good, long-term clients are worth their weight in gold. Both in terms of regular income, but also references: references for new clients or new employers.
• lquist 9y ago
  I don't speak the language, so I'm unable to read the underlying report, but I hope this quote is out of context in the article: "There should be no doubt that the employers discriminate on the basis of age," when the study itself shows discrimination for very specific roles: administrators, chefs, cleaners, restaurant assistants, retail sales assistants, business sales agents and truck drivers.
• badsock 9y ago
  I don't understand why everyone bought the idea that we don't need unions anymore. This is exactly the sort of thing they make better.
  • booleandilemma 9y ago
    Because so many developers think they are unique snowflakes who are better than everyone else, and a union would just drag them down to everyone else's level. Unions are for people who work on assembly lines, right?
    • netheril96 9y ago
      Special snowflakes or not, a group of majority young people won't unionize themselves if the benefit mainly goes to old people. Granted, everybody ages, but unions of today may not survive into the days when the young of today become old.
      • chodeLoad 9y ago
        Which definitely points to a truth, obvious as it is disquieting: brutal violence lies ahead. Seriously. Unions have been pretty violent for well over a century, as labor struggles have circulated the force of shockwaves created by obstinate dysfunction on both sides, but because of this, a collective memory of known quantities had built up. Now, in a sudden bout of amnesia, certain mistakes are primed to repeat themselves. Others not so much, but how to guess which errors boil over first, and why, without understanding the roots of each problem? Technology and any related social change will augment outcomes, but not always in a good way. On the one hand technology empowers mobility and learning, on the other hand, eavesdropping and misinformation.
    • tonyedgecombe 9y ago
      So I expect a lot of people here are well above average and wouldn't be better off represented by a union.
  • kjksf 9y ago
• justboxing 9y ago
  > In the study, the researchers sent more than 6,000 fictitious job applications to employers who had posted job ads for administrators, chefs, cleaners, restaurant assistants, retail sales assistants, business sales agents and truck drivers to then compile the employers’ responses, such as invitations to job interviews. Not trying to be in denial, but all these jobs appear to be blue collar jobs (assuming "administrators" is office admins and not Sys Admins / Network Admins :) . Any data on whether this happens in our Tech / I.T. Industry, where every other month, you read a story on severe shortage of skilled tech workers everywhere?
  • stevenwoo 9y ago
    In the past year there was a (edit 2:) NOT a settlement in one of the age discrimination lawsuits against Google. Got a postcard to notify me I was a member and with info on how to opt in or opt out. (edit 1, I found the link) www.GoogleAgeDiscriminationLawsuit.com
    • delroth 9y ago
      Do you have a source on this settlement? As far as I can tell from online searches and the website you linked, the lawsuit is still ongoing.
      • stevenwoo 9y ago
        Made a mistake, should I edit my posting or only put it here? I got a postcard with a deadline of April 4, 2017 to submit an opt in.
  • tooltalk 9y ago
    I have to concur with you. I've been hearing about this death at 40 thing for decades and I think it's a bit blown up, especially in IT field. There were a lot of folks warning about this even during the dot com bubble when there was very severe IT labor shortage. In my 20 year IT career -- and I've worked mostly in tech/finance in the NYC area -- the only downturns I noticed were during the most extreme financial crisis, such as the dot com bubble (2001 -- I was at an internet startup) and the housing crash (2008 - I was at Merrill). Most of my buddies in my age group are doing quite well. Even those non-technical folks who used to complain about the age discrimination two decades when they were in their 20's, are now employed in semi-technical jobs. Now, I'm pretty sure that the age discrimination is real in other industries, but it's still quite difficult to find qualified, experienced candidates in IT, regardless of age.
• zebraflask 9y ago
  I just turned 40. There is an unfortunate grain of truth, especially among start ups, but it would be a mistake to think the situation that dire. I am constantly pestered by recruiters and companies to interview. I think one of the things that helps is that I trimmed my resume to omit material older than 5 years, removed unnecessary dates, and I make a point of drawing attention to studying for new industry certifications. It probably doesn't hurt that I stay physically fit, either. As cruel as it may be, if you're out of shape and look "frumpy" or "run down," that will count against you far, far worse than your age. The key is to make the age factor irrelevant by not drawing unnecessary attention to it or by projecting a stereotypical "middle aged" image. We can argue all day about whether that's fair or not (it's not), but you have to do what you have to do.
