Older people are around just as long as young people, and learn just as much (yes, in some cases more, though in my experience as a manager that is not the usua

Older people are around just as long as young people, and learn just as much (yes, in some cases more, though in my experience as a manager that is not the usual outcome, it usually falls off slightly). The difference is the baseline: a person 1 year in should at least double their experience within the first year of working for you, whereas a person with 10 years experience will increase it by around 10%. Any way you cut it, measuring the current state matters a lot more for the more experienced person than the young one (current skill is an estimator of how fast the more experienced person has been learning, whereas for a new grad it's on you to estimate that based on other factors, and current skill doesn't matter much because it will change so fast).