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

221–230 of 451 posts

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

#221

Post by bsder »

vageli wrote: post #194
luckydata wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it.

> I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it. How are you supposed to find out the…

> How are you supposed to find out the hiring manager's name from a job post? I'd be curious to hear some of these tricks.

Go to meetups. User's groups. Any gathering of technical people. Important people tend to network, but they may not be the "regulars" as they are busy people.

I know more than a couple of technical/user groups where a relatively unknown person giving a good presentation is likely to wind up with an interview on the spot ... if not an actual consulting/job offer.

The key is a good presentation. The content shows your technical chops and the presentation shows your communication skills.

And, while lots of people say "have a GitHub and reference it", I'm going to caution about this. Just like an art portfolio, only put things you can proud of in there if you're going to make it public and reference it for employment. I may make you show me at the interview on your laptop and talk about it and it shouldn't embarrass you.

(Personally, I don't check GitHub unless someone points me at it explicitly.)

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

#222

Post by [deleted] »

oblio wrote: post #178
pmiller2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. What region do you live in, and how do you think your bottom line compares to what you’d see in a comparable role in the Bay Area? I’m not really architect / principal level just yet (probably 3-5 years of continuous improvement from that I would say), but I feel like I’m just barely getting ahead as a senior making $200k paying $2300/month in rent with no hope to buy and about a 40-60 minute commute (de…

Excuse me, but at $200k you're making $100k net so about $8k per month. With rent at $2.3k, you should be able to save enough to buy something at some point, no? Or at least you could rent something more expensive, closer to work?

[deleted]

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

#223

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

marcinzm wrote: post #204
4ntonius8lock wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my experience that when people resort to sarcasm they have lost the argument and can't face it. But I'll address what you are saying: Insurance can charge people without using ageism. Before, insurers found that black people needed to pay more. After all, they were barbaric said the insurers. Then it became illegal. Insurance companies still exist. Doing away with barbaric old practices is a good thing and as h…

>It is my experience that when people resort to sarcasm they have lost the argument and can't face it. Or they understand that this site is in the end entertainment. Sarcasm makes it more fun for both the writer and the other readers. You're projecting how much you care about this issue onto me. Reality is, I don't care about it much at all, it's a mild intellectual diversion to me. You're hurt by this, you're infuri…

So 1 of 3:

1- Rational: Your original argument is flawed, you realize it and have changed but can't admit it 2- Irrational: You can't defend your argument since you haven't, but won't change 3- Plain Nasty: You are trolling.

I'm inclined to think 3, though most people don't use their real name when trolling.

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

#224

Post by nickpsecurity »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #138
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> was specifically told by the CEO I would be considered for the position if not for my age I’ve been told this and it sucks. I made the mistake of trying grovelling and complaining. Both failed for, with hindsight, fundamental reasons. If you’re ambitious, you have to develop a political sense. Keeping stock of leverage relationships is key. If you lack leverage, you can’t make demands. If you’d represented revenue…

Again, what you are saying can be summed up in 'get over it' and 'find a way around it for yourself'. That's fine. I actually did. But it seems really inappropriate to say this here. We are discussing the insidiousness of discrimination with the hope of socially being more conscious and finding ways to improve this. It's kinda like going into a place with victims of racism and saying 'get over' and 'use your white vo…

"Again, what you are saying can be summed up in 'get over it' and 'find a way around it for yourself'."

That's not what I'm reading in the comment. They are telling you it's a different game, they focus on what kinds of value you bring that they actually care about, and you can have leverage in such situations if you are such a person. From there, you automatically know to be the person delivering on the metrics that matter to upper management. Maybe to see if you even can before getting a job in a specific organization. They're telling you how to be more effective in the event you want to win more at that level.

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

#225

Post by wellpast »

uoaei wrote: post #124
wellpast wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this. I think evaluating/interviewing is hard, should be much more about experience and past projects but so what if the industry has got it wrong, so what you have to study a little to get the job? The world is what it is. I think criticizing this from a ‘we could do better as an industry’ perspective is productive but from a personal perspective — today — what is going to get you hired is playing the game as…

"I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the software engineer's great stumbling block in his stride toward hiring fairness is not the Genius Asshole or the Bullshitter Who Can't Code, but the anonymous internet commenter, who is more devoted to 'pragmatism' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of reform to a positive peace which is the presence of fairness..."

Nobody is striving toward ‘hiring fairness’ ... don’t believe any person who says that’s what they are after.

Better outcomes, better industry productivity, sure. But ‘hiring fairness’?

