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We Hire Old People

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Re: We Hire Old People

#161

Post by kodah »

greenyoda wrote: post #152
kodah wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Ironically, in the early 2000's it was the opposite. Something did change though because I've seen the problem you're talking about. One thing could be companies, recruiters, or…

> One thing could be companies, recruiters, or manager looking for CS or CE degree specifically. Someone who is 60 outdates CS and CE. I'm that old, and I have an undergrad CS degree. CS degrees were already common in the early 1980s.

I remember around 2007 having a hard time finding colleges I could get accepted to that offered CS or CE. You are right in that "outdates" was probably the wrong word to use, but I don't know how accessible they are much less to call them "common". That's just my anecdotal experience, so if those two points aren't true outside of my experience then I'm fresh out of ideas.

Re: We Hire Old People

#162

Post by herval »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #114
herval wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Younger people have more to prove, have nothing to lose, have no understanding of the politics of work - all that makes it easier to "extract more" from them - in particular new grads, who are "blank slates" you can train to your culture very easily. This may sound very cynical, but it's literally how big consultancies (not only in tech) define their hiring strategies - PwC being one of the prime examples, where new…

That may all be true, but (at least some) older people have more to extract.

Yes and no - more experienced people have more to _impart_, because they've been there, generally know what to focus on, etc. That doesn't necessarily mean they're eager to just put up with anything or just "play along" most cultures, and IMO that's key to a lot of the disguised ageism in the industry. With experience, you also you bring along your own set of practices and habits accrued through the years, which _may_ be good or bad, but do introduce "drag" on the system. When organizations talk about "strong culture" or "strong focus", that's really corporatespeak for "compliance" - "we do things this way" - and ageism is a very direct symptom of that.

That and there's no better place where you can cast a wide net to catch large amounts of people, with a repeatable cadence and well defined bar, than a university/bootcamp group/education program of any sort. If you're playing a numbers game (eg recruiters that get paid per hire, managers that get rewarded for empire building, etc), nothing can beat that "pipeline".

Re: We Hire Old People

#163

Post by Alex3917 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #159
Alex3917 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If age discrimination is real, that means that people are not valuing older people properly - they're undervaluing them While age discrimination is certainly real, I think it's also conflated with the fact that there just isn't a lot of demand for people who are good at their jobs in general. I'd liken it to how, if you take up baking, then on pretty much your first try you can make a pie that's better than the pie…

Yep. I had to demonstrate competence in system design and scaling for my current role. We haven't touched that stuff at all as nobody has wanted to pay for that upfront and when scale has been needed, they have just added compute.

Right, and that's not even the difficult part of doing a startup. I did a software dev interview where they asked me if I had any questions, and I said something along the lines of "I notice that if you look at Mark Zuckerberg's reading list, he's reading books about things like the history of the Islamic golden age, whereas you're asking me questions about javascript syntax. Do you actually think the latter is more important?" And then they kicked me out halfway through the interview.

Re: We Hire Old People

#164

Post by herval »

gmadsen wrote: post #140
cjohnson318 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see numbers on how many companies actually have beer on tap, or foosball/ping-pong tables at work in 2021. I worked at a place with a foosball and ping-pong table in 2018, but they were infrequently used, and when they were in use, it was always the same three guys.

The beer on tap exists up until the point that an HR person is hired. I've worked at a few companies that had kegs. Some seemed to make it a habit to drink and code late into the night, which I rarely did, but to me it at least signals that corporate BS hasn't infiltrated the company yet.

It exists until the moment there are _HR violations_ - just like any other practice that's acceptable at an early stage as it grows. I've worked at 10k+ companies that still had beer on tap, and they obviously had huge HR departments.

Re: We Hire Old People

#165

Post by bequanna »

caboteria wrote: post #120
hkrgl wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone has been our hurdle to hiring people 40+. I am curious why you wouldn't offer market-rate salary with paid vacation and benefits to all employees. What does age have to do with it?

> > age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. > What does age have to do with it? I'll translate: "Age correlates with an unwillingness to be exploited and the experience to recognize when that's about to happen."

Our comp is above market.

And I would call it entitlement vs. “not wanting to be exploited”.

You don’t bring your needs to the market, you bring skills. The market pays you appropriately for those skills.

Re: We Hire Old People

#166

Post by bequanna »

beebeepka wrote: post #82
hkrgl wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone has been our hurdle to hiring people 40+. I am curious why you wouldn't offer market-rate salary with paid vacation and benefits to all employees. What does age have to do with it?

They have to treat older people with respect, and pay them accordingly. Apparently, they don't want to.

I get what you are saying and appreciate it.

But when you are in a position to hire and there is no apparent benefit to hiring someone who wants more money vs someone with the same skills and relevant experience, why would you hire the person who wants more money?

Re: We Hire Old People

#167

Post by apetresc »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #110
MattGaiser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that happens? Do you get to the interview and then they see your grey hair and treat you like Grandpa? Do they just not call you for an interview at all? Is it the leetcode and focus on the specifics of very new and flashy tech that is the problem?

All of the above. That's why I am no longer interested in working for anyone else. They can also be fairly insulting in tone. I guess us oldsters are too "thin-skinned" for today's hyper-competitive world. We make unreasonable demands, like being treated as humans. We're supposed to ignore mortal insults. Maybe it's just like a hazing ritual, where we are supposed to prove we are willing to abase ourselves for the co…

> We're supposed to ignore mortal insults.

What "mortal insults" are you regularly subjected to during the course of your job...?

Re: We Hire Old People

#168

Post by MattGaiser »

Alex3917 wrote: post #163
MattGaiser wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. I had to demonstrate competence in system design and scaling for my current role. We haven't touched that stuff at all as nobody has wanted to pay for that upfront and when scale has been needed, they have just added compute.

Right, and that's not even the difficult part of doing a startup. I did a software dev interview where they asked me if I had any questions, and I said something along the lines of "I notice that if you look at Mark Zuckerberg's reading list, he's reading books about things like the history of the Islamic golden age, whereas you're asking me questions about javascript syntax. Do you actually think the latter is more…

DO they really want the opinions of developers for anything non-technical?

My current startup hired me partially on account of product experience. I’ve been an exclusively technical resource.

Re: We Hire Old People

#169

Post by threatofrain »

Shadonototro wrote: post #137

what about you hire people and stop focusing on age

If age is a predictor then the incentives are there. The right way to combat inherent incentives is a legal framework which can direct society against natural tides, not by asking harder.

The question then is whether age is a predictor.

Re: We Hire Old People

#170

Post by jpindar »

cmiles74 wrote: post #66
maerF0x0 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what you attribute the ageism towards? I wonder what actual or perceived traits trend with age that hiring managers are trying to avoid? I'll venture one idea-- Once you have enough experience you start to be able to see the emperor has no clothes situations. Not being naively positive about everything can be interpreted as being overly negative (at least in the bay area). Funny enough it might just be the "…

When I'm feeling generous, I would guess the company doesn't want to spend the money required to compensate people with that level of experience.

Which is in itself a kind of prejudice, assuming I'm going to demand more money.
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