4 ms·

Given the young age demographic of HN, I'm looking forward to hearing people's perspectives on the prospects facing people in their fifties who are trying to ge

Given the young age demographic of HN, I'm looking forward to hearing people's perspectives on the prospects facing people in their fifties who are trying to get back to work. If you had two programmers competing for a job, equally qualified, but one who was 25 and the other 55, how would you choose?

brudgers 16y ago
A 55 year old who can't clearly bring more to the table than someone half their age is a concern. If the 25 year old was actually equally qualified, it would make sense to hire that person because they are young enough to move up the management track and into the succession track. So if I'm looking at succession, I'm probably going young. If I'm looking for someone with enough sense to avoid re-inventing the wheel, I'm probably going mature. [all of which is somewhat irrelevant to the effects of unemployment].
- ryanwaggoner 16y ago
  You know this is illegal[1], right? 1. In the US...
  - rdl 16y ago
    Plus, the younger employee will probably be cheaper to insure, and may not have kids (although at 55 someone may not either, and if so would be less likely to gain them). All of which is highly illegal and lame, but may be a factor at some jobs.
  - brudgers 16y ago
    IANAL - But AFAIK, hiring the older worker on the basis of age would never be illegal. Discriminating against an older candidate is illegal in certain circumstances, but not always. http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html In practice, such discrimination appears to be commonplace and virtually unpunished given the burden on the candidate to prove that discrimination actually occurred. Considering that there were 22,000 Federal age discrimination claims in 2009 [http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm] and that 61% of all claims were considered to have no reasonable cause and 17% were closed administratively [http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/all.cfm http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/all.cfm] one could napkin estimate that about 5000 people had some success in claiming age discrimination. I'd be willing to bet that most of those successes were against an employer and not related to the hiring process. Not that any of that makes it right.
- randallsquared 16y ago
  > it would make sense to hire that person because they are young enough to move up the management track and into the succession track. So when you find someone good at code, you want to make sure to move them out of coding when possible and into something that skill and understanding of programming has no bearing on: management. [edit: removed pointlessly antagonistic remark]
  - brudgers 16y ago
    1. In 15 years you always have the option to hire the CTO from outside, but hopefully you have groomed internal candidates and created a culture where high caliber talent will stick. 2. Without opportunity for advancement, your best young talent will apply to YC. 3. Having managers which understand the technical aspects of the projects they manage, doesn't hurt.
lionhearted 16y ago
> If you had two programmers competing for a job, equally qualified, but one who was 25 and the other 55, how would you choose? What's equally qualified mean? I don't see how someone with less than 10 years of experience could possibly be equally qualified as someone with 30+ years of experience. Either the veteran guy has a greater depth of skills and experience, or he's on a fast downward slope and not picking up new skills. If a 55 year old is bringing the same to the table as a 25 year old, the 25 year old is amazingly talented, or the 55 year old has abandoned learning new stuff.
- pmccool 16y ago
  Or the 55 year old started their programming career at age 45. I've seen it happen... Edit: or whatever age would result in equivalent industry experience
  - Benjo 16y ago
    The 55 year old still has 30 extra years of life. You can't dismiss all of that as useless to the job. That's 30 years of learning about communication, teamwork and productivity through just experiencing life. I don't know how you make the argument that the candidates are otherwise equal unless one has a resume item reading: 1970-2000: Coma, Mayo Clinic
KevinMS 16y ago
Web related jobs are often filled with recent college grads, 20-something hipsters, and all kinds of dogmatists who are just uncomfortable with anybody who doesn't fit in. It wasn't like this during the dot-com 90's where I worked with fun motley crews of developers.
brc 16y ago
Your question is very prescient. Every developer has to have a game plan for what they are going to do when they are 50. Like it or not, it's a young mans game, and if you're pushing high age numbers, you've got to either be the go-to guru or the seasoned and sensible manager. If you're going straight up against 25 year olds in skillsets, it's going to be hard to win interviews. Of course, creating your own companies is the other way to get around this.
- hga 16y ago
  Or more like 35-40 from what I've head, seen and experienced. In my case, I was able to unintentionally run a bit of an experiment: starting around 35 or so I found it harder and harder to get work ... until I scrubbed my resume of all evidence of my age, which worked since I don't look my age and generally remembered to not talk about programming PDP-11s in interviews ^_^. I did this in the middle of a job hunt and the change in responses was remarkable.