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

#226

Post by h0p3 »

throwayscid3 wrote: post #114

I'm 47 and have run my own companies, exited some of them with handsome returns, enjoyed many cool start-up projects, worked for some fortune-50 companies, have an IQ that is through the roof, but despite everything, since around 7 years am unable to get a job. Mostly I'm "overqualified" or "just too old" ... never mind I am still hands-on and happy to just get paid whatever the Junior gets, but nobody is interested.…

Fuck dude. That is awful. =(

If you ever want to talk, hit me up.

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

#227

Post by Zenst »

luckydata wrote: post #180
epc wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mostly retired. Stopped worrying about finding FTE 5-6 years ago and focused on making the cash I had work for me on a more immediate time scale. I do some advisory work with local startups for equity. Angel invested for awhile but stopped as mentioned elsewhere in an earlier thread. Would love to work again in tech but have never cracked getting on recruiters’ radar and I have better things to do than play whack—a-m…

I'm going to rock your world: almost nobody uses the keyword scanners in the ATSs. Sending a resume is mostly a waste of time, if you find a job you like just speak to someone that works at that company, preferably the hiring manager, and your likelihood of at least getting an interview goes up by about two orders of magnitude. Happy to teach you other tricks if you care for it.

As a 50+ chap, I had an instance of a top company, referred by friend, whole team up for it and to not even get an interview as I got `filtered` by HR and the recruitment process.

Turns out they rejected me as I was `overqualified`.

Equally in my early years pre PC mainstream days, there was an age bias towards older people. With many personal experiences upon that in that time/culture - including, believe it or not `overqualified` (they sat a coding exam and I found mistakes in the exam) for a COBOL job at a bank aged 19 (had 3 years work under my belt already in the field). Recruitment agent said it was because I knew more than the boss and he didn't like that. Was a time also back then when the boss would of previously done the job of those under him in such institutional culture of that time.

Dare say starting out today is easier than it was pre internet boom.

I'm sure there are others who equally have experienced agisim on both ends of the scale in IT.

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

#228

Post by 4ntonius8lock »

marcinzm wrote: post #212
4ntonius8lock wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One day I will know as much about my own life as you seem to believe you know about me.

Even if my particular case was not about ageism, we can agree it happens against the young unfairly, sometimes. Even if I'm too much of an asshole for it to happen to me.

So, my point stands: can you please explain to this self righteous, incivil person who deserves the discrimination he has experienced, why it is OK to discriminate against the young but not the old?

P.S. Odd how in your last comment when I argued against your logic and you couldn't answer any more, you said: 'I don't care about this you do' and then proceed to post a bunch more times in this same thread.

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

#229

Post by petsormeat »

throwayscid3 wrote: post #114

I'm 47 and have run my own companies, exited some of them with handsome returns, enjoyed many cool start-up projects, worked for some fortune-50 companies, have an IQ that is through the roof, but despite everything, since around 7 years am unable to get a job. Mostly I'm "overqualified" or "just too old" ... never mind I am still hands-on and happy to just get paid whatever the Junior gets, but nobody is interested.…

I am close to this point, in my early 50s.

I'm still housed, and my home life is okay, which is a damn miracle, since I have been unable to rejoin the supposedly "hot" SF Bay Area tech industry. I can get interviews if I whack 15 years off my web development career on my resume. I don't pass the in-person or video interview stage, because then the employer sees that I'm older than 35.

Many of your points resonate with me intensely. We're not sick, disabled, immoral, nor incapable. We're just unemployed, given too much evidence that our societies consider us useless.

I wish you peace in this wretched time.

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

#230

Post by marcinzm »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #149
marcinzm wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Age is a proxy in people’s minds for other things, usually maturity, gravitas and playing the social game. Not always but more often than not. Age is a quick if inexact proxy but you can prove it in other ways.

That's true. But it seems really inappropriate to say this here. We are discussing the insidiousness of discrimination with the hope of socially being more conscious and finding ways to improve this. It's kinda like going into a place with victims of racism and saying 'get over' and 'use your white voice/dress more white' when talking about the issue of racism. Or suggesting that racial discrimination is justified. I…

>P.S. I had a department with large numbers and strong growth on my side for leverage, that is why the CEO considered me in the first place. The numbers took a big hit after I left. If the board would have had more people in their 40s and less in their 70s-80s, I would likely have been accepted. Explaining to me that this is politics is a very pedantic in assuming I don't understand politics.

The fact you're talking about strong growth and large numbers is why I don't think you understand politics. That doesn't matter to the board. It's the foot in the door at best. Did you align politically with the board? Did they know it? Would you be a reliable pawn for them? Did they think they could work with you and get you to do what they wanted? Did you have strong support from other department heads? Did you have strong support from other in higher positions? Did you have any major opponents? Any secret opponents? Did you know of those opponents through your connections? I could go on but point being, that doing a good job is pretty low on the list of things which matters in politics.

Post reply on HN