7 ms·
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 constant
by 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 agoIt'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 agoStrangely 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 agoIf 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.
- zebraflask 9y agoJust memorize a few variations. Not that hard. And, full disclosure, I've only been asked that once - I played dumb, just because I'm contrarian like that - and the interviewer thought I did a fantastic job of "thinking through the problem."
- minsight 9y ago"Implement a red-black tree on a whiteboard" is code for "we don't know how to interview, so we ask about stuff that the hiree will never do". I'm not so sure the "advantage" is actually an advantage.
- tcbawo 9y agoI don't like this question for an interview. But I have also seen and received questions with a larger scope that require working together, asking questions, etc.
- pjmlp 9y agoWhich means Google doesn't know how to interview.
- lin_lin 9y agoI'd agree with that. If it takes 10 interviews for a company to properly assess someone, the problem is most definitely with the company.
- coldtea 9y agoWouldn't that be an argument from authority? Yeah, it's very possible that Google doesn't know how to interview. I don't think it's a solved problem anywhere in the industry -- teams just do what seems to work for them, with lots of false positives and negatives.
- sgift 9y agoNorvig said* that their tracking of peoples performance shows that people who would normally be filtered out by their standard tests, but still were hired due to someone fighting for them do constantly better than those who do well in their interviews. So yes, Google actually doesn't know how to interview. * As far as I remember it was in Coders at Work (very good book btw)
- pc86 9y agoOr maybe this is how it's always been and you're just getting older?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- arvinsim 9y ago> 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. I am still in my early 30's but this really resonated me. All my life I have been conditioned to think that character, experience and expertise is what matters. But the reality is that people will form impressions of you by they first 5 seconds they meet you.
- Kluny 9y agoOnce they get to know you and your work, looking frumpy or whatever becomes a much smaller factor in their opinion of you. But the first impression is often what determines whether they will get to know you or not.
- ycombinete 9y agoYes. Some of our best engineers look rather frumpy, but they were all word of mouth/connection hires. If I look at the engineers that we hired based on recruitment and CVs alone, they are all young, in-shape, and attractive.
- oblio 9y ago> But the reality is that people will form impressions of you by they first 5 seconds they meet you. This is something everyone should probably learn early on. Or at least be mentally prepared to overcome a bad first impression (which is much harder!).
- onion2k 9y agoI am constantly pestered by recruiters and companies to interview. The people who find candidates to interview are not the same people as the managers who decide who to hire. The fact you're getting lots of recruiters chasing you just means recruiters don't discriminate on your age; it says nothing about the hiring managers.
- PhoneAccount 9y agoConditional probabilities -> it does say something.
- pc86 9y agoRecruiters typically don't want to waste their time with folks who aren't going to get selected. They're competing against a lot of other recruiters filling the spot, and with their top candidates finding another job on their own or through a different recruiter. Perhaps this means that as a 40+ year old developer, you're more likely to get a job if you go through a recruiter, as opposed to sending your resume off on your own?
- onion2k 9y agoRecruiters typically don't want to waste their time with folks who aren't going to get selected. As someone who gets sent candidates by recruiters, I don't think this is true.
- QuantumGravy 9y ago> Recruiters typically don't want to waste their time with folks who aren't going to get selected. My spam folder says otherwise. There are still enough bad recruiters out there (or bad recruiter spam-bots) hitting me up for positions that don't remotely match any skills I've ever listed anywhere. Not worth my time.
- mcv 9y agoThis could definitely explain something. I have no trouble finding work, but I apparently look young for my age (some friends of my younger sister (who looks great herself) thought I was her younger brother), and most recruiters these days seem to find me through linkedin, where I have a photo. I don't normally send a photo with my CV, but I only just realized that my linkedin profile of course has a photo. In another comment here I mentioned an older co-worker who is retraining to front-end developer, but he was Dutch champion marathon skating a couple of years ago, so he is absolutely fit (if a bit wrinkly). But somehow selecting for appearance and fitness for a programming job is even weirder than selecting for age.
- pm90 9y agoIs it really that weird though? You really want your workers to be healthy, full of energy and dynamic. But I have known very amazing programmers who are not so fit though. So I guess its not a very good idea to discriminate based on appearance.
- mcv 9y agoExactly. Young and skinny does not automatically mean hard or smart worker. My son is absolutely young and very, very skinny, but it's very hard to make him do anything other than hang on the couch.
- chiefalchemist 9y agoAgreed. You are what people see. Whether that's past experience, or your physical fitness. Humans are tribal. For better or worse, we are attracted to those most like ourselves. All other things being mostly equal, we'll pick the person like us. Put another way, people with experience usually like to flaunt it. No one wants to hire and over-used asshole.
- gaius 9y agoI trimmed my resume to omit material older than 5 years Does this mean you only apply for jobs wanting 5 years experience?