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Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

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Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#61

Post by fecak »

old-soft-man wrote: post #27
fecak wrote: post #8

Recruiter here. I would absolutely recommend you not include any obvious indicators of age on your resume, at least in many parts of the country. Graduation dates are not required, and perhaps your first few jobs can be eliminated from the resume. A resume doesn't have to be a complete biography. With 40 years of programming (not sure how many were hobby vs paid), you are likely to raise questions as to how many more…

Appreciate the advice, Recruiter, but despise the suggestion that appearances apparently still matter more than reality.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating ageism at all. I'm in my 40s, write about ageism somewhat frequently (1), and tend to work with candidates that are closer to my age or older. On Monday, I should be getting an offer letter for a female engineer who started her career in 1988.

I don't necessarily feel that appearances matter more than reality, depending on what appearance you are referring to. We're talking about resumes here (or at least I am), and we're in an industry where some (often the young) have opinions about the older members of the industry. This isn't new, and it's not even specific to the industry.

The reason I'd suggest trimming the resume is so you can actually be invited in to have that conversation where you can then convince someone who might be ageist that their bias is incorrect. By including information that makes it obvious you are of a certain age (for some it could be 30+, 40+, 50+, 60+), you are giving someone the ability to discriminate.

It goes the other way as well. Workers in their early 20's might want to appear (on paper) as old as reasonably possible.

The reality is that lots of older workers know their stuff, and will only be able to change the minds of those who discriminate by getting in front of them. I'm not suggesting "by any means necessary", but I have on issue with the tactics I suggest.

1 - http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2013/01/31/ageism/ (Overcoming ageism) http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2014/03/25/older/ (Why Hire Older Engineers)

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#62

Post by a3n »

brudgers wrote: post #57

Life is short. Why would you want to work somewhere that allows or encourages discrimination on age or anything else? Let assholes filter themselves out of your life.

Actually life is long, too long work for assholes.

I usually phrase it "No, I don't want to do that, life is too long to write C++," or whatever thing I'm declining to do.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#63

Post by a3n »

developer1 wrote: post #43
tjradcliffe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the advantages of being older is that it gives one the wisdom to be more selective about tools. I'm an expert in the tools I use (C, C++ and Python, mostly, although I know a dozen-odd languages well enough to crash a program in them) and not hugely keen on learning new ones. I poke around at new languages now and then but quickly learn they are either a) so much like ones I know there's nothing specia…

The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently. There's nothing like an editor from Jetbrains for tooling (Eclipse works too, but seriously the Jetbrains line is the best). I have never used emacs, but vim is horribly limited in what it can truly do in terms of handling code. You c…

> The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim [and went to the same university as the hiring manager --a3n] tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently.

Wow.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#64

Post by fsk »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #51
developer1 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently. There's nothing like an editor from Jetbrains for tooling (Eclipse works too, but seriously the Jetbrains line is the best). I have never used emacs, but vim is horribly limited in what it can truly do in terms of handling code. You c…

This is kind of ridiculous. You are indicting vim and emacs users for some alleged major catastrophe at your organization. You realize very large and well written software projects, probably my h larger than your's, have been built by people using vim and emacs and not having JetBrains did not hamper them. Honestly, I have seen so many developers fumbling around with their "intellisense" and the kinda of things you a…

I've tried a couple of syntax-highlighting editors. I'm starting to get annoyed at them.

The problem is when they don't do it right, and it's impossible to configure it to have the correct behavior.

For example, JetBeans, when you type a ", automatically inserts the matching ". I couldn't figure out how to disable this feature, and it leads to strings like "data"".

Syntax-highlighting editors only seem necessary for scripting languages where you don't get proper error messages. In C/C++, if you miss a " on a string, the compiler rules will ensure you an error message in the right place. If you miss a " in Javascript, the console error may be useless, so you need a syntax-highlighting editor to find your bug.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#65

Post by jbeja »

developer1 wrote: post #43
tjradcliffe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the advantages of being older is that it gives one the wisdom to be more selective about tools. I'm an expert in the tools I use (C, C++ and Python, mostly, although I know a dozen-odd languages well enough to crash a program in them) and not hugely keen on learning new ones. I poke around at new languages now and then but quickly learn they are either a) so much like ones I know there's nothing specia…

The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently. There's nothing like an editor from Jetbrains for tooling (Eclipse works too, but seriously the Jetbrains line is the best). I have never used emacs, but vim is horribly limited in what it can truly do in terms of handling code. You c…

My daily stupidity dose, thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#66

Post by codeonfire »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #55
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of someone who refused to use revision control because "merges were unreliable". Of course they are when you wait 30 days between commits.

