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My apologies that this is slightly off topic to the wider discussion about IBM's layoffs, but if hiring people based off of their skills is unacceptable as you

My apologies that this is slightly off topic to the wider discussion about IBM's layoffs, but if hiring people based off of their skills is unacceptable as you say, how are people supposed to make hiring decisions? EDIT: Somehow, the parent comment this was made as a reply to (notacoward's above-thread) has moved, and this comment has become top-level (and a non-sequitur). Is this a bug?

mung 8y ago
I don't believe the parent is not saying that, they are saying these employers are using age as a metric but calling it 'skills'. In which case they better be able to explain what these supposed skills are.
Zelphyr 8y ago
I don't think the suggestion is to not hire based on skill but rather to ignore age as any kind of requirement for the position.
cableshaft 8y ago
They could offer to retrain these people in new technology instead of just laying them off and hiring new people. I learn at least one or two new technologies with every job change I make, and I'm not even usually given formal training. With formal training policies I'm sure they could shift employees to other projects and then keep their domain knowledge, but because they're old and more expensive than the young'ns, we'll just claim they don't have the skills for the new jobs and lay them off instead, and save that money! Domain knowledge and experience is criminally underrated nowadays. A company I've worked for is currently going through one fire after another constantly because the executives haven't valued domain knowledge and has forced or outsourced just about everyone who knows anything about the projects that they still have paying clients for and need to support to keep making revenue, and things are just barely not falling completely apart (looks like things are going to get worse here pretty soon though). And this isn't even ageism, really, even the young devs that have only been there a couple of years are being forced out.
- scarface74 8y ago
  They could offer to retrain these people in new technology instead of just laying them off and hiring new people. Yes they could but seeing that most companies don’t, why not just accept reality for what it is and study and keep yourself marketable? I’m in my mid 40s and I make it a point to stay qualified for the well paying developer/architect jobs that come in my email. When I see that the company I am working for isn’t going to keep me marketable, it’s time to leave.
yayana 8y ago
As an example of "skills" abuse, one can call engineers with 3 years typescript/react/redux/noSQL senior and 10 years frontend development across what existed over the last 10 years (possibly including typescript/react/redux) are too qualified for "JS" positions one is no longer filling. The reality is that years of experience in the general area include a lot of transferable skills to actually deliver in a landscape of new versions and languages. That landscape won't suddenly stop changing to make whoever learned only what was hot in the last 3 years a stable senior engineer, but pretending it will is a great way to cut out any older engineers.
notacoward 8y ago
> hiring people based off of their skills is unacceptable as you say, how are people supposed to make hiring decisions? Hiring people based on skills is perfectly fine. Hiring people (or firing them, which is what this is about) and just saying it's about skills often is not. That's why I put "skills" in scare quotes. It's like when companies use "culture fit" to mean whichever races, genders, and fads the founders feel comfortable with. It's not that culture fit isn't a real thing, but much more often it's a shibboleth (or "dogwhistle" in current parlance). Similarly, "skills" is clearly the messaging IBM has chosen. Now it's up to them to prove that they were truly making efforts to optimize skills and not something else.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Now it's up to them to prove that they were truly making efforts to optimize skills and not something else. Disparate impact analysis will require them to prove something closer to that they actually we're optimizing skills, not just making efforts to, at least presuming that the unequal impact prong is proven.
- Timmah 8y ago
  > It's like when companies use "culture fit" to mean whichever races, genders, and fads the founders feel comfortable with There you go with your vivid imgination and unproven claims again. "Faith based" debates are quite popular apparently.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    Please try to stay on topic and not just post personal attacks. Do you have anything to say about the actual issue of age discrimination?
    - Timmah 8y ago
      You're woefully confused about the meaning of "personal attack". Calling out unsubstantiated claims is anything but personal. Faith based arguments are irrelevant and unwelcome here. Stay factual with your accusations and you won't have this problem.

mung 8y ago

I don't believe the parent is not saying that, they are saying these employers are using age as a metric but calling it 'skills'. In which case they better be able to explain what these supposed skills are.

Zelphyr 8y ago

I don't think the suggestion is to not hire based on skill but rather to ignore age as any kind of requirement for the position.

cableshaft 8y ago

They could offer to retrain these people in new technology instead of just laying them off and hiring new people. I learn at least one or two new technologies with every job change I make, and I'm not even usually given formal training. With formal training policies I'm sure they could shift employees to other projects and then keep their domain knowledge, but because they're old and more expensive than the young'ns, we'll just claim they don't have the skills for the new jobs and lay them off instead, and save that money! Domain knowledge and experience is criminally underrated nowadays. A company I've worked for is currently going through one fire after another constantly because the executives haven't valued domain knowledge and has forced or outsourced just about everyone who knows anything about the projects that they still have paying clients for and need to support to keep making revenue, and things are just barely not falling completely apart (looks like things are going to get worse here pretty soon though). And this isn't even ageism, really, even the young devs that have only been there a couple of years are being forced out.

scarface74 8y ago
They could offer to retrain these people in new technology instead of just laying them off and hiring new people. Yes they could but seeing that most companies don’t, why not just accept reality for what it is and study and keep yourself marketable? I’m in my mid 40s and I make it a point to stay qualified for the well paying developer/architect jobs that come in my email. When I see that the company I am working for isn’t going to keep me marketable, it’s time to leave.

yayana 8y ago

As an example of "skills" abuse, one can call engineers with 3 years typescript/react/redux/noSQL senior and 10 years frontend development across what existed over the last 10 years (possibly including typescript/react/redux) are too qualified for "JS" positions one is no longer filling. The reality is that years of experience in the general area include a lot of transferable skills to actually deliver in a landscape of new versions and languages. That landscape won't suddenly stop changing to make whoever learned only what was hot in the last 3 years a stable senior engineer, but pretending it will is a great way to cut out any older engineers.

notacoward 8y ago

> hiring people based off of their skills is unacceptable as you say, how are people supposed to make hiring decisions? Hiring people based on skills is perfectly fine. Hiring people (or firing them, which is what this is about) and just saying it's about skills often is not. That's why I put "skills" in scare quotes. It's like when companies use "culture fit" to mean whichever races, genders, and fads the founders feel comfortable with. It's not that culture fit isn't a real thing, but much more often it's a shibboleth (or "dogwhistle" in current parlance). Similarly, "skills" is clearly the messaging IBM has chosen. Now it's up to them to prove that they were truly making efforts to optimize skills and not something else.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> Now it's up to them to prove that they were truly making efforts to optimize skills and not something else. Disparate impact analysis will require them to prove something closer to that they actually we're optimizing skills, not just making efforts to, at least presuming that the unequal impact prong is proven.
Timmah 8y ago
> It's like when companies use "culture fit" to mean whichever races, genders, and fads the founders feel comfortable with There you go with your vivid imgination and unproven claims again. "Faith based" debates are quite popular apparently.
- notacoward 8y ago
  Please try to stay on topic and not just post personal attacks. Do you have anything to say about the actual issue of age discrimination?
  - Timmah 8y ago
    You're woefully confused about the meaning of "personal attack". Calling out unsubstantiated claims is anything but personal. Faith based arguments are irrelevant and unwelcome here. Stay factual with your accusations and you won't have this problem.