  • sillysaurus3 9y ago
    It's true that it's common to be pestered by recruiters. But the next step is to actually do an interview. And I think in that step you'll have to demonstrate excellence beyond the standard skillset. (Mostly because very few companies rely on work-hire tests as the sole metric for hiring someone.) This situation sucks, and it seems to be getting worse. Or maybe it's always been bad and it's finally been brought to light.
    • zebraflask 9y ago
      Strangely enough, I've rarely encountered interviews that demanded more than the standard skill set. In any event, someone with 10 or 15+ fewer years of experience is easy to beat on technical questions - that's the benefit of experience!
      • sillysaurus3 9y ago
        If you're 10 or 15 years out of college, you're way less likely to be able to answer the standard "Implement a red-black tree on a whiteboard" type question. Recent grads have a tremendous advantage here.
        • 9y ago
• TheBobinator 9y ago
  A few observations. First off, companies like Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle, and even Google, are running entirely off of the centralized education system in the US. These are companies that got their software into curriculum and taught everyone their way of doing things, then engaged in shoving their software and a lot of labor into large organizations making a gargantuan mess that was glossed over with lots of "free overtime". Compare Cisco CLI to Juniper, or Microsoft to Debian, or MS SQL to Oracle; who's going in who's direction. Why? If you made the investment in understanding exclusively those companies products you went along the technological imperialism trip and now that you're on the other side, and you never spend time understanding the theory or building critical thinking skills, you're washed up. 20 years working on a massive oracle mainframe or with purely Cisco R&S becomes a liability, the reason being, you never tried to find a better way to do things or try to eliminate your job and replace it with something better. There's an honesty in Meritocracy; The market has always valued the independent thinking, hard-working, incredibly knowledgeable IT staff with a tremendous depth of understanding of infrastructure, programming, politics, and equipment over what 95% of the IT market has become. 95% of the people I've worked with expect the solution to be in some arcane google search result or in a book; they don't expect to go on the journey of finding the answer. What they never develop is real creativity, a real understanding of the systems they work with, or a real understanding of the architecture, why things are done, or the process of how to build on themselves; to set a path for themselves and others that that eventually brings about a finished product. The entire IT industry is maturing and getting older and as they do, older staff that haven't done this is viewed as a liability. I'll agree, there's all kinds of ways to try to hire gullible people who don't know their own self-worth. Fact is though, those kinds of companies are on a long-term death spiral of their own making. Every time a large corp outsources, I go look at the 10-k and I see a major cash flow problem of managements making. "The old cranky sysadmin way" is beginning to take at more and more companies and that will trickle into academia as time goes on as management begins to understand what technological imperialism means and what the results are; generally, a total mess. It's a very controversial thing to say these things because it makes a lot of people who aren't that good, or who invested their time in the wrong things feel like they are doomed. Fact is, there's no set career path in IT like there is in other fields like Attorneys and Lawyers, Stock Brokers, Research scientists and Academia. The trick I've discovered is to put in no more than 40hrs a week at work, and if overtime is needed, come home and practice, do architecture work, learn algorithms, make good notes, read programming and architecture and project management books. 40hrs a week is for work, 10-20hrs a week is for self-betterment. Then you come into work, and find ways to eliminate your job. A new approach that saves butt loads of time. Get your assignments done early, then either come up with a new project to work on, move on, or study. Within a few years of doing this, you will be a top-tier programmer\architect\systems admin, whatever you want to do. And while I do feel for people who feel they've fallen behind due to having a family, the fact is from my perspective, the real issues with society are things like 21% of GDP being spent on a scummy healthcare industry, or high incomes of the top 1%, or lack of wage parity tariffs on imports from China. The baby boomers have really messed things up for us. The fact you can't go from a high paying IT job to a factory job or retail management position and still have enough money to put your family in a decent home with 3 hots and a cot and to put your kids through school and college is a failure of society in general, not the IT industry. Those issues need fixed and frankly, contribute a heck of a lot to our messed up society.
