7 ms·

If you chose the word "desperate" deliberately, would you mind telling us/me why someone with two-to-three decades of experience becomes "desperate" for a job?

• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• pc86 6y ago
  Not the GP but I can hazard a guess: > What did you work on during those years? Line-of-business apps. VB.NET maybe? Or Java/J2EE type stuff. Probably jobs involving mainframes as core legacy systems? Things where "design" was more a function of where your WYSIWYG editor placed controls than conscious decisions. > Did you keep up with the industry? Enough to read HN, but not enough to keep learning new technologies and not languish at the same company for a decade writing the applications mentioned above.
  • jimbokun 6y ago
    > Not the GP but I can hazard a guess: Please don't, you have no relevant information so your speculation isn't helpful.
    • pc86 6y ago
      "I'm over 40 and now nobody wants to hire me because they're age-ist bigots!!1" is a common refrain that very rarely holds up under any form of scrutiny. And let's not ignore the fact that if you removed speculative comments with no relevant information from HN we'd lose about 2/3 of the userbase.
• faizshah 6y ago
  A lot of the coders over 40 that I know who are experiencing difficulty finding work are coders who spent years working at the same place and chose specialization over staying current. They chose to become the J2EE guy with 10 years experience at a fortune 500 or the off the shelf ecommerce specialist. Being overly loyal to these companies and seeking job security left them with little career security at companies who are quickly being convinced to hire young former Amazon and Google employees to replace them. Based on their experiences I think the best advice is to stay current in your skills, find ways to apply those skills at work so you can get those lines on your resume, and choose to be a generalist rather than specializing. Don’t be loyal to your language or framework, demand for skills in software is more a function of whats fashionable than anything else. Look at where Perl is, many Perl coders were loyal to Perl instead of learning Python. Most importantly, take a look at the ages of your coworkers. Is it really smart to be loyal to a company where there’s few people over 40 working your job? My Dad stayed at a company for 10 years and only got a raise once. Be smart, at some places you’re just a line item.
  • ghaff 6y ago
    Some companies are definitely friendlier to older and longer-tenured employees than others. I've been at my current employer for quite a while and even I was a bit surprised at the number of 20 year anniversaries shown at a recent meeting.
    • mgkimsal 6y ago
      Many companies people apply to work at haven't even been around 20 years, let alone have staff with 20 years at the company. There's a whole subset of folks looking at 'tech' as 'startup', and the goal of those companies is often to get acquired, so, the company won't necessarily be around in 8 years, let alone 20. I've resigned myself to the notion that I'll never get a '20 year anniversary' at a company at this stage of my life. I don't mind, but it was one of those things when you're younger that does seem achievable. Most of the companies I've worked at in the past 25+ years aren't even in business any longer, except for 1, which was already 15+ years old when I started, and that was 15 years ago - had I stayed, that might have been the one chance to hit a '20 year' mark someplace (and I have one colleague who started with me and stayed there, so he might make it).
• downerending 6y ago
  Not OP, but I have an answer. Had to take some time off to deal with the fallout from a nasty divorce. Afterwards, was financially "desperate" due to alimony (which assumes that you never take time off and can always get a new job that pays the same as your prior one). Turns out that it really is hard to get a job when you don't already have one.