An oldster in HN world is someone over 32, right?
I saw only a handful of 40+ people at Startup School a few years ago.
Show HN: Hire an Oldster
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Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Correct. At least at the federal level. The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) only forbids age discrimination against people who are age 40 or older. It does not protect workers under the age of 40, although some states do have laws that protect younger workers from age discrimination. If your state or local jurisdiction doesn't protect young(er) workers against discrimination and only the federal law appli…
state law might have different wording too...
A state law can make a federal law stronger, but states cannot make federal laws weaker.
Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#63I'm 40, in tech years that's like 1000. I also see value in hiring experience but explicitly factoring by age discriminates against a protected class in the USA. I think a lawsuit is in my future if I use this for placement at my company. Of course, if you simply rebranded to talk about "experience" rather than "age" then solvelem probbed. Also, age != experience != skill.
I'm 40 and don't feel that way at all.
…and not an "unknown," perhaps laid-off, looking for work, correct?
Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or maybe one year of experience, each in a specialized topic, which are all intertwined. I have 20 years experience in RF engineering, and probably a few years each in sub-disciplines that combine to form a full system. That is pretty valuable, especially being able to head off problems, due to prior experience with them.
A whole career of very short jobs isn't great though. One particularly valuable kind of experience is seeing a project through and understanding how early decisions went awry later on. Some older coders I work with might not have obsessively learned the latest framework, but they can identify issues like "that's the kind of subsystem that one person ends up maintaining, and then they leave and it's awful", or "We did…
Ha ha, I guess I'm screwed as I work in a job shop where no project lasts longer than 6 months. I love it though. Better that than the same project for several years.
Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#65If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…
I attended a lecture last week, older people were one of the topics that got touched. Instead of having old employees teaching the younger, he told a story of a business requiring old people to receive fresh young employees as their mentor.
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Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#66If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…
I look at the skillset between when I was 25 and now (30) and it's astounding. I can't imagine what the difference between 50 and 25 will be. If you're hiring 40-60 year olds you cannot simply hire a 25 year old and get an "acceptable tradeoff of competency" unless you didn't need anything close to that competency in the first place. Also if you're 50 and are relying on a new job's retirement program you're probably…
I'm 63 with a BS in Chemistry and MS in Environmental Systems Engineer. I was a student teacher of microbiology when I was in graduate school. I started coding fortran in HS about 1969 or 1970.
> I'm pretty knowledgeable about paid search and social but I don't think my Political Science degree has anything to do with that. To imply that someone's age precludes them from understanding paid search, mobile advertising, or social is the very definition of ageism.
I run 134+ branded sites (and maybe 20+ other misc sites) some of which do extensive search marketing (extensive for a university). I am a digital native as much as the next person regardless of age.
Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#67If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…
These may be the reasons that hiring managers give. But they are not necessarily the real reasons.
Most managers have trouble recognizing that their job is to make sure stuff is happening well, and not to be in charge. Older people are more likely to bring relevant experience and knowledge to bear on problems, and therefore to question authority. This knowledge and experience tends to be quite valuable, however it is easier for insecure people to discount it than to process it and incorporate the applicable bits.
The result is that it is more comfortable and easier for most managers to find grounds to ignore and discount experienced people than it is to find value in it. Which becomes a competitive advantage for those companies who "get it".
Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#68If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…
I look at the skillset between when I was 25 and now (30) and it's astounding. I can't imagine what the difference between 50 and 25 will be. If you're hiring 40-60 year olds you cannot simply hire a 25 year old and get an "acceptable tradeoff of competency" unless you didn't need anything close to that competency in the first place. Also if you're 50 and are relying on a new job's retirement program you're probably…
"unless you didn't need anything close to that competency in the first place."
I think that's a key thing to look at. There is only so much space at the top of the experience chain in most jobs. I doubt most companies need more than 1-2 senior software devs per 5 software devs.
Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#69An oldster in HN world is someone over 32, right?
Whew, I got a couple years before they take me out back.
Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster
#70I'm 40, in tech years that's like 1000. I also see value in hiring experience but explicitly factoring by age discriminates against a protected class in the USA. I think a lawsuit is in my future if I use this for placement at my company. Of course, if you simply rebranded to talk about "experience" rather than "age" then solvelem probbed. Also, age != experience != skill.
I am 42, and I don't agree with your assessment. I didn't get my first full time software dev gig until age 40 (learned to code over previous few years). The primary thing my employer cares about is my contribution to the company's mission. If lose sight of that, and try selling the value of my many years of X, I am missing the point.
To put it another, my age is not coupled to my value. It's up to me, at any age, to focus on what it takes to make my employer more successful.
Employer: "I need a developer who can do A, B, and C."
Me: "That's me!"
Employer: " I can't ask you how old you are, but maybe sometime you can tell me what it was like to start your career at a time when computers read your code off punchcards and ran it on vacuum tubes."
Me: "Nah, I started when computers ran on steam and looked like a building sized abacus. All kidding aside, why do you need A, B, and C? Let's talk about how I can help you make mad stacks of greenbacks."
Employer: "I like making money! OK, I here's what we're working on..."