• sandoze 9y ago
  I might have 'lucked out', I'm 41. I under performed in my 20s (it was the 90s after all and the bubble burst just as I was gaining momentum in the market) and received my college degree at 30. I assume most people who see my resume consider me 8 - 10 years younger than I really am. Doesn't hurt that I hit the gym and haven't gone gray yet. I went the mobile route (iOS) and haven't had a pay cut in 8 years (currently 200k+ living in the mid-west). Not without its ups and downs, I tend to not get hired at start ups, maybe those 20 somethings smell something is up, but fortune 100s are quick to give me an offer letter. With age comes maturity. It's allowed me to get along better with my co-workers (so many upper 20s, lower 30s tend to be a bit... hot headed) and I'm not afraid to negotiate. The older I've gotten, the more comfortable in my skin and in my skill set I've become. If there's ageism I've yet to experience it and I've worked with people well in their 50s doing mobile. It comes down to who you're working for, what your skill set is, timing and, in my opinion, health. You've got to stay healthy and look healthy! Also, I tend to prune my resume, no one wants to see your experience 8+ years ago. Or maybe it's all luck, ask me in five years what I think when Objc/Swift goes the way of PHP, I might be singing a different tune.
  • jmschlmrs 9y ago
    Unrelated question, but are you working as an iOS developer and making that salary in the Midwest? Or do you have a different role like Architect or PM?
    • sandoze 9y ago
      Strictly as a developer. I tend to gravitate toward team leader. I had a role for about 2 years in health care as a architect. Management wasn't for me.
  • mahyarm 9y ago
    I would think mobile actually favors older people with C++ experience a bit more, since iOS dev does not have garbage collection and doing C type of things can be useful in iOS dev. iOS dev I think wont go PHP level because of the difficulty bar.
  • 9y ago
• geodel 9y ago
  I am unable to reconcile these facts that life expectancy keeps rising and jobs opportunities keeps falling. Government across the world in low/mid or sometimes even high income countries are already running huge budget deficits. So they are not going cheap/free amenities to jobless masses when even people with jobs are finding things expensive.
• Entangled 9y ago
  I am in my fifties with over 30 years programming experience and proficient in 20 languages yet one employer rejected my application because I didn't meet their requirements and they found a better fit. I work fifteen hours a day, can't stop learning and trying new technologies to keep myself on top of the wave.
  • tcbawo 9y ago
    I have been in the business a while myself. It's a lot of work to stay current (and well-rounded). But, I've had relatively long stints in my career with one big industry change. I'm not sure that years of experience necessarily translates from one company to the next, although a proven track record of adaptability and flexibility is helpful. I've come to rely on networking for job opportunities. Having someone willing to vouch for a candidate made a difference when I was on the hiring side.
• EternalData 9y ago
  This is why employment-based purposefulness of life is so dangerous -- I think it is nothing short of a tragedy that the way society is set up validates an utter hopelessness if you are not employed, this despite the fact that there may be structural factors arrayed against you. I've seen it almost chew up my father and I want to resolve that it'll never happen to me, but I know so long as structurally employment remains the default badge of worthiness in a capitalist society -- that it will come to pass for me as well.
• myro 9y ago
  My father, 60 y.o. engineere, in a few months retiree, asked me how to find a reliable freelance basic lvl jobs. The thing is, the country just passed a couple of recession periods, and the retirement program, the country is going to greet him with is around usd100/mo. What obviously is not enough to cover expenses. To find a local job at such age and at that economical situation us just not worth time and effort. And there are literally millions of such as him. I personally will probably not receive any pension at all (currently 32yo.).
• awacs 9y ago
  I left my former industry at 40 (now just over 3 years ago), bootcamp'd and got into dev and it was the best thing I ever did. I've been gainfully employed since the move and love my current job. I can't say it wasn't a lot of work, and yes I feel the competition of the young folks, but it is what it is.
  • daxfohl 9y ago
    Congratulations, and welcome!
  • banku_brougham 9y ago
    that's excellent. i think 'age discomfort' by younger hiring managers can be alleviated if they are reasonable; just be about the task at hand. The unreasonables aren't desirable to work for anyway.
• empressplay 9y ago
  Have a side project in an en vogue "cutting edge" framework or language, and they will care much less about how old you are.
• gexla 9y ago
  > In the study, the researchers sent more than 6,000 fictitious job applications to employers Might this be a clue? Any job application which is in the reaches of an automated process must be a joke endpoint. How many other automated applications do they get selling employee skills, sex, penis enlargement pills, fast loans, malware and other trash. Disclosing information should be the first "BS" smell for a job. I'm often well into getting work done before the person I'm working with figures out how old I am, where I live or other personal details. Granted, that's freelancing. I live in the Philippines where the age requirements are actually advertised. And these ages seem pulled out of a hat. And I get the sense that people running the show at all levels couldn't tell their asses from a hole in the ground. It's a pleasant surprise to find someone who seems competent at convincing you that there's some purpose for them taking up a spot at that spot or role they are taking up in a serious time commitment out of their life. Clearly the hiring process is just as broken as everything else. Why expect that hiring is going to be significantly more awesome than the rest of the system? Don't interact with machines. Get to know real people. Show people what you can do. Preferably find people who tell you they could use your help rather than you telling them that you need a job. ;)
• alanfranzoni 9y ago
  There's ONE thing that really amazes me. A lot of people around the world - not just in Europe or in US - keep speaking about talent crunch, STEM shortage, etc, as an emergency... so, if this research is not flawed, the real issue is that such talent is just ignored at 40?
