New Evidence of Age Bias in Hiring, and a Push to Fight It • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by Consultant32452 » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:03 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #8

scarface74 wrote: post #6

I’m 45. I didn’t start aggressively job hopping until I was 35, before then I stayed at one job for almost 10 years. I haven’t once had a problem finding a job quickly. I was a generalist when I was 35 and started down the road of specializing in the Microsoft stack in 2008. I start pivoting in 2016 to more architect level roles but still staying hands on but with more cross platform languages (.Net Core, Node, Pytho…

How many employers do you find yourself needing to exclude because of the “no Leetcode” thing? Do you think you’re sacrificing anything in the way of comp by doing so?

I've got about 20 years of professional coding under my belt including a 5 year stint doing a lot of job hopping/consulting. I'd never even heard of leetcode until this post and won't bother to even visit the website. For most of my career I've been in the group giving interviews. I don't recall having ever seen it mentioned on a resume. It's a complete and total nothing for any employer I've ever worked for/with.

Based on the comments in this thread, I'm guessing leetcode has done some successful marketing in the valley. I'm an East coaster.

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

#322

Post by Youcandothis » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:10 AM UTC

wellpast wrote: post #225

uoaei wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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’?

Hiring fairness sounds to me like the same as hiring for better outcomes and industry productivity.

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

#323

Post by ido » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:12 AM UTC

Zenst wrote: post #227

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.

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…

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

Hard to say without a time machine, but from talking to juniors & students (I have a lot of friends who teach) it sounds harder to get that first job than it was when I was starting out (I'm 36).

My completely unscientific gut feeling was that it was the easiest to get started in tech in the late 90s & right as the industry started recovering from the .com bust (~2005, when I got my first "real" full-time developer job).

The funny things is that they were already teaching programming in secondary schools when I was a kid (i.e. it wasn't really 'exotic' to be a programmer) but even in my most recent job most programmers are in their 20s.

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

#324

Post by aiisjustanif » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:12 AM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #293

cortesoft wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife had about 130k in student loan debt when we married, and we went on a ten year repayment plan. Total payment is about $1700 a month... So your rent plus debt servicing should be around $4000... leaving your around $4000 a month for everything else. You should be able to live pretty well on that! That is more than most people make total.

Well, I’d also like to retire in less than 20 years, so, factor that in (probably $2000-2500/month). Food, utilities, insurance, car expenses (I don’t drive much, but it’s fairly essential for me to have a car to get certain places; it’s also paid off, fortunately), etc. I think you can see where this is going.

> Well, I’d also like to retire in less than 20 years

Don't we all.

> Food, utilities, insurance, car expenses (I don’t drive much, but it’s fairly essential for me to have a car to get certain places; it’s also paid off, fortunately)

We all also pay for this.

> probably $2000-2500/month

Dude you still have $1000 probably free just chilling if you are strict.

I don't get this, "you are not where you should be" mindset.

The student debt sucks, but you are doing extremely, extremely well. Making more than some doctors.

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

#325

Post by WilliamEdward » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:13 AM UTC

Bukhmanizer wrote: post #44

Is it just me or is there a way lower bar for evidence when it comes to age discrimination in tech on Hackernews compared to gender or race discrimination. I’m not saying that it’s not a real phenomenon, but pretty much all the evidence I’ve seen is anecdotal or fairly weak. While it’s true that a lot of older people are great programmers, I also think programming ability is only about 50% of what most people are loo…

Attitude is the core of the problem. Another comment mentioned that if age discrimination happens, it happens primarily in VC culture areas like SV. I have a sneaking suspicion that high-tech workers don't really know what real unemployment looks like and are complaining about not getting to pick specifically where they want to work based on their tailor-made ideal environment that SV has spoonfed them about what a job should look like. Having the ability to even live in high profile areas and apply for high-tech jobs puts you several cuts above the rest of the non-tech working world and you will never truly be jobless. I would be grateful for that, personally.

EDIT: evidence of this in this thread said by others:

"Also, the SV is really the bastion of anti discrimination. Which is great. But they replaced it with something else, ageism."

"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."

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

#326

Post by aiisjustanif » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:14 AM UTC

geggam wrote: post #281

oblio wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

He said BART so he is in SF bay area. If he is only paying 2300 rent he is living in a small apt even 60 minutes out. The cost of everything in the bay makes you wonder where money goes. Lunch is a minimum of 25 bucks, bottle of cheap beer 10.

Don't buy beer, meal prep?

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

#327

Post by pmiller2 » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:21 AM UTC

vageli wrote: post #303

w-ll wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at their company/about page, then go to LinkedIn. Also most email address are fairly predictable.

This might work in smaller companies, but for enterprises I have a hard time seeing this working.

I work for a company with 4500 employees. I assure you, one of the obvious patterns based on first and last names will get you most email addresses there.

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

#328

Post by WilliamEdward » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:23 AM UTC

JudgeWapner wrote: post #148

forinti wrote: post #45

Head of HR once asked me what type of people we needed. I said we desperately needed older people. 20-year-old project managers don't have a clue. Company went under, he sells air-conditioning now.

> 20-year-old project managers don't have a clue maybe the company should have had policies that gave their managers more clues? > he sells air-conditioning now. probably makes more (and accomplishes more) than many engineers, especially ones at vapor-ware startups.

> maybe the company should have had policies that gave their managers more clues?

Nah, I think management is just a job that requires experience and certification like any other job to be truly good at. People have this idea that "it's management, how hard can it be"... Turns out, really hard.

Only the qualified should be managers, not some 20 year old whose only qualification is being 'good with people'.

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

#329

Post by p1esk » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:25 AM UTC

wave100 wrote: post #257

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 a CS student graduating from college in a year - I'd love some advice on job hunting if you're willing to provide it!

Make sure you have something to brag about in github. Highlight it on your resume and cover letter. As others said, contact hiring managers directly. But most importantly, figure out what is it you enjoy working on 8+ hours every day, and look for companies that would let you do that.

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

#330

Post by aiisjustanif » Sun, Jun 09, 2019, 5:26 AM UTC

s_m_t wrote: post #179

uoaei wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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..."

Dude, really?

Yes