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

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

#41

Post by kazinator »

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…

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 a techie.

Across all the organizations where I have ever worked, I remember plenty of "old" guys doing this kind of IT stuff.

With that background, it's probably going to be hard to apply for anything different. Hundreds of applications but very low interview rate sounds like some sort of insurmountable mismatch between background and job. Or something silly in your application that is raising some sort of "red flag" for no good reason. If your age or date of birth aren't in the application, then that can't be it.

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

#44

Post by albumdropped »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #30
albumdropped wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New role is almost entirely Go. Some legacy Python.

If you can, what type of code are you writing in Go commercially? Don't worry, you don't have to be specific, I'm just curious =) The libraries have really started to take off for it, and I'm curious if companies are catching up to that, yet.

There are several projects, but the largest is basically a very large specialized content platform. Many sites that have to be fast with no downtime - so Go, K8s, CockroachDB. We also have some machine learning (that's why we kept the Python). Also a few fun, small Raspberry Pi / GoBot things around the office.

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

#45

Post by WillPostForFood »

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.

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

#46

Post by taurath »

akshat_h wrote: post #16
fecak wrote: post #12

I'd hate to think that readers over 50 feel the need to consider leaving the tech workforce, and I know perhaps hundreds of successful engineers over 50. Those that have a hard time getting back in are often a victim of discrimination not truly based on age, but on stagnation. A 50 year old who has worked on five interesting diverse projects in the last 10 years will find work. A 50 year old who spent the last 20 yea…

I have always wondered this. Tech and probably other fields do want you to be promoted. From what I have heard, if you are not able to get promoted in certain number of years, you are put on a PIP and possibly laid off. But there are lesser number of Senior Engineers than Engineers, and lesser number of Principal Engineers than Senior Engineers. What exactly happens? Just the fact that the numbers in the pipeline is…

I work with senior engineers who are in their late 20s, and mid level devs in their 40s - I feel like the idea that a career path always has to have an upward trajectory is a bit of a farce - there are a lot of companies full of people who have kids, are competent, but don’t really want to take on the extra responsibility and time.

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

#47

Post by nardonne »

mikevp wrote: post #31

Laid off at 56. When I got home from being notified, there was an email from the HR person at a competitor in my inbox. I started work there within two weeks. Plus, my prior company had a rather spectacular special severance package for those of a certain age who would sign an agreement not to sue for age discrimination. (This was accompanied by a thick stack of statistics of who had been laid off, showing that they…

It's almost impossible to sue for age discrimination and win. All they have to do is lay off 1 person in their 20s at the time they laid off their older workers and they claim innocence and it works.

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

#48

Post by habosa »

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 did you proceed to an interview?

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

#49

Post by ultimoo »

mikevp wrote: post #31

Laid off at 56. When I got home from being notified, there was an email from the HR person at a competitor in my inbox. I started work there within two weeks. Plus, my prior company had a rather spectacular special severance package for those of a certain age who would sign an agreement not to sue for age discrimination. (This was accompanied by a thick stack of statistics of who had been laid off, showing that they…

Bay Area or elsewhere?

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

#50

Post by rhacker »

mahoneycutt wrote: post #17

Not quiet 50 - age 49 - 28 years at same organization That was in 2011 - I retired and started doing in-home tech support for little old (rich) ladies and gentlemen. I haven't looked back :-)

Oh man, I am curious how that is. I used to do in-home tech work when I was much much younger like 20ish. I didn't realize it then, but thinking back on those experiences I often had housewives that were creating their own websites, um... flirting with me... I'm kinda glad I didn't notice... then.. So now I'm curious, do you see that?
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