  • gedy 9y ago
    They only say that to loosen immigration for cheap, visa-dependent developers.
    • brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
      Thank you for saying that. The Elephant was just sitting on everyone's face.
  • pvaldes 9y ago
    Can be also sooner. In some countries researchers are ignored at $Ph_degree_year + 3 years in fact, for random reasons.
• xiaoma 9y ago
  For founders who are fundraising, it's even more extreme. Job applications generally don't and possibly can't ask about age, but it's a required field on applications for YC or other incubators.
  • ddebernardy 9y ago
    That's extremely curious, if it's indeed the case, because older founders tend to succeed more often than their younger peers.
    • xiaoma 9y ago
      For a investor who funds many businesses, EV matters much more than hit rate. TBH, for an early investor, a success rate of over 20% is possibly a sign of being too risk-adverse.
• Animats 9y ago
  "Logan's Run". It's here.
  • banku_brougham 9y ago
    Good movie, good ending.
• justin_vanw 9y ago
  It's very hard (if not impossible) to avoid being biased when reading resumes. Personally I would strongly prefer that resume's I review were anonymized and all hints that might bias me were removed before any decisionmaker see's them or they are filtered. This could help more women and minorities get a foothold at that step in the process (I mean generally, not with me specifically). However, while relatively simple censoring of resumes would remove some bias from review, such as race (can often be hinted at by the name or university attended), gender, etc, and it would prevent googling of the person's name, age is extremely hard to hide. You can see a person's job history, which is generally will tell you their age within +-5 years. One partial solution might be to only list job history for the previous 10 years and remove the year a degree was earned, but relative seniority at the beginning of that 10 year work history will still be a very effective proxy for determining age. So, unfortunately I think we can't hide age in an effective way without removing critical information from a resume (removing everything else we can that can be removed should be removed or hidden), but I think it's interesting to speculate on why older workers will be filtered out. I suspect it is a belief (or intuition aka unconscious belief) that someone applying for junior or entry level positions when they are > 40yo is correlated with 'something being wrong', since if there is nothing wrong you would have expected them to have reached a point in their career that they no longer have to blindly submit resumes for these kinds of positions. I wonder what would happen in a study like this if the resume's representing older hypothetical candidates included some kind of cover letter explaining the situation. For example, saying that they started out working at a bank for 15 years but they found a passion for cooking and that is why they only have 5 years of experience as a chef. My guess would be that not only would this undo the bias against them, but you would find a strong bias towards them (just a guess).
• baybal2 9y ago
  The market conjuncture is not skewed only one way. Right now, people whose career went under 10 years ago, are competing with people in their 20ies. IT industry has a disproportional portion of people in "senior" level positions. Companies want to hire professionals in their prime, and look at anybody else as a second grade cadre.
