5 ms·

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of agei

by _qulr 6y ago

"But skills can beat ageism" I dislike this typical response, because it comes close to blaming the victim, and indeed many people do blame the victims of ageism, attributing stereotypical attitudes to them. Imagine claiming "skills can beat racism" or "skills can beat sexism". No, nothing beats discrimination, because it was never based on the existence or absence of skills. Rather, prejudiced people take one look at you, see your gray hair, and make assumptions about you, and you can't beat your hair color any more than you can beat your skin color. Well, you could try to dye your hair and get plastic surgery, but again that has nothing to do with skills.

harimau777 6y ago
"Skills can beat ageism" also ignores the fact that many people only have the aptitude for average skills. In a system without discrimination that's not a problem because there are plenty of jobs for average developers.
unishark 6y ago
If you just want to rant against SV, I totally agree. It's certainly not fair, because it basically says you have to "work twice as hard" as they say. But the statement is factually correct. While it would certainly be preferable for society to be the one to change and such that your ageism problem goes away. In the meantime, merit matters, and usable advice for an individual to deal with this problem is by building up their skills. Note that the advice came from a recruiter, not a hiring manager justifying themselves.
- watwut 6y ago
  > It's certainly not fair, because it basically says you have to "work twice as hard" as they say. But the statement is factually correct. It assumes that everyone is lazying around basically. Because of people are not lazying around, no, you can not just work twice as hard. Because you are already working hard, exactly as your competitors do. No people can't double their hard work every time they are treated unfairly. Not if they were actually working in the first place. That goes for ageism, sexism, racism, whatever-ism we talk about.
  - unishark 6y ago
    "Hard work" is ultimately just a simple metaphor. I would characterize the advice here as maneuvering into a niche in your field with the highest demand for labor and with less competition (i.e. the niche using the most up-to-date technologies).
robviren 6y ago
Well said! My product management take on the subject is that people's perception of you is far more important than the reality. Skills or not, your appearance, mannerisms, relatability, and a thousand other things go into other's perceptions. Being older and from another generation changes the perception inherently. Can be good or bad it turns out, but it certainly requires human management skills and cannot be simply solved by "being better". That seems like an engineer's solution to the problem. If people were rational then things could be different, but from what I have seen people do not buy the most efficient and effective products, nor do they hire the most skilled and efficient people. They hire someone because they feel good about hiring them and they believe they will make their lives easier.
danishdev 6y ago
From the experience in the dating market, it's quite pointless to complain about discrimination, it's much smarter to cater to markets where you are positively discriminated.
im3w1l 6y ago
It's a scientific fact that fluid intelligence peaks early. Crystallized intelligence peaks later, but that comes with the assumption that you acquired valuable experience.
matz1 6y ago
Sure you can dislike all you want but what its gonna do? Which is more practical and useful: Change people perception or skills ?
meowzero 6y ago
I'm a software engineer in my 40's. I also worry about ageism. I don't want to victim blame. There is probably discrimination. But I think the older developers have some responsibility in defeating ageism. I know a few SWEs who are older than me. They are already feeling the burnout of learning the new languages, frameworks, technologies every 3-4 years. Some of them are set in their ways thinking, "why would you need anything else other than C++/Java/etc.?" They grumble every time they are forced to learn something new. They have a point. After working in the industry for 15+ years, I empathize. But in this industry, that's unfortunately not the right attitude to have. Another problem I see with older engineers is they are intimidated by the younger kids. I get it. When I interviewed some fresh grads, they seemed extremely talented and smart. I felt intimated by how much they knew. Some of the old guys lose confidence because of that. One old engineer who got laid off gave up looking for another job and faced early retirement. He told me he can't compete with the younger kids who already know all the new technologies and techniques. Besides skills, I think it comes down to your attitude and how you relate to your younger co-workers. Being in my 40's, I still can relate to the kids. I try to bring a "young" energy. I'll see if I can keep this up into my 50's and maybe 60's.
- drchopchop 6y ago
  >Besides skills, I think it comes down to your attitude and how you relate to your younger co-workers Also an engineer in my mid-40's. This is key. You need to be the "cool" dad in the room, and someone people can go to for hard/difficult problems. You also have to stay relevant and keep your skills up to date. Talk about the great ramen place near your house, not how you had to solve Y2K problems with COBOL 20 years ago. The worst case scenario is if you're a bootcamp grad at 40+, you're gonna have all the problems of ageism without any of the experience to counteract it.
  - meowzero 6y ago
    I agree. You need to be the cool uncle or older brother who shows them new tricks and cool stuff. You need to have a mentor like quality for their career growth yet still talk about the latest movies, technologies, games, memes, random geeky stuff, etc. to them
smnrchrds 6y ago
There was a research in Canada about hiring discrimination. One of those ones where they send mock resumes to employers with similar contents but different applicant names: some had English names, some had non-English (mainly Asian IIRC) names. Then they compare the number of callbacks they got from employers. The result of this particular study was that: 1) the resumes with non-English sounding names had much fewer callbacks than the ones with English names. 2) the resumes with more education and experience got more callbacks than the results with less education and experience. 3) if you had a non-English name and a master's, you almost but not quite, had the same rate of callback as someone with a bachelor's and an English name. I imagine some people see this and conclude that skills beat racism. But if the reality is that you have to get a PhD and a couple of years of extra experience under your belt to have the same chance of finding a job as an English Canadian who has newly graduated from good BSc, then this is not skills beating racism. The fact that some people have to do a lot of extra work for the same outcome is the epitome of discrimination.
015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
"Rather, prejudiced people take one look at you, see your gray hair, and make assumptions about you"" Often, I suspect, it isn't even about making conscious assumptions. People just have positive and negative subconscious reactions to certain physical traits. It's striking that you virtually never hear any discussion of "height discrimination", which I put in scare quotes because it barely seems to a recognized concept in the world of work (although it is somewhat recognized in the dating world). Yet there's lots of evidence that tall people have systematic advantages in life. They're seen as leaders, more likely to become CEOs, more like to be elected to political office, etc.

