7 ms·

> The industry hadn’t yet recovered from the whole dot com thing You are completely right about that and that slipped my mind. Either way it was kind of nice h

by donatj 5y ago

> The industry hadn’t yet recovered from the whole dot com thing You are completely right about that and that slipped my mind. Either way it was kind of nice how easy it was to get a job back then. Getting my foot in the door was a little difficult actually, but once I had some thing on my résumé I got an interview for basically every job I applied to. My résumé is much more impressive these days, and it may be in part ageism or higher salary expectations, but it’s much rare to hear back from a job application.

hellbannedguy 5y ago
It's ageism. Sorry for being so blunt, but I know to many people who were just uninteresting to human resourses after hitting 45-50. I know more than a few homeless people in my life, and over half were once Programmers. It makes me sick. I do know this, if you are in tech, save up that money. (I have never understood this industry's way of hiring. Long drawn out interviews, and candidates whom are just average that get jobs. Why not hire a guy for two weeks. See how they do. And of course, be upfront. Tell them this is probationary. You don't sent a guy to relocate, just to be let go in a few weeks. There are some really great older workers that some company will scoop up when hiring is upgraded to this decade. Sorry about the sentence fragments. Too lazy to fix.)
- sersi 5y ago
  As someone who's been in charge of recruitment, I've made an effort in hiring people who are less likely to get a chance at other places (minorities, older candidates) One thing that stood out to me though is that a lot of the older candidates I interviewed that had been struggling had deep knowledge of a technology that's no longer used and had had very little interest during their career in learning new things outside their job. So once the thing they were expert in was no longer fashionable, they had a hard time catching back up. I know it's unfashionable to say this and I know that a lot of people have full time jobs and don't want to have side project additionally to their full time job but if you want to keep a career as a software developer past 40 without going into management then you need to do side projects,you need to keep up to date with some of the latest fad (even if some of those fads are cyclical and recycle concepts from 20 years ago). Doing a job well and becoming an expert in an obsolete technology is no path to career growth.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - blooalien 5y ago
    > … "if you want to keep a career as a software developer past 40 without going into management then you need to do side projects,you need to keep up to date with some of the latest fad (even if some of those fads are cyclical and recycle concepts from 20 years ago). Doing a job well and becoming an expert in an obsolete technology is no path to career growth." Sad thing about this is that some of us (like me for one example) have known this since the days before personal computers were even a thing, but it don't really help to stay on top of modern tech when all the people in charge of hiring in the tech industry are twenty-somethings who automatically instantly hate anyone with even a single gray hair or wrinkle visible, and instantly dismiss a lifetime of knowledge based entirely on ageism. Even sadder is that the "decision makers" in many tech jobs still to this day actively ignore good advice that people like me have been giving since the early days re; things like network security being more important than they want to admit to themselves (just to name a simple and obvious example), and then when their ignorance of such issues come back to bite them in the ass they always scapegoat the "new guy" somehow and out he goes.
    - rocqua 5y ago
      A track record of being right is useless for having your advice be seen as "good advice". It takes some politics, and interpersonal trust to get your advice taken seriously. Sadly, this also means looking past the technical details and considering organizationally why certain decisions need to be made. The company might prefer the occasional breach and "we are sorry" PR over spending a lot of money on network security, for example.
      - blooalien 5y ago
        > "The company might prefer the occasional breach and "we are sorry" PR over spending a lot of money on network security, for example." Sure, but what about when the choice presented is more along the lines of "Hey, let's spend a little money on network security now so that we don't have to spend millions later cleaning up a huge mess", and is met with the mentality of "You're worrying about nothing." Ummm, no? I'm sharing the expertise for which I was hired?
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  In the Netherlands, permanent employment contracts are much harder for companies to break than in the US, so they often hire new people as consultants or temporary employees for a few months, then offer them a permanent contract if they work out. It worked out well for me at TomTom: I kicked ass during the 3 month probationary period as a contractor, then when they decided to offer me a full time contract, I was in a very good position to negotiate a salary (and even a hiring bonus), much better than if they were hiring me cold out of the blue.
  - brtkdotse 5y ago
    Do they pay contracting rates during this time as well? Those can be 2x your salary in Sweden, so not sure I'd sign on as an employee at that point.
    - BlargMcLarg 5y ago
      No, they don't. You'll generally be paid less and have less benefits. It truly only serves as a "do your dues" period. GP also doesn't mention that having a perm contract on its own grants an individual benefits you wouldn't otherwise have. Inverse this, and it means a perm contract becomes a requirement for reaching a lot of milestones in life. Most notable are mortgages and even free market rent.
- MereInterest 5y ago
  > Why not hire a guy for two weeks. See how they do. And of course, be upfront. Tell them this is probationary. You don't sent a guy to relocate, just to be let go in a few weeks. By doing so, that cuts out anybody who currently has a job. Looking for a new job is much less stressful when your fallback option is "keep working at the current job and continue the search". It also gives you a much stronger negotiating position, since you don't have the deadline of bankruptcy hanging over your head. If I heard that a company wanted me to work for two weeks on a probationary manner before deciding, that would be a very hard pass. That's long enough that it couldn't really be done without leaving a current job first. Best-case scenario, the transition becomes immensely more stressful for no good reason. More likely scenario, the hiring company decides to play hardball after the two weeks, and I'm over a barrel because I already left the safety net.

