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64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

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Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#251

Post by ido »

scarface74 wrote: post #239
kamaal wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>How will they tell the difference between if I am 45 and 50 before they make an offer? They have eyes, and age shows. Wrinkles, greying hair etc. Its not that hard to spot old people.

I’m not saying that it is hard to spot old people but the difference between 45 and 50 isn’t that great. It wouldn’t have mattered either in my last two jobs or my current one since my managers were all older than I am. But, I don’t take any chances. I go to all my interviews clean shaven - bald head, and no facial hair specifically because of the ageism boogeyman. No one thinks twice about a Black guy with a bald he…

That was my plan if and when this becomes an issue for me. I'm 35 so I haven't yet (to my knowledge) experienced agism but if I'll live long enough I'm pretty sure I will still need to work for another 30+ years.

Anyway dying/shaving your hair etc will help you mask 50 vs 45, but when you're 60...

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#252

Post by crispyambulance »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #226
Justsignedup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good project management is invisible. They just make projects happen. They make sure everyone is talking. They make sure decisions are made. Everyone knows what to do when to do it. Etc. I seen good project management. It is magical. Then the manager left. Everything slowed down to a crawl.

Invisible makes it sound intangible. If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? Making sure "the right people are talking", "decisions are made", etc. do sound like things that can be tracked to confirm if a PM is indeed adding value.

    > If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all?
The problem with that line of thought is that it's not at all easy (or even possible) to quantifiably measure performance on an individual basis. This is especially true for roles like PM's whose job is to enable the labor and talent of others.

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#253

Post by TStowe »

crispyambulance wrote: post #32
towaway1138 wrote: post #15

I'm only in my 50s, but this is very relateable. Did a couple dozen interviews a year or two ago before finally getting a bite. Somewhat amazingly, even passed the hiring committee at a FANG, only to get swatted down by a rare strike from the executive level. In one interview, was asked to produce a class that could serialize and deserialize a list of numbers, to/from a string of chars. Sure, it's not that hard. Took…

I find it disturbing he can't find work as a project manager. If anything, that's one role where the practitioners typically know fuck-all about nothing and where good ones are worth their weight in gold. I LOVE to work with ADULT project managers who have a clue about how projects actually unfold and how things actually get done with a wide variety of personalities in the mix. Instead, more often than not, you get 2…

The project managers and admin staff hired at one of the medium sized companies I worked at were the dating pool for two of the three owners. Stripper hot. Every single one. Underqualified. Every single one. It's gone from secretary pools to middle management pools in the guise of gender equality. One of the owners offered to hook me up with one in exchange for helping him out.

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#254

Post by TStowe »

JMTQp8lwXL wrote: post #226
Justsignedup wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good project management is invisible. They just make projects happen. They make sure everyone is talking. They make sure decisions are made. Everyone knows what to do when to do it. Etc. I seen good project management. It is magical. Then the manager left. Everything slowed down to a crawl.

Invisible makes it sound intangible. If you can't quantify the value you're adding to an organization, are you adding any at all? Making sure "the right people are talking", "decisions are made", etc. do sound like things that can be tracked to confirm if a PM is indeed adding value.

Oftentimes I've seen PMs used to talk directly to clients about projects, and groups of execs. Hired because they're great "window dressing".

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#255

Post by thisisweirdok »

stale2002 wrote: post #119
thisisweirdok wrote: post #79

When I was in my upper 30s I was mistakingly included in a reply-all email from someone who interviewed me and said I seemed kind of old for the position. I was ready to lose my shit on them but my wife made me wait a day before responding when she saw how angry I was. I was considering hiring a lawyer to sue the shit out of them for discrimination, but at the end of the day I brushed it off with a snarky "at least I…

Here is a question for you. What if instead of the situation that you were in, the opposite happened to a young developers. Ie, the employer used a euphemism to discriminate against someone because they were too young. Would this bother you? Or is it only your age group that you care about being discriminated against? TBH, young people are massively discriminated against, in all forms of jobs. It is merely accepted,…

You do realize that they didn't hire me because they preferred a young developer... right?

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#256

Post by normal_man »

segmondy wrote: post #162
towaway1138 wrote: post #15

I'm only in my 50s, but this is very relateable. Did a couple dozen interviews a year or two ago before finally getting a bite. Somewhat amazingly, even passed the hiring committee at a FANG, only to get swatted down by a rare strike from the executive level. In one interview, was asked to produce a class that could serialize and deserialize a list of numbers, to/from a string of chars. Sure, it's not that hard. Took…

This defeatist attitude is what's going to make this come true for you. McDonald? really? How about consulting? Starting your own shit? Perhaps looking outside of the West Coast and other places you might be appreciated? How about the govt, schools, hospitals, banks, big ol boring enterprises? How about other countries? Seriously, you have option and everyone does. If you are smart enough to pass the hiring committee…

>If you believe you can, you can, if you believe you can't, you can't.

This is what you tell a child, not a middle aged professional. You should really rethink how you talk to people.

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#257

Post by ilovetux »

ilovetux wrote: post #246
brobdingnagians wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like this comment; seems like you could make a pretty good company from the older talent that isn't picked up by the young companies. In terms of pure competition, you could give them all a run for their money with the lifelong knowledge bit.

I've seen something similar where a company made a spot for themselves hiring aging cobol programmers and making pretty good money contracting with other companies. I will try to find a link to the article I read.

I found the link. The company is called COBOL Cowboys.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-cobol/banks-scr...

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#258

Post by geodel »

democracy wrote: post #242
throwaway24572 wrote: post #51

So here's some hiring anti-patterns I've seen, it's not just millennial managers, but I've seen these patterns in lots of companies and interviews. 1. Managers that want to hire people they could be best friends with. Drinking buddies, social media socialites, etc. Don't confuse this with hiring their best friends, they just feel more comfortable around people that they could socialize with. 2. Managers that don't wa…

Strongly disagree with #4. If you stay in middle management you are basically the easiest target for company "re-structuring" and your position will be made obsolete in a moment - as you are expensive, visible and easily replaceable with a more enthusiastic/younger/cheaper/less vocal individuals. I have seen it many times, such people are unemployable after years of management on this level.

This seems very true to me. I have only middle managers survive are un-management like. They would join 3 AM troubleshooting, prod deployment calls, be available on weekends. In general about as much concerned as tech lead if not more.

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#259

Post by monocasa »

eecsninja wrote: post #208
monocasa wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++11 and up is legitimately very very different from C++03 and below.

But someone working on C++ prior to 2012 could still have encountered and experienced C++11.

Probably not, there was a really long latency between the spec coming out in 2011 and compiler support. Multiple years.

Re: 64 and unemployed: One man's struggle to be taken seriously as a job applicant

#260

Post by normal_man »

ericb wrote: post #183
snotrockets wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't be, because different groups answer questions differently. One famous result ( http://web.pdx.edu/~mev/pdf/PS471_Readings_2012/Lizotte_Sidm... ) is that woman hold themselves to a higher threshold of certainty before claiming to know something. An interesting solution would be to score differently based on known biases; but that would be a can of worms in itself. Meritocracy is a lie used by the privileged.…

> Meritocracy is a lie used by the privileged. I don't understand this point of view. It sounds like, by calling it a lie, your real complaint is the ways attempts at meritocracy have fallen short of being an actual meritocracy. That being the case, isn't meritocracy still the correct ideal that we should be doing a better job of striving for? If this is not how you feel, what is the word for the appropriate assignme…

It is not possible to have an "actual" meritocracy. There's simply no way to account for all personal biases and all the historical context that you'd need to to get a truly "objective" decision made.
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