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I’m 45 and have never gotten more attention from recruiters, despite the fact I entered the job market during the height of the dot com era. My graduation date

I’m 45 and have never gotten more attention from recruiters, despite the fact I entered the job market during the height of the dot com era. My graduation date is clearly marked on all resumes in circulation, as is my experience showing my first internship all the way back in ‘96. It’s not only the number of ops that hit my plate, but the sheer aggressiveness of the recruiters. Very often am I contacted repeatedly, sometimes up to 5 times, by a recruiter for an op. Many times it’s directly by the hiring manager, the director, cto, or even ceo of the company. In fact, only in my 40s have most of the major tech companies reached out to set up interviews (Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple), and a ton of pre-IPO unicorns. During the pandemic I had the former CEO of Zelle personally interview for his new venture and Brian Acton personally reached out to schedule an interview for One Signal. I’m just a principal dev who does React and Rails. Been a tech lead in a few startups, never held a title above that, never a de facto people manager and certainly not a director. I remember the sheer terror I was feeling toward the top of the my 30s because of discussions like this on Hacker News. Had a taste of management in my early 30s and decided it wasn’t for me, and remember toying with ideas for a career switch because surely, I would be dead as a programmer soon. The exact opposite happened.

twox2 5y ago
Are the recruiters targeting YOU specifically or are they just taking the spray-and-pray approach reaching out to everyone who fits certain keywords?
- brandall10 5y ago
  Most refer to specific aspects of my experience, some specifically referencing my current role (ie. they've read my LI, which also clearly shows my grad date)... some are spray and pray. Probably 80% of things that come my way are applicable to what I do both in skillset and title (Lead/principal/staff/director roles). Does it matter? If there is some way that recruiters are filtering based on age, my age is clearly discernable.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    At least some of these are auto-filled templates with scraped data -- I got one where "I was really impressed by your experience at ." -- yes, just a space and a period. Probably slightly modified from the defaults provided by a hiring CRM platform. You can tell the ones that really are different, because they mention something a scraper or AI wouldn't figure out.
    - brandall10 5y ago
      Point still is if they're filtering by age, they can do that, and they're not doing it in my case. I mean, I'm sure there's probably some of that, but not in any material way that I even have a hint of age discrimination thrown in my direction.
- oriolid 5y ago
  Even if they're taking the spray-and-pray approach, it certainly doesn't look like they'd be filtering for age. To compare, I'm 43, not even a tech lead and I've received more recruiter contacts over last couple of years than the 20 years before. Many of them were even somewhat relevant to my work experience.
namelessoracle 5y ago
The key here is Principal. 40 plus is considered fine and good for Architects/Managers and people in leadership positions. Try to get a senior engineer or below job where you are expected to be grinding out code instead.
- brandall10 5y ago
  I was a senior at my last 4 roles - IOW, I was a Sr. dev turning 40, and didn't get another higher level role until turning 43. But yes, I have that experience in my background. I had my first principal role back when I was 32 (but prior to switching away from .NET development) and 2 other lead roles in my 30s.
- throw4765433 5y ago
  I think the stack is important. I know a lot of older Java and .Net developers that are hired to grind out code.
  - brandall10 5y ago
    So we're just going to move the goal posts then? Yes, having desirable skills is a given. We have a bunch of .NET devs (our BE is .NET) and the average age of these folks probably right around 40, because in general they're going to be older devs who do that.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  About the same age as the one you are replying to, usually the best way to work around that is consulting, where you are expected to be business analyst, architect, devops and coder in one package. Granted, not everyone enjoys doing it, and it comes with lots of politics as baggage as well.
  - Tarucho 5y ago
    what do you mean by consulting? going through agencies? freelancing?

twox2 5y ago

Are the recruiters targeting YOU specifically or are they just taking the spray-and-pray approach reaching out to everyone who fits certain keywords?

brandall10 5y ago
Most refer to specific aspects of my experience, some specifically referencing my current role (ie. they've read my LI, which also clearly shows my grad date)... some are spray and pray. Probably 80% of things that come my way are applicable to what I do both in skillset and title (Lead/principal/staff/director roles). Does it matter? If there is some way that recruiters are filtering based on age, my age is clearly discernable.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  At least some of these are auto-filled templates with scraped data -- I got one where "I was really impressed by your experience at ." -- yes, just a space and a period. Probably slightly modified from the defaults provided by a hiring CRM platform. You can tell the ones that really are different, because they mention something a scraper or AI wouldn't figure out.
  - brandall10 5y ago
    Point still is if they're filtering by age, they can do that, and they're not doing it in my case. I mean, I'm sure there's probably some of that, but not in any material way that I even have a hint of age discrimination thrown in my direction.
oriolid 5y ago
Even if they're taking the spray-and-pray approach, it certainly doesn't look like they'd be filtering for age. To compare, I'm 43, not even a tech lead and I've received more recruiter contacts over last couple of years than the 20 years before. Many of them were even somewhat relevant to my work experience.

namelessoracle 5y ago

The key here is Principal. 40 plus is considered fine and good for Architects/Managers and people in leadership positions. Try to get a senior engineer or below job where you are expected to be grinding out code instead.

brandall10 5y ago
I was a senior at my last 4 roles - IOW, I was a Sr. dev turning 40, and didn't get another higher level role until turning 43. But yes, I have that experience in my background. I had my first principal role back when I was 32 (but prior to switching away from .NET development) and 2 other lead roles in my 30s.
throw4765433 5y ago
I think the stack is important. I know a lot of older Java and .Net developers that are hired to grind out code.
- brandall10 5y ago
  So we're just going to move the goal posts then? Yes, having desirable skills is a given. We have a bunch of .NET devs (our BE is .NET) and the average age of these folks probably right around 40, because in general they're going to be older devs who do that.
pjmlp 5y ago
About the same age as the one you are replying to, usually the best way to work around that is consulting, where you are expected to be business analyst, architect, devops and coder in one package. Granted, not everyone enjoys doing it, and it comes with lots of politics as baggage as well.
- Tarucho 5y ago
  what do you mean by consulting? going through agencies? freelancing?