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I’m 53, and I doubt I’ll ever find a job in tech again. I only started getting responses when I removed the earliest 15 year’s experience from my CV, and as soo

I’m 53, and I doubt I’ll ever find a job in tech again. I only started getting responses when I removed the earliest 15 year’s experience from my CV, and as soon as I hit the screening stage and my age is known they lose interest. Ageism can get fucked.

gedy 3y ago
Don't lose hope, it's just a downturn. At previous company (a year or so ago) we hired 61yo who had gotten in to tech a few years before. He turned out great.
- farmeroy 3y ago
  That's the kind of positive sentiment I need to hear!
justinzollars 3y ago
Out of curiosity - if this is actually true (I doubt it - that is you will never have another tech job; not ageism.) What is your plan?
- mdekkers 3y ago
  My plan? I’ll go out on my own terms. I fought my entire life to escape a bad childhood of poverty and homelessness. Not going back.
  - windowshopping 3y ago
    I don't know how you meant this to read but it sounds to me like you're saying you plan to commit suicide.
    - raisedbyninjas 3y ago
      Maybe. It could mean a number of things. It could be some creative squatting, moving to a low cost of living nation, or outright stealing. Having nothing to lose opens a lot of possibilities. I just read the story this morning of Nigerian stowaways that survived two weeks clinging to a ship's rudder.
darksofa 3y ago
Heh, I got a tech job at 56. But ... there is a lot of ageism out there. Which I've never understood.
- mdekkers 3y ago
  Well done. I really don’t understand it either. I have close to 30 years experience, and have always stayed relevant in terms of approach, skills, and knowledge. According to the folks I’ve worked with in the past, I’ve done great work, and I’m still in regular contact with many of them.
- vaxman 3y ago
  I was senior level but unable to shave yet when the movie War Games came out. That movie changed things socially and eventually at work. Young Bill Gates rise in celebrity also changed things. Quite a bit later, the dot-com boom started and we were hiring anything with a warm pulse to script HTML and Cold Fusion. Some of those kids were pulling $150K/yr in 1996 money! When the Crash happened, the kids moved home and laughed it off, eventually to reemerge as $7-$17/hr contractors while almost everyone over 40 was permanently retired (exceptions abound, but not enough). It happened because the older workers had more serious bills to pay and that involved changing careers and/or cracking open retirement nest eggs. The kids lacked any tenure with the grey beards and snow caps to guide them, but they had Google Search and the remotely connected Europeans (who were not as badly affected by the Crash due to socialism). Those kids of that era are fundamentally screwed because of lack of formal training and learning from those with decades of experience (and, of course, CS majors started graduating again ..about 17 years ago now.. and while initially outnumbered by the idiot kid masses, did manage to replicate to the point where things like PHP and Node are being slowly killed off and the applied science is coming back —along with renewed efforts to put training wheels on everything like was tried a generation ago with Pascal/Modula/Ada). However, one thing all those workers ALL shared was peer age group camaraderie! The older people were not seen as credible because the kids came to believe the entire industry had suddenly appeared out of thin are along with the advent of the WWW. Jeff Bezos took care of their heavy lifting for them (as long as they worked somewhere with a credit card lol) and is now the richest man in the world. Of course, I’m speaking very general here, but, for example, I doubt FB could have ever taken on Google because of this issue. I realized I was in trouble one day when I interviewed at Qualcomm wearing a suit and the kid who showed up late in casual attire accused me of being a fraud —not to my face, but to the recruiter. I notified their Legal and the response was like “Do we have a problem here?” Things are a bit better now, some of those kids look older than they are. Still, it’s not wise to let the young know what decade you were born in now, just as it once was with the old, before the War Games movie and Billy Gates.
corethree 3y ago
I believe it's illegal to talk about age or even consider it in the US. You need to make it to the technicals. Say webcam is broken for the screen.
bilsbie 3y ago
How do you take that off your resume? What if they ask? I didn’t realize you could do that.
- szatkus 3y ago
  Huh? You could just say that you got a first job in tech when you were 35 or something.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Don’t have to say anything. Sadly no one is interested in experience with Netware in the nineties.
    - mdekkers 3y ago
      Rocking that IPX/SPX!
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Cried a little inside when I deleted that. sniff
- mdekkers 3y ago
  The only thing on my CV that indicates my age are my early jobs. Just take those away. When they do ask, I say that work I did at that time wasn’t relevant to today. Either way, as soon as they figure out my ago, the screening call is typically over.
elevatortrim 3y ago
This is a lot of people's experiences right now, young or old. As a manager who hires a lot, I could not care less about your age, would not even cross my mind as a criteria. Not saying agism does not exist, but not everywhere. It is an absolute buyer's market right now.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  I think we all have biases that we sometimes aren't aware of. For example, no one thinks they prefer taller employees. And yet taller people tend to make more money and have more positive qualities associated with them by others. I think age is a weird one, because there are both positive and negative biases at play. Maybe you don't think about age consciously, but subconsciously maybe you're more inclined to trust someone's opinion or experience if they're older. Conversely, you (and many other hiring managers) may feel a bit weird giving basic tasks or ordering around someone who is older than you. Maybe you don't realize it, but you might have more of a sense of "this candidate is less likely to take instruction" I'm not saying you're ageist (any more so than the baseline since I think we've all internalized ageism to some degree). But the fact that it "doesn't cross your mind as a criteria" doesn't necessarily mean that it hasn't affected your hiring decisions anyway.
vaxman 3y ago
I want you to download Unity, crack open a Safari book and go heads down until you can download and integrate 3D objects and write scripts. Make some tribute to something you like and then market it along side your grey beard. Remember me when you are making $250K next year :)
- mdekkers 3y ago
  Whilst i genuinely appreciate your suggestion, you are essentially saying “yes, the career and experience you have built up over the years are gone, beet find something else to do”
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

gedy 3y ago

Don't lose hope, it's just a downturn. At previous company (a year or so ago) we hired 61yo who had gotten in to tech a few years before. He turned out great.

