Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#161

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 2:23 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #74

kazinator wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, those 3500 recipients could not have known that you're 41 and tossed the application on that basis. There is just some problem other than the one you imagine. > I used to mainly work in support, from 1st/2nd/3rd line to sysadmin, systems design and spec, network architect, everything. I do Windows, Linux, Mac OS, networking, comms, some programming knowledge, training, all sorts. But I'm too old to get work as…

> those 3500 recipients could not have known that you're 41 A likely-accurate age estimate is easily discernible for applicants who follow the common practice of putting their education history with graduation dates. A much rougher estimate is also possible with nothing more than specific technologies. You can do pretty well with employment history as well -- and I'd suspect that many among hiring managers or HR staf…

Exactly so.

I have tried most things.

I removed all the dates from my CV. No difference; a minimally intelligent pimp can add up. Degree, that's 3y; 3y in this role, 2y in that role, 2 years there, 16y freelancing... This dude is old.

So I removed the early junior jobs from my career history. Result, I got quizzed on how I walked straight into senior roles straight out of university.

So I left out some gaps in the timeline (I've freelanced quite a lot) -- and got curious about the specific tech I'd worked with in particular roles. Deploying Windows NT Server 3.1, or managing a migration from DECnet to TCP/IP, dates you.

You can fool the idiots, sure. But then your CV gets passed to non-idiots.

I don't advertise a DoB any more, nor dates of education, but I do give the years of my various permie jobs. It's easier to just be honest.

If they're ageist, as many are, then you can't lie or BS your way past that.

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#162

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 2:24 PM UTC

southern_cross wrote: post #148

kazinator wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, those 3500 recipients could not have known that you're 41 and tossed the application on that basis. There is just some problem other than the one you imagine. > I used to mainly work in support, from 1st/2nd/3rd line to sysadmin, systems design and spec, network architect, everything. I do Windows, Linux, Mac OS, networking, comms, some programming knowledge, training, all sorts. But I'm too old to get work as…

Besides the other examples which have been given here there are some subtle flags, too, which apparently are often used as indicators of age on a resume. I saw a whole list of these things somewhere once but I only remember a couple of them right off the top of my head. For example, I took a typing class back in the day and I was taught to always put two spaces after the end of a sentence. But today this flags you as…

I haven't noticed any particular habits of numerical formatting or anything, but this might be US-specific.

But I have done the pulling-magic-fixes-out-of-a-hat thing. It's fun. :-)

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#163

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 2:27 PM UTC

strongbond wrote: post #26

lproven wrote: post #18

I lost my last permanent job in London at the end of 2008, at the beginning of the financial crisis in the UK. I applied for about two thousand roles in 2009 alone, and from 2008-2013, about 3,500 roles in total... In about 6-8 countries in multiple disciplines. I averaged 30+ applications _per day_ at first... and 1 interview per year. From 2009 to 2013 I got 2 months of paying work in total. Reason? I think it's be…

I'm very sorry to hear about your experience. But when I hear that you think 41 is old I have to stifle a slight cough. I'm 58 and started my most recent job 2 months ago. Before that, I worked for FICO in the UK for 1 year and 9 months. I've had 5 or 6 jobs since I was 41, but I've always put the (enjoyable) time in at home to learn new stuff. It keeps you young.

Good for you! Sincerely!

I am very happy about the move. I'm glad to have left the UK and my quality of life now is far better than it was. I wasn't forced into it. I had a fallback plan: I wrote and sold a book, and used the proceeds to pay for a TEFL course. My plan was to go travelling as a TEFL teacher.

As it happens, I didn't need to do it. Just as I was planning on it, a role abroad came up, and once I adjusted to the idea of a 75% pay cut from what I was expecting, it was a very good move.

I wouldn't particularly wish the fate of being _forced_ to change countries on anyone, but it's not a bad thing. Mind you, I had no family, no dependents, nothing. And I now have the disposable income to visit ageing parent more often than I did from London.

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#164

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 2:30 PM UTC

markbnj wrote: post #112

strongbond wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm very sorry to hear about your experience. But when I hear that you think 41 is old I have to stifle a slight cough. I'm 58 and started my most recent job 2 months ago. Before that, I worked for FICO in the UK for 1 year and 9 months. I've had 5 or 6 jobs since I was 41, but I've always put the (enjoyable) time in at home to learn new stuff. It keeps you young.

Also 58 and working as an SRE at a company I love. Greybeards unite!

