There is also a whiteboard bias
New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
231–240 of 451 posts
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#232Is 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 off…
I feel like this applies more to programming. It should act as writing on the wall for anyone who thinks they can make a career out of it. You have 15-20 years and then you're considered old I suppose.
I don't find this to be the case with other areas of IT. We have a lot of folks in the late 40's to middle 50's working through out our IT Department and organization.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#233I'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…
New graduates are even more out of touch. In what other industry can you graduate with a bachelors (or have no degree at all) and obtain a six figure job in return for a few weeks of studying?
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Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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, even if 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? Or are you going to admit to being a troll like you did on the other comment when I addressed your weak arguments?
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#235Earlier 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..."
So anonymous internet comments are inhibiting the fair hiring practices of software engineers? Is there a study establishing the causal link between these two, because it sounds like spurious BS.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#236Odd that in an article about age based discrimination, they don't mention that there is also age based discrimination against young people, for example, getting into C level positions in the non-tech world. When I used to be employed by other people, I specifically remember being told "we can't really promote you to director, you are too young". I wasn't inexperienced (I started working full time at 16). It wasn't th…
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Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
Interesting background - any story behind leaving IBM 18 years ago at the young age of ~33? As an aside, ultimate responsibility for IBM's corporate websites does not _sound_ very similar to the CTO role at a tech company.
I was burned out after 5 years of 7x24x365. Days were filled with conference calls and escalations about conference calls, nights were filled with the technical work I was supposed to be doing during the day. I was prohibited from filing patents due to some sort of corporate reporting arcanity, which derailed my technical career. I had (and apparently still have) an extremely negative reputation in the executive rank…
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Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 discrimina…
>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? Or are you going to admit to being a troll like you did on the other comment when I addressed your weak arguments?
I didn't say it was. I said, it's okay to discriminate against personality traits which generally come with age. For example, lack of emotional stability is a negative trait in management and it correlates somewhat with age. As I said, it's about being able to portray those traits and that you possess them independently of age. Moreover, just like work experience matters so does life experience. Your brain changes with experience. It also changes drastically until you mid 20s. So, just like work experience (as measure by years working) can be a proxy for seniority so can life experience (as measured by age) be a proxy for those traits. Hopefully, people independently test things instead of relying on proxies alone.
Finally, the difference between youth and everything else you've mentioned in terms of discrimination is trivially simple. The young naturally become old with time. The old do not become young with time. Blacks don't become white. Women don't become men. A few years of wait versus eternity of wait is the difference.
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Where are you operating and what exactly is your skillset that money is raining down so readily?
Re: New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It
#240If 70 year olds really are less productive software engineers than single Red Bull-fueled 22 year olds (on average), and you thus end up hiring less 70 year olds, is that really discrimination? I get the article has stories from older people that seem to suggest they are well-qualified for the job and literally just their age number seems to lose them the job, which of course would be discriminatory. But the law suit…
> If 70 year olds really are less productive software engineers than single Red Bull-fueled 22 year olds (on average)
That's a really big "if", and seems to have no supporting evidence.
Let me turn this around into an only slightly less unsupported statement:
Youngsters in programming are desirable because most programming has become a shitty job where you need obedient people just slightly smarter than average but no smarter. Genuinely smart people are actually unwelcome in most programming jobs.
Programming now is mostly plumbing garbage data between crappy APIs that change every 6 months according to whim and fashion and you don't need smart people for that. In that environment, any knowledge you learn has a half-life of 3 months and you are solving the same problems over and over in different languages and APIs.
Or, alternatively, most VC money is chasing scalable "fad" social businesses, and having youngsters is useful because they are willing to expend enormous amount of money following fads while attempting to get laid. Again, knowledge half-life is under 3 months.
People making actual money and solving business problems seem to have no problems with hiring older people.