4 ms·

What is it that happens? Do you get to the interview and then they see your grey hair and treat you like Grandpa? Do they just not call you for an interview a

What is it that happens? Do you get to the interview and then they see your grey hair and treat you like Grandpa? Do they just not call you for an interview at all? Is it the leetcode and focus on the specifics of very new and flashy tech that is the problem?

ccleve 5y ago
Don't even get to the interview stage. My tech skills never got assessed.
- MattGaiser 5y ago
  Damn. I have no great experience and can get interviews in a day or two. And everyone I talk to complains about no experienced tech people.
  - beepbooptheory 5y ago
    How do you get interviews in a day or two with no great experience??? These days, I just feel lucky to get an email rejection back at all
    - MattGaiser 5y ago
      I mean I don’t have brand companies. I worked for the government and a quasi tech startup. Not sure how I can get calls so quickly, but they aren’t FAANG level interviews either. Small startups and desperate corporates mostly.
  - webmaven 5y ago
    That's because what they really want is a 20-something that has 10 years (or more) of experience.
    - bradknowles 5y ago
      I’ve had recruiters basically ask me for exactly that. I had twenty years of experience at the time, and they wanted someone who was exactly like me with all my skill and knowledge, but ten years younger. I never responded to them, but they have been the butt of many jokes since.
- Mattiusly 5y ago
  Same with me. I'm to the point that I'm going to create an alternate resume that only lists experience of less than 8 years, instead of 30+, and use a very old photo of myself on socials.
  - hondo77 5y ago
    Yeah, I truncated the experience section and for education I removed the years of attendance.
  - ido 5y ago
    I'm only 38 and I already do that (my first job as a developer was at age 18).
  - vidanay 5y ago
    8 years would only be 40% of my current job tenure.
- webmaven 5y ago
  Same here. I've sometimes wondered if getting a newly minted college degree would work to bypass the age filter.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
All of the above. That's why I am no longer interested in working for anyone else. They can also be fairly insulting in tone. I guess us oldsters are too "thin-skinned" for today's hyper-competitive world. We make unreasonable demands, like being treated as humans. We're supposed to ignore mortal insults. Maybe it's just like a hazing ritual, where we are supposed to prove we are willing to abase ourselves for the corporation. Work environments are also completely centered around the needs and desires of younger folks. In many cases, it's not deliberate, but these are companies that are run by people in their twenties, and staffed by people in their twenties, so the sample population is a bit...homogenous. Perks are designed to entice younger folks (like hiking and skiing offsites, no weekends, Friday night happy hours and pub crawls, free beer and food, open-plan, "hip" offices, Urban locations, T-shirts, no short-term disability, etc.). The recruiters are just plain rude. They ghost me, almost immediately after finding out that I'm older than 35 (a lot older). Very different, from when I used to look, before my last job. The LeetCode tests are "Young-Pass Filters." They generally cover topics that people fresh out of college would nail, and I know that many engineers spend countless hours, practicing LeetCode (maybe while they are supposed to be writing non-leet code for their employers). How do I know it? Because I keep getting notifications, when they post their results on LinkedIn and other places. I've learned that if I see a binary tree test, I might as well look elsewhere. I have been writing shipping code, since 1987. I seldom encounter the neat little problems that I see in whiteboard tests. Just yesterday, I was dealing with some weird threading/memory leak issues; and those are a blue-assed bitch to debug (spoiler: I fixed them). Every single day, I have big, nasty problems that need to be fixed, and every single day, I fix them; often by designing good, robust, high-quality frameworks, modules, and applications. Device I/O problems are fun, too. The most unfathomable thing, is people directly and unapologetically, ignoring my portfolio. I have a big one. Real big. I know that it isn't that special, because I see bigger and more impressive ones, all the time. There's a lot of really talented, experienced developers, with years of work, open to perusal. These folks are looking to hire critical-path talent, responsible for the lifeblood of their products, pay us six figures, and then they deliberately ignore resources that could tell them more about us than twenty hours of interviews. People could make the "hire or ignore" decisions, simply by reviewing the portfolio. They wouldn't even need to call me on the phone, or let me know they were interested, in any other way. Complete stealth. But, like I said, I'm not particularly interested in rejoining the "rat race." This forced me into an early retirement, and I'm fine with that. I work harder, these days, that I ever did, and it's a joy.

ccleve 5y ago

Don't even get to the interview stage. My tech skills never got assessed.