Git noob question here (but someone who has been working on that noobishness for a year now): Can't you just rebase the branch you're on before trying to merge to another branch?

Rebasing is similar to merging. Instead of merging their code after your code, you are merging your code after their code. So if the two versions modify the same code fifty commits apart you'll have conflicts in both cases.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#67

Post by old-soft-man »

fecak wrote: post #61
old-soft-man wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Appreciate the advice, Recruiter, but despise the suggestion that appearances apparently still matter more than reality.

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating ageism at all. I'm in my 40s, write about ageism somewhat frequently (1), and tend to work with candidates that are closer to my age or older. On Monday, I should be getting an offer letter for a female engineer who started her career in 1988. I don't necessarily feel that appearances matter more than reality, depending on what appearance you are referring to. We're talking about…

I was referring to resumes/CVs as embodiments of appearances, although now it occurs to me that web browsers are essentially appearances portals.

I guess I'm just disappointed that the "Information Age" became mostly about titillating a mostly passive audience into drooling over screens. Whereas I had a seemingly eternal career working on what used to be called "middleware", it now seems to be impossible to get noticed without droning on about one's vast "full stack" experience, which on closer examination seems to be mostly about ADHD-like rushes from one Javascript and/or MVC framework to another - again, mostly in the service of wowing the senses of screen addicts.

I'm also kind of stunned by the seemingly universal belief that there's really that much difference between underlying tools that make machines sing, and that anyone who was ever profoundly well-versed in one set of tools couldn't quickly come up to speed on yet another syntax. That, in other words, the word 'generalist' has become a curse, while the parroting of anything ending in '.js' a red-carpet-unraveling blessing.

I suppose the increasing speed at which new screen junkie drugs must be deployed to become relevant/profitable has something to do with it.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#68

Post by codeonfire »

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #50
schlinb wrote: post #46

I have recently been involved in a project where we are analyzing employment offers from companies in different markets (SF bay area being one of them). We have found that one of the biggest factors in getting employment offers is how you position yourself. For instance right now if you are an enterprise engineer with extensive perl or .Net experience this will hurt you if you want to get into a young web company. On…

It's pretty silly, though. Node is not a new "technology." It is framework for using Javascript. It is debatable if it is even good. What is more important is someone's grasp of core CS and programming concepts. If a code bootcamper with 6 months of using some fad framework is more valuable than someone with 30 years of experience, why is that? If the code bootcamper can use Nodr, presumably the person with 30 years…

> why is that?

I tried to answer this, but it boils down to this. No one is going to say "I'm looking for node and boot campers because I don't have a lot of money."

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#69

Post by old-soft-man »

developer1 wrote: post #43
tjradcliffe wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think one of the advantages of being older is that it gives one the wisdom to be more selective about tools. I'm an expert in the tools I use (C, C++ and Python, mostly, although I know a dozen-odd languages well enough to crash a program in them) and not hugely keen on learning new ones. I poke around at new languages now and then but quickly learn they are either a) so much like ones I know there's nothing specia…

The editor thing can be kind of important. People who stick with emacs or vim tend to be horrible with following coding standards and being able to review and navigate code efficiently. There's nothing like an editor from Jetbrains for tooling (Eclipse works too, but seriously the Jetbrains line is the best). I have never used emacs, but vim is horribly limited in what it can truly do in terms of handling code. You c…

Sounds to me like the issue wasn't the editor they were using. They're just prima donnas doing what prima donnas do. Surely it's more than a little silly to blame the gun when someone gets hurt or dies? As always, whose hands are the tools in?

To me, Vim or Emacs are more like a violin, and software that enforces style more like a kazoo. While some might consider the sound of the latter music, those with ears to hear - and hands to play - know better.

I'll take a developer who can create consistently beautiful code in Vim or Emacs over someone who can't be as productive without style-enforcing crutches any day.

Re: Ask HN: Should I Downplay My Age?

#70

Post by hawkice »

O____________O wrote: post #31
hawkice wrote: post #2

My advice is to play up the experience, but play down some details of that experience. For instance, 40 years of COBOL and C++ has some signalling issues (not completely unreasonably, what with carpenters blaming shoddy tools). I'd probably not talk about the technical nature of the experience at all -- just say the industry it was for and what the tool was used for, and not name-dropping old technologies. Also, outs…

40 years of COBOL and C++ has some signalling issues Today is the first time I've seen C++ mentioned alongside COBOL. Today is a dark day...

To respond to this and the sibling comment: That was meant to be 40 years split in a first-COBOL-then-C++ type of way. I wasn't attempting to draw any technical equivalency per se, merely a quazi-cultural one.
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