I have a tiny handful of friends in IT older than I whose careers are still thriving in the UK. Most are specialists of some kind. I wish them well.

For the first >50% of my career, my speciality was that I wasn't a specialist. I can work anything with a keyboard and a display, fix it, tune it, make it talk to anything else, or at a push virtualise it.

But that's an obsolete skill in the near-monoculture of today, when IT means Unix, Windows and nothing else, talking Internet protocols. It's all boring now.

Usefully, though, I also write, so I changed course and became a tech writer. That's working out OK so far.

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#165

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

WillPostForFood wrote: post #45

lproven wrote: post #18

I lost my last permanent job in London at the end of 2008, at the beginning of the financial crisis in the UK. I applied for about two thousand roles in 2009 alone, and from 2008-2013, about 3,500 roles in total... In about 6-8 countries in multiple disciplines. I averaged 30+ applications _per day_ at first... and 1 interview per year. From 2009 to 2013 I got 2 months of paying work in total. Reason? I think it's be…

In retrospect, do you think if instead of the 2000 applications you did in 2009, you had highly targeted maybe 1 position a week, with personalized letters, tweaked resume, and friendly follow up, you might have had success? 2009 was the worst year for employment I’ve ever seen, so maybe there truly were no options for you.

No, not really.

For 2 reasons.

[1] I only did broadcast/scattershot approach for the first year. After I got kicked off benefits the 2nd time (for attending a meeting of my startup -- an unpaid position -- in another part of the country) I stopped trying for anything I could do at all, anywhere, and started targeting my applications far more specifically, at things I was a really good fit for, with customised CVs etc.

No difference. Maybe a slightly higher rate of rejection letters.

[2] As others have said, timing.

I was freelance for most of the period 1996-2001 and 2003-2007. I decided to return to F/T work in '07 and applied for about 500 positions in 4 months before I got my first interview. I was hired over the phone, first interview.

It's getting to the interview that's hard. I interview well. I'm smart, lucid, eloquent, approachable.

These days, that means keyword matching, to get past 1st and maybe 2nd level selection.

2009/2010 were very bad. 2011, I got a role, but only very very briefly. 2012, I was even flown to Scotland for a 2nd interview, then got a second, non-IT role. 2013, I retrained in TEFL and went looking for teaching roles. End 2013, I applied for, and in early 2014, I got, a role in Brno, Czechia.

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#166

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 2:44 PM UTC

brandall10 wrote: post #102

lproven wrote: post #18

I lost my last permanent job in London at the end of 2008, at the beginning of the financial crisis in the UK. I applied for about two thousand roles in 2009 alone, and from 2008-2013, about 3,500 roles in total... In about 6-8 countries in multiple disciplines. I averaged 30+ applications _per day_ at first... and 1 interview per year. From 2009 to 2013 I got 2 months of paying work in total. Reason? I think it's be…

"I think it's because I was 41 when I started." Doubftul. I was 40 when I was looking a couple years back and had a better conversion rate of application -> interview than I've had in my entire life. This is for Rails/React work. I had 15 interviews out of maybe 25 or so applications, had a few opportunities I turned down and landed perhaps the best job I ever had. I'm beginning to look again at 42 and got 5 intervie…

Good for you. Seriously.

It does seem to be better for programmers.

I was primarily a support guy, but also systems admin, network architect/rollouts/installation, training, even project management and security consultancy at a push.

We're regarded as far more fungible than coders. Coders make more money and if you are good in a niche, something popular, or something wildly obscure where it's hard to find people, then it's easier to find work.

2 of my former partners are programmers. One a general database programmer; she found it hard to retrain into suitably trendy databases, but once she did, she was off and running. Another in a very obscure language, but once she found a role, after a few years, she was making 50% more than my best-ever pay in London.

Either you write in something desirable (even if niche), or you're good enough to switch languages easily and readily (and regularly) retrain in something desirable. If you do that and are good, there's work out there.

If you're a humble grunt who fixes stuff, it's much much harder.

