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

nytimes.com

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

#361

Post by pmiller2 »

HillaryBriss wrote: post #129
jobigoud wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Older workers = more opinionated. Younger workers = more malleable. At least that's what management often think.

other HN threads have debated heavily about why the startup industry is centered in SV, given its ultra high cost of living and labor. and yet, despite everything, SV remains at the center. and that's why i think your explanation is closer to the truth. higher salaries for older workers wouldn't matter. what does matter is that management thinks older workers will bring the wrong sauce to the product, exhibit reasona…

The startup sector is centered here because the money (VC firms) is here. The reason for that is largely historical accident.

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

#362

Post by aiisjustanif »

rs23296008n1 wrote: post #249
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…

You're going to get anecdotes on HN because this is a discussion website. Also, studies on this issue tend to not be well known without effort looking them up. The asshole factor is relevant but not as much as you would expect. The actual perception that older workers haven't kept their edge is actually a common bias I've seen while gathering people for hiring. This bias is probably common amongst younger looking at…

I'll go broad and say unemployment is below 4.0%, Fortune 500 have less age discrimination probably, and this particular comment section on Hacker News seems to be a lot of Bay Area/ San Fransisco perspective.

And the article isn't even about Software Devs.

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

#363

Post by aiisjustanif »

Sorry, but this comment section is primarily focused Bay Area, LeetCode, California, and Software Devs.

Mean while the story doesn't focus on any of those things in particular. How is an old gentleman getting turned away from a job at a restaurant chain, Season 52, for, "Not looking young enough" relate to any of that and the broader issue of Age discrimination across the board. The anecdotal stories are cool and fine obviously.

But normally non-tech postings on Hacker-News, especially political news stories/articles, lead to discussion about what was discussed _in_ the article at least somewhat... And I'd like to see that. Just found it odd. Don't mind me if this sentiment isn't shared.

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

#364

Post by aryehof »

pleasecalllater wrote: post #34

I still require to work in a company where my manager/boss/CTO know much more than me. I'm almost 40. It's really hard to work for a 20-something guy who has almost no experience and is happily making all the mistakes he could read in books about. Still, finding a job where my boss would know more is more and more problematic. When I was 33 I was rejected by a recruiter with "you know, here I have dozens of resumes o…

> The experience is not valued here. So what is? The lack of experience?

Experience in software development is sadly irrelevant for much of the software development industry. Instead what is today valued is knowledge of some new framework, the ability to describe data structures and algorithms (for interviews only), and the ability to pick-up (hack) at things quickly and without complaint.

All of these things are equally well done by a newcomer, of which there are ever increasing numbers. What future does someone increasingly older have over time, in an industry where the only qualifications (really) sought are "smart, eager, compliant, cheerful, and quick to learn"?

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

#365

Post by solidsnack9000 »

4ntonius8lock wrote: post #202
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being able to get a C-level position is a problem for a very small number of people. Not being able to get a job at all, on the other hand...

Walmart hires old people as greeters. I'm sorry, you don't get to say "poor old people who get discriminated on" while at the same time saying "young people should be discriminated on" or "it isn't as bad if the shoe is on the other foot". Given the strong reaction I'm getting from mostly old people who want to see discrimination on the young (or at least are happy to justify it) I'm starting to see why the article d…

If we were talking about discrimination against a large number of young people, I would be singing a different tune. Privileged and well-to-do people seeking “justice” for themselves by comparing their situation to that of other people whose situation is really desperate is unfortunately all too common.

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

#366

Post by pmiller2 »

vinceguidry wrote: post #248

The way I look at it, when you work in tech, it doesn't take long for fields to become stratified. I've gotten turned down for a senior job for not having enough "agile experience." Really? Am you looking for an engineer or a project manager? I think every single programmer needs to be looking forward to the day where every single job move is at best a lateral one, so it's going to make more sense to move towards bus…

I was recently rejected for a job for not having enough “API experience.” I have been a backend engineer for 5 years. Regardless of whatever the hell “API experience” is supposed to be, my entire career has been designing, implementing, and calling APIs.

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

#367

Post by hinkley »

okaram wrote: post #282
Hermitian909 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can tell if it's a good system for your company . As an individual employer all I care about are: 1. are my false positives low? 2. is the time it takes to fill a position low? If the answer to both of those questions is "yes" then the system is great for me (and I've seen the system described above provide affirmative answers to both these questions in a startup setting). Determining whether a hiring sys…

You can say if it's acceptable ... but not necessarily good The problem is that you don't know the cost of the false negatives; you don't know whether the people you didn't hire would have greatly improved your processes / code / business

Software is a collaboration. Almost by definition, all the stuff I don’t know how to do well is at least as important as the stuff I do, even as full stack person.

It’s probably not the stuff you know how to do that makes or breaks your company. Either someone else does it, or you “figure it out” and hopefully you know if you did it right before it’s too late.

How do you hire someone to be good at stuff you aren’t already good at? There’s gonna be a lot of those in the false negatives pile.

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

#368

Post by pmiller2 »

WilliamEdward wrote: post #332
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.…

Forgive me for going against the hackernews age discrimination rhetoric, but... > have an IQ that is through the roof Who talks like this? I would never unironically mention my own IQ. I can't help but feel something's missing in this suspiciously heartfelt story. Still, I'm sorry this happened, if it happened.

Someone who’s deeply frustrated, maybe?

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

#369

Post by mixmastamyk »

docker_up wrote: post #214
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.

Same, technical and hands on, people love my work. Had a lot of trouble getting hired last time. Was unemployed for a year and whole family was a mere couple of weeks from homelessness when a govt contract finally came through. Next time I won’t be so lucky as little has changed, and feel the winds of recession picking up.

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

#370

Post by pmiller2 »

quotemstr wrote: post #69

It's interesting that corporate diversity reports provide population breakdowns for demographic categories involved in heated political debates but seldom (never, in my experience) provide breakdowns according to other categories that might be just as important for diversity of thought, e.g. age and political affiliation.

Political affiliation? What would that have to do with working as a software engineer (for instance) at most companies?
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