brudgers 16y ago

A 55 year old who can't clearly bring more to the table than someone half their age is a concern. If the 25 year old was actually equally qualified, it would make sense to hire that person because they are young enough to move up the management track and into the succession track. So if I'm looking at succession, I'm probably going young. If I'm looking for someone with enough sense to avoid re-inventing the wheel, I'm probably going mature. [all of which is somewhat irrelevant to the effects of unemployment].

ryanwaggoner 16y ago
You know this is illegal[1], right? 1. In the US...
- rdl 16y ago
  Plus, the younger employee will probably be cheaper to insure, and may not have kids (although at 55 someone may not either, and if so would be less likely to gain them). All of which is highly illegal and lame, but may be a factor at some jobs.
- brudgers 16y ago
  IANAL - But AFAIK, hiring the older worker on the basis of age would never be illegal. Discriminating against an older candidate is illegal in certain circumstances, but not always. http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html http://www.eeoc.gov/facts/age.html In practice, such discrimination appears to be commonplace and virtually unpunished given the burden on the candidate to prove that discrimination actually occurred. Considering that there were 22,000 Federal age discrimination claims in 2009 [http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm] and that 61% of all claims were considered to have no reasonable cause and 17% were closed administratively [http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/all.cfm http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/all.cfm] one could napkin estimate that about 5000 people had some success in claiming age discrimination. I'd be willing to bet that most of those successes were against an employer and not related to the hiring process. Not that any of that makes it right.
randallsquared 16y ago
> it would make sense to hire that person because they are young enough to move up the management track and into the succession track. So when you find someone good at code, you want to make sure to move them out of coding when possible and into something that skill and understanding of programming has no bearing on: management. [edit: removed pointlessly antagonistic remark]
- brudgers 16y ago
  1. In 15 years you always have the option to hire the CTO from outside, but hopefully you have groomed internal candidates and created a culture where high caliber talent will stick. 2. Without opportunity for advancement, your best young talent will apply to YC. 3. Having managers which understand the technical aspects of the projects they manage, doesn't hurt.

lionhearted 16y ago

> If you had two programmers competing for a job, equally qualified, but one who was 25 and the other 55, how would you choose? What's equally qualified mean? I don't see how someone with less than 10 years of experience could possibly be equally qualified as someone with 30+ years of experience. Either the veteran guy has a greater depth of skills and experience, or he's on a fast downward slope and not picking up new skills. If a 55 year old is bringing the same to the table as a 25 year old, the 25 year old is amazingly talented, or the 55 year old has abandoned learning new stuff.

pmccool 16y ago
Or the 55 year old started their programming career at age 45. I've seen it happen... Edit: or whatever age would result in equivalent industry experience
- Benjo 16y ago
  The 55 year old still has 30 extra years of life. You can't dismiss all of that as useless to the job. That's 30 years of learning about communication, teamwork and productivity through just experiencing life. I don't know how you make the argument that the candidates are otherwise equal unless one has a resume item reading: 1970-2000: Coma, Mayo Clinic

KevinMS 16y ago

Web related jobs are often filled with recent college grads, 20-something hipsters, and all kinds of dogmatists who are just uncomfortable with anybody who doesn't fit in. It wasn't like this during the dot-com 90's where I worked with fun motley crews of developers.

brc 16y ago

Your question is very prescient. Every developer has to have a game plan for what they are going to do when they are 50. Like it or not, it's a young mans game, and if you're pushing high age numbers, you've got to either be the go-to guru or the seasoned and sensible manager. If you're going straight up against 25 year olds in skillsets, it's going to be hard to win interviews. Of course, creating your own companies is the other way to get around this.

hga 16y ago
Or more like 35-40 from what I've head, seen and experienced. In my case, I was able to unintentionally run a bit of an experiment: starting around 35 or so I found it harder and harder to get work ... until I scrubbed my resume of all evidence of my age, which worked since I don't look my age and generally remembered to not talk about programming PDP-11s in interviews ^_^. I did this in the middle of a job hunt and the change in responses was remarkable.