by _qulr 6y ago

harimau777 6y ago

"Skills can beat ageism" also ignores the fact that many people only have the aptitude for average skills. In a system without discrimination that's not a problem because there are plenty of jobs for average developers.

unishark 6y ago

If you just want to rant against SV, I totally agree. It's certainly not fair, because it basically says you have to "work twice as hard" as they say. But the statement is factually correct. While it would certainly be preferable for society to be the one to change and such that your ageism problem goes away. In the meantime, merit matters, and usable advice for an individual to deal with this problem is by building up their skills. Note that the advice came from a recruiter, not a hiring manager justifying themselves.

watwut 6y ago
> It's certainly not fair, because it basically says you have to "work twice as hard" as they say. But the statement is factually correct. It assumes that everyone is lazying around basically. Because of people are not lazying around, no, you can not just work twice as hard. Because you are already working hard, exactly as your competitors do. No people can't double their hard work every time they are treated unfairly. Not if they were actually working in the first place. That goes for ageism, sexism, racism, whatever-ism we talk about.
- unishark 6y ago
  "Hard work" is ultimately just a simple metaphor. I would characterize the advice here as maneuvering into a niche in your field with the highest demand for labor and with less competition (i.e. the niche using the most up-to-date technologies).

robviren 6y ago

Well said! My product management take on the subject is that people's perception of you is far more important than the reality. Skills or not, your appearance, mannerisms, relatability, and a thousand other things go into other's perceptions. Being older and from another generation changes the perception inherently. Can be good or bad it turns out, but it certainly requires human management skills and cannot be simply solved by "being better". That seems like an engineer's solution to the problem. If people were rational then things could be different, but from what I have seen people do not buy the most efficient and effective products, nor do they hire the most skilled and efficient people. They hire someone because they feel good about hiring them and they believe they will make their lives easier.

danishdev 6y ago

From the experience in the dating market, it's quite pointless to complain about discrimination, it's much smarter to cater to markets where you are positively discriminated.

im3w1l 6y ago

It's a scientific fact that fluid intelligence peaks early. Crystallized intelligence peaks later, but that comes with the assumption that you acquired valuable experience.

matz1 6y ago

Sure you can dislike all you want but what its gonna do? Which is more practical and useful: Change people perception or skills ?

meowzero 6y ago

I'm a software engineer in my 40's. I also worry about ageism. I don't want to victim blame. There is probably discrimination. But I think the older developers have some responsibility in defeating ageism. I know a few SWEs who are older than me. They are already feeling the burnout of learning the new languages, frameworks, technologies every 3-4 years. Some of them are set in their ways thinking, "why would you need anything else other than C++/Java/etc.?" They grumble every time they are forced to learn something new. They have a point. After working in the industry for 15+ years, I empathize. But in this industry, that's unfortunately not the right attitude to have. Another problem I see with older engineers is they are intimidated by the younger kids. I get it. When I interviewed some fresh grads, they seemed extremely talented and smart. I felt intimated by how much they knew. Some of the old guys lose confidence because of that. One old engineer who got laid off gave up looking for another job and faced early retirement. He told me he can't compete with the younger kids who already know all the new technologies and techniques. Besides skills, I think it comes down to your attitude and how you relate to your younger co-workers. Being in my 40's, I still can relate to the kids. I try to bring a "young" energy. I'll see if I can keep this up into my 50's and maybe 60's.

drchopchop 6y ago
>Besides skills, I think it comes down to your attitude and how you relate to your younger co-workers Also an engineer in my mid-40's. This is key. You need to be the "cool" dad in the room, and someone people can go to for hard/difficult problems. You also have to stay relevant and keep your skills up to date. Talk about the great ramen place near your house, not how you had to solve Y2K problems with COBOL 20 years ago. The worst case scenario is if you're a bootcamp grad at 40+, you're gonna have all the problems of ageism without any of the experience to counteract it.
- meowzero 6y ago
  I agree. You need to be the cool uncle or older brother who shows them new tricks and cool stuff. You need to have a mentor like quality for their career growth yet still talk about the latest movies, technologies, games, memes, random geeky stuff, etc. to them

smnrchrds 6y ago

There was a research in Canada about hiring discrimination. One of those ones where they send mock resumes to employers with similar contents but different applicant names: some had English names, some had non-English (mainly Asian IIRC) names. Then they compare the number of callbacks they got from employers. The result of this particular study was that: 1) the resumes with non-English sounding names had much fewer callbacks than the ones with English names. 2) the resumes with more education and experience got more callbacks than the results with less education and experience. 3) if you had a non-English name and a master's, you almost but not quite, had the same rate of callback as someone with a bachelor's and an English name. I imagine some people see this and conclude that skills beat racism. But if the reality is that you have to get a PhD and a couple of years of extra experience under your belt to have the same chance of finding a job as an English Canadian who has newly graduated from good BSc, then this is not skills beating racism. The fact that some people have to do a lot of extra work for the same outcome is the epitome of discrimination.

015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago

"Rather, prejudiced people take one look at you, see your gray hair, and make assumptions about you"" Often, I suspect, it isn't even about making conscious assumptions. People just have positive and negative subconscious reactions to certain physical traits. It's striking that you virtually never hear any discussion of "height discrimination", which I put in scare quotes because it barely seems to a recognized concept in the world of work (although it is somewhat recognized in the dating world). Yet there's lots of evidence that tall people have systematic advantages in life. They're seen as leaders, more likely to become CEOs, more like to be elected to political office, etc.