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#167

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 3:02 PM UTC

habosa wrote: post #48

lproven wrote: post #18

I lost my last permanent job in London at the end of 2008, at the beginning of the financial crisis in the UK. I applied for about two thousand roles in 2009 alone, and from 2008-2013, about 3,500 roles in total... In about 6-8 countries in multiple disciplines. I averaged 30+ applications _per day_ at first... and 1 interview per year. From 2009 to 2013 I got 2 months of paying work in total. Reason? I think it's be…

Wow thousands of jobs! Could you explain: * How do you even send that many applications? Is there some site where you can click thousands of checkboxes and apply? Do you send individual emails? * What modifications do you make when applying from job-to-job? * What adjustments did you make along the way? Did you change your resume or make any other major changes to how you were presented? * For how many of those jobs…

I signed up with every agency in sight -- Monster, Reed, Manpower, whatever. I had saved keyword queries on all the major agencies and sites. I joined mailing lists with job ads -- I recall https://www.environmentjob.co.uk/ had some interesting ones, but many, you have to pay your own way, and I was broke. I went looking for as many ads as possible.

I had a file of application letters, needing minimal customisation to fit. Copy, paste, add salutation/role/location, attach CV, send.

My CV is longish -- 3 pages -- but then, so's my career. I've done what I can to optimise it for keywords that will get hits when pimps do searches.

The CV didn't get customised for specific applications unless I really wanted that role and thought I'd be perfect for it. It didn't help. I don't bother doing it any more. I maintain a "writer" and a "techie" CV, just in case.

Every morning, I would make a cuppa and breakfast, sit at the PC, read a few comics and the news, then start applying. I'd keep going until there were no vaguely relevant positions left. It took from 2 to 5 hours most days.

I logged every application in an OpenOffice/LibreOffice spreadsheet: date, title, reference number, agency. Every fortnight, I signed on at the Jobcentre, and took the printout of the last 2 weeks' applications to get it initialled as evidence. I needed that in August; by then, the printout was about 2cm thick.

I probably still have it somewhere. Perhaps I should put it on Dropbox for people to see the evidence. :-)

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#168

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 3:05 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #136

habosa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow thousands of jobs! Could you explain: * How do you even send that many applications? Is there some site where you can click thousands of checkboxes and apply? Do you send individual emails? * What modifications do you make when applying from job-to-job? * What adjustments did you make along the way? Did you change your resume or make any other major changes to how you were presented? * For how many of those jobs…

I’ve seen this happen to people. You get depressed and focus on sites like Monster/etc that are mostly bullshit generic posts and agencies trolling for resumes. No interviews because there are no jobs.

Up to a point, yes.

I tried to use as broad a range of places as I could find. I bought the Guardian every Thursday for the ads in the Tech pull-out, until they cancelled that. I subscribed to Computing and Computer Weekly and went for any print ads in there, too. I applied to a few from New Scientist as well, borrowing friends' copies or going to the local libraries.

There are indubitably many ads for each role, and also fake ads for agencies wanting lots of people on their books, but you can't really tell real from spam, so I just applied for them all.

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#169

Post by lproven » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

AFNobody wrote: post #124

habosa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow thousands of jobs! Could you explain: * How do you even send that many applications? Is there some site where you can click thousands of checkboxes and apply? Do you send individual emails? * What modifications do you make when applying from job-to-job? * What adjustments did you make along the way? Did you change your resume or make any other major changes to how you were presented? * For how many of those jobs…

> 2008-2013, about 3,500 roles > * How do you even send that many applications? Is there some site where you can click thousands of checkboxes and apply? Do you send individual emails? (3500/2) = 1750 hours, or just shy of one work year with holidays/vacation/etc. If he is applying to multiple countries, of the course of 5 years, I wouldn't be surprised if 3500 jobs were posted for him to apply to that his qualificat…

Just so. Aggressive job-hunting is a nearly full-time job in itself.

As I said, though, from 2010-2013 I became a lot more selective, meaning it was only an hour or 2 a day.

Re: Ask HN: Laid-off readers over 50, have you left the tech workforce?

#170

Post by b_t_s » Fri, Apr 27, 2018, 3:11 PM UTC

mud_dauber wrote: post #51

WillPostForFood wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In retrospect, do you think if instead of the 2000 applications you did in 2009, you had highly targeted maybe 1 position a week, with personalized letters, tweaked resume, and friendly follow up, you might have had success? 2009 was the worst year for employment I’ve ever seen, so maybe there truly were no options for you.

OP here - and I agree. 2009 was a worst-case scenario.

this. I had substantially the same experience in 2009 except I was 27 at the time. I could't get a job writing C++ with a degree and 4 years experience. I couldn't get a job flipping burgers. I later learned that the reason I could't get a cashier job at home depot was because they had already fired half the floor staff and made the office staff work two jobs. A friend of mine worked at a bank, and the accountant at that home depot was complaining to him that they were training her to cut lumber. It was work lumber + accounting or get fired. Of course they were still accepting applications :/