Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 451 posts

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#211

Post by m0zg »

mancerayder wrote: post #177
m0zg wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "interviews" are you talking about? Your track record is supposed to speak for itself. The interview boils down to sitting down with a client and figuring out what they need and whether you can do it. Because you're a contractor you can be fired effortlessly, so there's very little risk for the client. You can also fire the client, so there's little risk for you. I think you either don't have the right track rec…

Well it's partially a marketing issue, to answer your question of why interviews. It's recruiters who find me, and they present me as a contractor (when I signal I'm searching for this). The people I used to work with tend to ping me for full-time roles only, unfortunately, and word-of-mouth seems to be a common contractor route. Finding clients outside of that requires what I expect is a social media presence, possi…

Fascinating. It's as though we operate in entirely different worlds. I have much more work available to me than I can handle.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#212

Post by marcinzm »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #208
jhayward wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect that the incivility and self-righteousness that comes through in these comments may have lead some to think that the poster needs some time to gain perspective, and wisdom, about how to deal with everyone with respect.

I might be an incivil, self-righteous person, but could you please explain to this incivil person why ageist discrimination is OK when applied to the young but not the old?

Because in that case it's not about age, age is the excuse given because they didn't want to actually explain why they didn't think you were good for the position. Maybe they attributed your negative qualities to young age and thus used that as the explanation, maybe not. Maybe they wanted a reason you couldn't argue against or fix. If they were particularly devious a-holes and you'd annoyed them then maybe they said age because they knew it'd drive you insane.

edit: And right for the position includes personally not liking you or thinking you're not acting appropriately to them. I doubt they cared much for how the company does compared to their own egos.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#213

Post by scarface74 »

steverb wrote: post #184
maxheadroom wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My resume has always been one page. I hate looking over 3 page resumes. I don’t care what you did in the 90s. This is very culture specific. Example: Like you, I usually keep a revolving ~10 years history on my CV. As the years progress, I drop anything > 10 years, as it's really no longer relevant. Anyways, I was pointedly asked one time during an interview, recently, for a company in a different country, " Where'…

My solution to this has generally been to add a "1997 - 2000 Various Previous work history available upon request" at the bottom. And then just carry a copy or two of the full CV with you to the interview. If someone wants to see it, let them. Generally interviewers have just been curious.

Even though I think ageism is overblown in the software development industry if you are buzzword compliant, I don’t take any chances. I leave everything off before 2008, my year of graduation and I go completely clean shaven and bald in an interview. (I’m Black it’s not abnormal). Most non-Blacks have no idea how old I am without the obvious signs of gray hair or a receding hair line.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#214

Post by docker_up »

epc wrote: post #25

Am 52. Served as IBM’s “corporate webmaster” in the 1990s (sort of like being CTO but without the cool executive hat). Corporate Webmaster was responsible for all technical operations of IBM’s corporate sites (from systems administration to application development), as well as theoretically responsible for all IBM web sites. As well as serve as the single point of contact inside IBM for anything “internet”. Have been…

I'm almost 50 myself. I've been coding for 25+ years, and am looking for a new job myself. I have one at a well-known company but I want to make more hay while the sun shines. I currently have a week of onsites booked with the Big N, and I'm in study mode. Because I'm still technical and hands-on and never became a manager, I haven't had any trouble getting contacted constantly for new jobs.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#215

Post by nimbius »

Is this something exclusive to white collar jobs or is it mostly programming? Asking as my day job is in the skilled trade of engine mechanic.

If youre over 45 in a machine shop or in any trade (plumbing, electrical, automotive, HVAC, etc...) your biggest barrier to getting any job is picking up the phone when it rings. Johnson Control, Honeywell, heck even people like Nest and Ford are kicking down your door and offering you any money to join.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#216

Post by barry-cotter »

arcturus17 wrote: post #154
hash872 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was completely with you until the last paragraph. As the poster above me says, the more you regulate hiring, the more reluctant companies are to do so. You can look at the entire continent of Europe for a 500 million person example of this- sclerotic uber-regulated hiring markets with intense bureaucratic rules around who can be hired or fired, who can be laid off, under what circumstances, etc. The end result of thi…

Tend to agree with deregulating hiring but some economies with heavily regulated employment like Germany (I’ve lived there, it is a nightmare to fire grossly incompetent employees) have very low unemployment rates.

Hartz IV was successful. Germany decreased bureaucracy and employment protection/regulation to the extent that their unemployment rate went down massively. From 1994-2012 Competition Weighted Relative Unit Labour Costs in Germany declined by 30% and unemployment dropped from 12% to 5.5% from 2005 to 2012.

https://pseudoerasmus.com/2014/08/01/anthropology-of-financi...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartz_concept

> The Hartz concept, also known as Hartz reforms or the Hartz plan, is a set of recommendations submitted by a committee on reforms to the German labour market in 2002. Named after the head of the committee, Peter Hartz, these recommendations went on to become part of the German government's Agenda 2010 series of reforms, known as Hartz I – Hartz IV. The committee devised thirteen "innovation modules", which recommended changes to the German labour market system. These were then gradually put into practice: The measures of Hartz I – III were undertaken between January 1, 2003, and 2004, while Hartz IV was implemented on January 1, 2005.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#217

Post by mykowebhn »

PopeDotNinja wrote: post #159
mykowebhn wrote: post #33

I'm 48, on the West Coast, and recently finished interviewing, receiving multiple offers. I did 250 Leetcode problems, practiced System Design, and Behavioral. In the end, I found doing 250 Leetcode was probably overkill, but it definitely helped. This will probably get me severely down-voted, and I do understand the antipathy toward having to Leetcode, but the way I see it is that I'm really lucky. I get to sit on m…

How did you practice System Design questions?

Based on your profile it looks like you have a lot of experience, so I would first rely on your experience.

That said, there are plenty of resources that have been helpful to me:

1) http://highscalability.com/

2) http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920032175.do

3) https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer

Hope this helps!

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#218

Post by koolba »

bachmeier wrote: post #49
jedberg wrote: post #32

I think part of the problem is "protected classes". I learned the other day that if you're over 40 you're a protected class for engineering in California. If you're a protected class and you have a job, that's great! It will help you a lot. But the unintended consequence is that companies are more reluctant to hire someone in a protected class, because if they are legitimately bad at their job, they are harder to get…

I can't speak to California law, but in general the bar for age discrimination is so high that it doesn't mean much.

The threat of a lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, is enough to dissuade employers.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#219

Post by sjg007 »

freyr wrote: post #54

Can someone tell me where the older software engineers in the Bay Area have gone? I recently moved into the software industry (after years in the telecom industry), and the lack of older software engineers is disconcerting in a Soylent Green type of way. I guess some have moved into management, and others have made enough money to retire, or they've moved somewhere with better value than the Bay Area. They're likely…

We work remotely.

Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It

#220

Post by nsporillo »

radlad wrote: post #196
spork12 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to toss North Carolina out there as a great up and coming tech hub as well. Cheap living and lots of software jobs.

Where are the software jobs in NC? Who's hiring?

Raleigh. I was just hired by Bandwidth as a SE, but I'll be working at one of their satellite offices in Rochester, NY.
Post reply on HN