by donatj 5y ago

hellbannedguy 5y ago

It's ageism. Sorry for being so blunt, but I know to many people who were just uninteresting to human resourses after hitting 45-50. I know more than a few homeless people in my life, and over half were once Programmers. It makes me sick. I do know this, if you are in tech, save up that money. (I have never understood this industry's way of hiring. Long drawn out interviews, and candidates whom are just average that get jobs. Why not hire a guy for two weeks. See how they do. And of course, be upfront. Tell them this is probationary. You don't sent a guy to relocate, just to be let go in a few weeks. There are some really great older workers that some company will scoop up when hiring is upgraded to this decade. Sorry about the sentence fragments. Too lazy to fix.)

sersi 5y ago
As someone who's been in charge of recruitment, I've made an effort in hiring people who are less likely to get a chance at other places (minorities, older candidates) One thing that stood out to me though is that a lot of the older candidates I interviewed that had been struggling had deep knowledge of a technology that's no longer used and had had very little interest during their career in learning new things outside their job. So once the thing they were expert in was no longer fashionable, they had a hard time catching back up. I know it's unfashionable to say this and I know that a lot of people have full time jobs and don't want to have side project additionally to their full time job but if you want to keep a career as a software developer past 40 without going into management then you need to do side projects,you need to keep up to date with some of the latest fad (even if some of those fads are cyclical and recycle concepts from 20 years ago). Doing a job well and becoming an expert in an obsolete technology is no path to career growth.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- blooalien 5y ago
  > … "if you want to keep a career as a software developer past 40 without going into management then you need to do side projects,you need to keep up to date with some of the latest fad (even if some of those fads are cyclical and recycle concepts from 20 years ago). Doing a job well and becoming an expert in an obsolete technology is no path to career growth." Sad thing about this is that some of us (like me for one example) have known this since the days before personal computers were even a thing, but it don't really help to stay on top of modern tech when all the people in charge of hiring in the tech industry are twenty-somethings who automatically instantly hate anyone with even a single gray hair or wrinkle visible, and instantly dismiss a lifetime of knowledge based entirely on ageism. Even sadder is that the "decision makers" in many tech jobs still to this day actively ignore good advice that people like me have been giving since the early days re; things like network security being more important than they want to admit to themselves (just to name a simple and obvious example), and then when their ignorance of such issues come back to bite them in the ass they always scapegoat the "new guy" somehow and out he goes.
  - rocqua 5y ago
    A track record of being right is useless for having your advice be seen as "good advice". It takes some politics, and interpersonal trust to get your advice taken seriously. Sadly, this also means looking past the technical details and considering organizationally why certain decisions need to be made. The company might prefer the occasional breach and "we are sorry" PR over spending a lot of money on network security, for example.
    - blooalien 5y ago
      > "The company might prefer the occasional breach and "we are sorry" PR over spending a lot of money on network security, for example." Sure, but what about when the choice presented is more along the lines of "Hey, let's spend a little money on network security now so that we don't have to spend millions later cleaning up a huge mess", and is met with the mentality of "You're worrying about nothing." Ummm, no? I'm sharing the expertise for which I was hired?
DonHopkins 5y ago
In the Netherlands, permanent employment contracts are much harder for companies to break than in the US, so they often hire new people as consultants or temporary employees for a few months, then offer them a permanent contract if they work out. It worked out well for me at TomTom: I kicked ass during the 3 month probationary period as a contractor, then when they decided to offer me a full time contract, I was in a very good position to negotiate a salary (and even a hiring bonus), much better than if they were hiring me cold out of the blue.
- brtkdotse 5y ago
  Do they pay contracting rates during this time as well? Those can be 2x your salary in Sweden, so not sure I'd sign on as an employee at that point.
  - BlargMcLarg 5y ago
    No, they don't. You'll generally be paid less and have less benefits. It truly only serves as a "do your dues" period. GP also doesn't mention that having a perm contract on its own grants an individual benefits you wouldn't otherwise have. Inverse this, and it means a perm contract becomes a requirement for reaching a lot of milestones in life. Most notable are mortgages and even free market rent.
MereInterest 5y ago
> Why not hire a guy for two weeks. See how they do. And of course, be upfront. Tell them this is probationary. You don't sent a guy to relocate, just to be let go in a few weeks. By doing so, that cuts out anybody who currently has a job. Looking for a new job is much less stressful when your fallback option is "keep working at the current job and continue the search". It also gives you a much stronger negotiating position, since you don't have the deadline of bankruptcy hanging over your head. If I heard that a company wanted me to work for two weeks on a probationary manner before deciding, that would be a very hard pass. That's long enough that it couldn't really be done without leaving a current job first. Best-case scenario, the transition becomes immensely more stressful for no good reason. More likely scenario, the hiring company decides to play hardball after the two weeks, and I'm over a barrel because I already left the safety net.