• drawkbox 9y ago
  At any age, just ship products that are quality and marketable. Have good routines and get things done. Stay well informed and educated. Your only useless when you decide you are useless, everything else is just noise. Averages and means are not necessarily definitive of what individual experience will be. Technology and mobile/web/games are still young industries, in all new industries they start/skew younger. Radio for instance was young at inception but is now older in terms of age, it takes a couple decades for people to decide it is worth pursuing or starting in. Being a web developer has only been around for 20 years and being a mobile developer only a decade truly (smartphone era). People are going to skew younger here and more coders are 40-50 and younger. As time goes on this will change and skew older. Incidentally because it is a young industry, there is a large divide of people that grew up with the internet and ones before, same on mobile. I think that hangs over the age thing. Older people used to be bad at tech but most people in their 40s even grew up with it or used it very young. Many of my older coder friends started with commodore 64s, Apple IIs and had to find answers before Google, they are now mobile/game/app/web developers. Many of them are more knowledgeable than younger coders today may ever be because they were in the time when everything was being built and the layers were easier to see. There is tons of cruft for a young coder to navigate and once you get out of college (22-24) or masters (27-30) and work for 5-10 years and get your head around this skill, they call you too old, it is a bit cruel but goes back to the young industry bit. On the brightside, our industry is also unique, we can break out on our own and still compete enough to provide a living. In other industries and lines of work, the costs to startup are immense and risky, bootstrapping is easier in technology. Either in freelance or software as a service or starting something, there is always an option if you keep coding/building/shipping/solutions. Programming is a meta skill like business and marketing that allows you to literally go into almost any industry. Most people in tech around their late 30s or 40s want to start their own thing and that is a benefit. Young developers may be too uncomfortable doing that because of their confidence and experience. Even lawyers and doctors, if they don't start their own practice, put up with the same push around that everyone else does as they age and get experience. What you need to do is find your own vehicle around this time so you can navigate the waters with a little more command. Just ship and build things, don't get caught up in the averages. There is a lack of coders still that can deliver from start to live, in fact this situation appears to be getting worse. Provide that and you will always be marketable. Side note: if you are over 40, I'd suggest paying for your own individual independent insurance. I feel health insurance is another pressure on older engineers in startups at least. I have seen at least two guys get run out based on health conditions and age. Once health insurance is separated from the job, ageism is less intense at these types of places.
• pleasecalllater 9y ago
  That's hilarious. In medicine, a 30-year-old MD is too young to make some more complicated operations alone. In IT a 30-year-old programmer is just too old to be hired. The funniest interview I had was with some blonde girl in her twenties, who read through my CV and said: "Oh, you see. We cannot send your application to our client. You see, here I have hundred of applications from people at your age, who are managers in their thirties, and you are not. There is most probably something wrong with you." And it was a position for a programmer, not a manager. And it was when I was in my early thirties, not forties. Currently, I'm almost 40, and I seek only for remote work (family issues). I have been paid for programming for the last 14 years. I had different jobs like sysadmin, dba, programmer; using over 10 different languages. And despite all that searching for work is really hard. Usually, it stops at the recruiter who is only interested in an answer to "how much do you want to get?". After that, there is no counter offer, no negotiation, nothing. Sometimes there is an answer like "you want too much, but don't negotiate at this recruitment step". When I get to the technical part of the interview, I usually get some Yeti-Level programs to write. Yeti-Level, because you are not going to write anything like that in those time restrictions in that jobs. A good example is implementing a program which gets input from a file, in the input, there are domino tiles, and a function needs to match them and find the longest chain... all must be super optimized from the beginning. And you have 5-10 minutes to do everything, including reading the task description, examples and writing tests. The funny fact is that this company is searching for candidates for months. The sad fact is that due to such strange recruitment process, good old experienced programmers will starve. I really think that I did very bad choice with my career. There are so many other jobs where people are not removed because of age, and experience is really appreciated. In IT you just need to accept that companies want young inexperienced kids, who want to get little figures, but a game room is a must.
  • jbreckmckye 9y ago
    > I really think that I did very bad choice with my career. Sadly, I have come to a similar conclusion: tech is a great way to earn money early (because the wages rise quickly), but the ceiling hits early and is quite hard to break through. Use those early years to save up money, then switch to something else.
• tomohawk 9y ago
  In government contracting, the jobs can be hit or miss. There's some really good ones and some stinkers. They usually pay based on experience. Jobs requiring 20+ years are of course more rare than ones requiring just a degree and no experience. A buddy of mine who's 60 decided he'd take an entry level Java job for a few years after being in a challenging senior architect role. The pay is less, but he loves it. Part of the challenge of getting a new job after 40 is deciding whether it really matters whether you're making the same or more $$ in the next job or not. Many people are unwilling to take a pay cut when they have 20 years of experience, even though the job only requires 5.
• chiefalchemist 9y ago
  Is there (age) discrimination? Of course. That said, there are qualifications and there's "fit." The more experience you have, the stronger the signal on what you might (or might not) enjoy. For example, if you're 40+ and most your resume says startup, do you really expect a blue chip international to be interested in you? Do you really want them to be? Sure, maybe YOU really need a job. But history probably shows you'll leave as soon as you can land another startup opportunity. Again, not doubt there's bias in the hiring process. But bias can have a purpose. And sometimes you have to live with the depth and breadth of your CV.
• Aron 9y ago
  I'm more concerned personally with the fact that at nearly 40, I think I can actually notice getting dumber. :-/