MattGaiser 5y ago
Damn. I have no great experience and can get interviews in a day or two. And everyone I talk to complains about no experienced tech people.
- beepbooptheory 5y ago
  How do you get interviews in a day or two with no great experience??? These days, I just feel lucky to get an email rejection back at all
  - MattGaiser 5y ago
    I mean I don’t have brand companies. I worked for the government and a quasi tech startup. Not sure how I can get calls so quickly, but they aren’t FAANG level interviews either. Small startups and desperate corporates mostly.
- webmaven 5y ago
  That's because what they really want is a 20-something that has 10 years (or more) of experience.
  - bradknowles 5y ago
    I’ve had recruiters basically ask me for exactly that. I had twenty years of experience at the time, and they wanted someone who was exactly like me with all my skill and knowledge, but ten years younger. I never responded to them, but they have been the butt of many jokes since.
Mattiusly 5y ago
Same with me. I'm to the point that I'm going to create an alternate resume that only lists experience of less than 8 years, instead of 30+, and use a very old photo of myself on socials.
- hondo77 5y ago
  Yeah, I truncated the experience section and for education I removed the years of attendance.
- ido 5y ago
  I'm only 38 and I already do that (my first job as a developer was at age 18).
- vidanay 5y ago
  8 years would only be 40% of my current job tenure.
webmaven 5y ago
Same here. I've sometimes wondered if getting a newly minted college degree would work to bypass the age filter.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

All of the above. That's why I am no longer interested in working for anyone else. They can also be fairly insulting in tone. I guess us oldsters are too "thin-skinned" for today's hyper-competitive world. We make unreasonable demands, like being treated as humans. We're supposed to ignore mortal insults. Maybe it's just like a hazing ritual, where we are supposed to prove we are willing to abase ourselves for the corporation. Work environments are also completely centered around the needs and desires of younger folks. In many cases, it's not deliberate, but these are companies that are run by people in their twenties, and staffed by people in their twenties, so the sample population is a bit...homogenous. Perks are designed to entice younger folks (like hiking and skiing offsites, no weekends, Friday night happy hours and pub crawls, free beer and food, open-plan, "hip" offices, Urban locations, T-shirts, no short-term disability, etc.). The recruiters are just plain rude. They ghost me, almost immediately after finding out that I'm older than 35 (a lot older). Very different, from when I used to look, before my last job. The LeetCode tests are "Young-Pass Filters." They generally cover topics that people fresh out of college would nail, and I know that many engineers spend countless hours, practicing LeetCode (maybe while they are supposed to be writing non-leet code for their employers). How do I know it? Because I keep getting notifications, when they post their results on LinkedIn and other places. I've learned that if I see a binary tree test, I might as well look elsewhere. I have been writing shipping code, since 1987. I seldom encounter the neat little problems that I see in whiteboard tests. Just yesterday, I was dealing with some weird threading/memory leak issues; and those are a blue-assed bitch to debug (spoiler: I fixed them). Every single day, I have big, nasty problems that need to be fixed, and every single day, I fix them; often by designing good, robust, high-quality frameworks, modules, and applications. Device I/O problems are fun, too. The most unfathomable thing, is people directly and unapologetically, ignoring my portfolio. I have a big one. Real big. I know that it isn't that special, because I see bigger and more impressive ones, all the time. There's a lot of really talented, experienced developers, with years of work, open to perusal. These folks are looking to hire critical-path talent, responsible for the lifeblood of their products, pay us six figures, and then they deliberately ignore resources that could tell them more about us than twenty hours of interviews. People could make the "hire or ignore" decisions, simply by reviewing the portfolio. They wouldn't even need to call me on the phone, or let me know they were interested, in any other way. Complete stealth. But, like I said, I'm not particularly interested in rejoining the "rat race." This forced me into an early retirement, and I'm fine with that. I work harder, these days, that I ever did, and it's a joy.