farmeroy 3y ago
That's the kind of positive sentiment I need to hear!

justinzollars 3y ago

Out of curiosity - if this is actually true (I doubt it - that is you will never have another tech job; not ageism.) What is your plan?

mdekkers 3y ago
My plan? I’ll go out on my own terms. I fought my entire life to escape a bad childhood of poverty and homelessness. Not going back.
- windowshopping 3y ago
  I don't know how you meant this to read but it sounds to me like you're saying you plan to commit suicide.
  - raisedbyninjas 3y ago
    Maybe. It could mean a number of things. It could be some creative squatting, moving to a low cost of living nation, or outright stealing. Having nothing to lose opens a lot of possibilities. I just read the story this morning of Nigerian stowaways that survived two weeks clinging to a ship's rudder.

darksofa 3y ago

Heh, I got a tech job at 56. But ... there is a lot of ageism out there. Which I've never understood.

mdekkers 3y ago
Well done. I really don’t understand it either. I have close to 30 years experience, and have always stayed relevant in terms of approach, skills, and knowledge. According to the folks I’ve worked with in the past, I’ve done great work, and I’m still in regular contact with many of them.
vaxman 3y ago
I was senior level but unable to shave yet when the movie War Games came out. That movie changed things socially and eventually at work. Young Bill Gates rise in celebrity also changed things. Quite a bit later, the dot-com boom started and we were hiring anything with a warm pulse to script HTML and Cold Fusion. Some of those kids were pulling $150K/yr in 1996 money! When the Crash happened, the kids moved home and laughed it off, eventually to reemerge as $7-$17/hr contractors while almost everyone over 40 was permanently retired (exceptions abound, but not enough). It happened because the older workers had more serious bills to pay and that involved changing careers and/or cracking open retirement nest eggs. The kids lacked any tenure with the grey beards and snow caps to guide them, but they had Google Search and the remotely connected Europeans (who were not as badly affected by the Crash due to socialism). Those kids of that era are fundamentally screwed because of lack of formal training and learning from those with decades of experience (and, of course, CS majors started graduating again ..about 17 years ago now.. and while initially outnumbered by the idiot kid masses, did manage to replicate to the point where things like PHP and Node are being slowly killed off and the applied science is coming back —along with renewed efforts to put training wheels on everything like was tried a generation ago with Pascal/Modula/Ada). However, one thing all those workers ALL shared was peer age group camaraderie! The older people were not seen as credible because the kids came to believe the entire industry had suddenly appeared out of thin are along with the advent of the WWW. Jeff Bezos took care of their heavy lifting for them (as long as they worked somewhere with a credit card lol) and is now the richest man in the world. Of course, I’m speaking very general here, but, for example, I doubt FB could have ever taken on Google because of this issue. I realized I was in trouble one day when I interviewed at Qualcomm wearing a suit and the kid who showed up late in casual attire accused me of being a fraud —not to my face, but to the recruiter. I notified their Legal and the response was like “Do we have a problem here?” Things are a bit better now, some of those kids look older than they are. Still, it’s not wise to let the young know what decade you were born in now, just as it once was with the old, before the War Games movie and Billy Gates.

corethree 3y ago

I believe it's illegal to talk about age or even consider it in the US. You need to make it to the technicals. Say webcam is broken for the screen.

bilsbie 3y ago

How do you take that off your resume? What if they ask? I didn’t realize you could do that.

szatkus 3y ago
Huh? You could just say that you got a first job in tech when you were 35 or something.
- mixmastamyk 3y ago
  Don’t have to say anything. Sadly no one is interested in experience with Netware in the nineties.
  - mdekkers 3y ago
    Rocking that IPX/SPX!
    - mixmastamyk 3y ago
      Cried a little inside when I deleted that. sniff
mdekkers 3y ago
The only thing on my CV that indicates my age are my early jobs. Just take those away. When they do ask, I say that work I did at that time wasn’t relevant to today. Either way, as soon as they figure out my ago, the screening call is typically over.

elevatortrim 3y ago

This is a lot of people's experiences right now, young or old. As a manager who hires a lot, I could not care less about your age, would not even cross my mind as a criteria. Not saying agism does not exist, but not everywhere. It is an absolute buyer's market right now.

pcthrowaway 3y ago
I think we all have biases that we sometimes aren't aware of. For example, no one thinks they prefer taller employees. And yet taller people tend to make more money and have more positive qualities associated with them by others. I think age is a weird one, because there are both positive and negative biases at play. Maybe you don't think about age consciously, but subconsciously maybe you're more inclined to trust someone's opinion or experience if they're older. Conversely, you (and many other hiring managers) may feel a bit weird giving basic tasks or ordering around someone who is older than you. Maybe you don't realize it, but you might have more of a sense of "this candidate is less likely to take instruction" I'm not saying you're ageist (any more so than the baseline since I think we've all internalized ageism to some degree). But the fact that it "doesn't cross your mind as a criteria" doesn't necessarily mean that it hasn't affected your hiring decisions anyway.

vaxman 3y ago

I want you to download Unity, crack open a Safari book and go heads down until you can download and integrate 3D objects and write scripts. Make some tribute to something you like and then market it along side your grey beard. Remember me when you are making $250K next year :)

mdekkers 3y ago
Whilst i genuinely appreciate your suggestion, you are essentially saying “yes, the career and experience you have built up over the years are gone, beet find something else to do”
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]