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Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

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Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#241

Post by lingan »

If you're not even getting to the phone interview, it might be ageism and/or your resume isn't written for the role you're applying to.

I'm a hiring manager and all too often I get resumes from people that think listing more is better. 5, 6, 7 page resumes are exhausting to read. Write for your audience. Know the company you're applying to. Know the role you're applying for. Write addressing those points. Take it from the perspective of the reader. I have 20 resumes on my desk, I need yours to stand out.

As for the ageism, take out dates. Don't need to know what year you got your degree. Don't need to know past 10 years.

That should get you on the same level as everyone else for the phone interview. After that, it's a different story.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#242

Post by techcode »

Reading through your comments/replies (e.g.: "knack for listening to customer", "generalist", "can setup machines"...etc) make me think I'll be in your shoes once I reach your age... Hence I have to ask - any advice you would give to younger self?

Should I focus on having some/one/few "unique selling propositions" - something I can say I'm expert in? And what would those be?

Anyway back to trying to give you (and other younger folks) some answers.

I've been interviewing candidates for a while. From technical phone interviews, over F2F, and now mostly so called Fit interviews.

And first time I interviewed someone with CS PhD that they have since around the time I was born - I was happy to be paired with another older colleague.

Not that I was scared/intimidated or felt inadequate. I was really worried about candidate getting impression we're a bunch of "teenagers" ;)

So actually on that point I've got nothing for anonOver60 - other than saying to others that instead of being intimidated, you should just be yourself and there is nothing to worry about.

If the candidate is good - being more experienced they'll know how to handle situation in a way that won't make you feel like 2nd class compared to them.

I second the idea of different/customized CV for different roles/positions. In fact each place/position you apply for should be it's own tuned/customized veraion of generic CV..

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#243

Post by docker_up »

newtothebay wrote: post #118
docker_up wrote: post #22

Anything more than 10 years old on your resume is worthless. Yes, you may have 3 STEM undergrad degrees, but no one cares because it's not relevant anymore. What modern technologies have you recently worked with? What does your resume show, 20 years at the same company, or do you have experience at well-known, "prestigous" companies like FANG? Are you pigeon-holed into a specific area, or are you a generic, back-end…

As a young professional who's realized the importance of maintaining a network, I'd love to learn how you stay in touch with your former co-workers. Do you reach out for weekend lunch dates just to chat? Are people open to that (given work, hobbies, kids, etc.)? I'm having a hard time coming with "excuses" and serendipity to stay in touch with people I'm no longer working with.

"Hey! wassap, how's life?? Want to go grab lunch next week?" I never schedule anything during the weekend, only during the week. And I don't mind travelling out to see

Literally, that's what I will send to one of my ex-coworkers, or vice versa. It's not anything more than that. Either through gChat or Facebook Messenger, I don't find it that hard, and I don't feel like I need excuses.

I recently went to a going-away/layoff party for one of the first engineers I worked under in Silicon Valley, 20+ years ago. I hadn't personally talked to him in 10+ years, but he was delighted to see me. We shared war stories about our old company, dot com bust, etc. It was great, and doesn't have to be anything more than that.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#244

Post by emmanueloga_ »

Tangentially related, the other day I learned that Carl Sassenrath [1], 60+, according to wikipedia [2], has been working in Roku for the last 10 years. Maybe it is a good company to get in touch with?

Also, I don't have hard numbers or anything but I've worked or meet people in Google and YouTube that are north of 50. There's even a nickname for them [3] ... I guess depending on your personality you can take the nickname the good or the bad way. I wanna think, good :-)

1: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carl-sassenrath-02699b84/

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sassenrath

3: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Greygler#English

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#245

Post by fecak »

TomVDB wrote: post #97
fecak wrote: post #50

I'm a professional resume writer and job search strategy consultant (20 years of tech recruiting experience), and I'd be open to taking a look to see what the issue might be (see my profile for contact info). It might not even be the resume, but instead your approach to how you're applying. If you're just sending resumes through Indeed and hoping for responses, you're doing it wrong. The age thing may be an issue of…

I assume that you've worked with 60 yo customers in the past. What's your experience with placing them?

I’ve had a few, but I don’t always hear how they did after we work together so I couldn’t provide a metric.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#246

Post by austincheney »

s73v3r_ wrote: post #224
austincheney wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps. The issue here is should somebody be completely destroyed for a difference of opinion? In the Bay Area the answer is a resounding yes . Tolerance is a comforting and popular term in the Bay Area. What people there are actually seeking is the enemy of tolerance: harmony . I really don’t care about people’s silly justifications for not seeing the difference, because either way it’s generally a personal delusio…

"The issue here is should somebody be completely destroyed for a difference of opinion?" Calling it a "difference of opinion" is really masking the entire thing. He was saying that, not only are LGBT people not deserving of the same rights that he had, but that we should be able to vote on what rights they have. Can you see how dehumanizing that is? And I cannot take your bit about "tolerance" seriously when we're ta…

Tolerance is appreciation of disagreement, so it really seems that you are misusing that term to qualify something not stated.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#247

Post by lj3 »

88e282102ae2e5b wrote: post #67
grmarcil wrote: post #19

With 35 years experience, I expect that you have a pretty wide professional network - consider whether you're using those connections to get warm introductions and pointed to good-fit jobs to the greatest degree possible. My apologies if this is stating the obvious, but if your applications are starting with just a resume, you're already at a disadvantage at any age. And I suppose that effect only increases with year…

Also, consider this from the manager's perspective. They have to ask themselves: if this person has 35 years of experience, they must have a substantial network, so why aren't they just tapping that resource? Not a single person from this applicant's past wants to give them an interview?

Do you know many developers who hang out with management? Most of the engineers I've worked with over my career have not transitioned into management and have no sway as far as the interview process goes.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#248

Post by darreld »

anonOver60 wrote: post #190
prisionif wrote: post #99

Why aren't you running your own business, maybe as a consultant? You shouldn't be selling your services but your knowledge.

Actually, I would appreciate some advice on this. I truly don't know what services to sell. I can set up machines, design databases, write graph algorithms, train machine learning models, design web services, etc. But I'm not a "leading expert" on any of those things. I'm a generalist and usually have an answer for any problem I run into simply because I've run into it before. How do I market myself as a general prob…

I'm in the exact same boat and would love to hear some ideas.

Re: Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs?

#249

Post by 01100011 »

anonOver60 wrote: post #214
01100011 wrote: post #181

Look for an engineering services firm and work as a subcontractor. We're currently employing several guys who are 60 (+/-5). Also... sorry... but try the defense industry. They have insanely low standards.

OP: Not sure why you are down-voted. The HackerNews Community seems to dislike telling the truth if it is surrounded by even a hint of negativity. Can you be more specific about what you mean by "engineering services firm"?

There are many small companies which provide anything from staff augmentation(engineers for hire) to full product design services(come to us with an idea and a bag of money and we'll make it happen). I'm in San Diego and know a couple companies that do this:

http://www.serranosystems.com/

https://fairwaytech.com/

http://www.a2etechnologies.com/

http://www.jetheaddev.com/

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