Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

We Hire Old People

relevantdb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 303 posts

Re: We Hire Old People

#261

Post by Dhirvish »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #236
api wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this too, and I really wonder why there is such an age bias toward straight out of college kids. Having some is fine but the whole industry seems heavily biased in that direction. I suspect it's rooted in the historic youth of computer aficionados back during the early-mid PC era in the 1970s and 1980s, and a cargo cult idea that youth was the ingredient that made this stuff happen. Instead it was the other…

Inexperienced people are just cheaper. There are two types of young software companies: - Some companies hire a smaller amount of experienced people who really know what they're doing, know what they're worth, and compensates them appropriately. - Other companies hire a larger amount of bright, motivated young people that don't know how to do anything, trains them up quickly, then tries to milk them for 1-3 years unt…

Right, but what about us 43 year olds in the middle? There's a couple 10s of millions of us. I'm trying to move into the tech field, have a decade of migrating paper documents for law firms into databases & doing other simple ETL, but that is disappearing. I saw it coming years ago and am almost done with my masters in data analytics, but all of those jobs pay $10-20k less than what I was making before. There is no where for me to transition into because I don't have 5 years of DBA experience and am not willing to work for $40k just spewing out simple code for 3 years, not that anyone would hire me for it anyway.

I'm a member of Mensa, skipped 3 grades of math when I was younger, am almost done with my 4th degree, and nobody wants me because I'm not in either of those two groups. 2-3k resumes, 4 interviews made it past the initial phase for Analyst/PM positions. It's a problem, trust me.

Re: We Hire Old People

#262

Post by Dhirvish »

gonehome wrote: post #113
api wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen this too, and I really wonder why there is such an age bias toward straight out of college kids. Having some is fine but the whole industry seems heavily biased in that direction. I suspect it's rooted in the historic youth of computer aficionados back during the early-mid PC era in the 1970s and 1980s, and a cargo cult idea that youth was the ingredient that made this stuff happen. Instead it was the other…

I think it might be simpler - it's a lot easier to hire straight out of college kids that have no other obligations. You go to Stanford and MIT (already pre-filtered) and find kids that are really good. You don't have to overcome existing job obligations, etc. Then this cascades with referrals from this group. A lot of software/silicon valley companies haven't been around that long so people haven't had time to work…

Right, but you realize that's only a few thousand people produced per year right from the Ivy League? We're a country of 350+M and there are 10s of thousands of small to mid sized businesses that need the help too. The entire HR industry is setting up a false system that is completely unsustainable and just yelling out: "Those people don't exist", when they do, you're just not approaching it correctly.

Re: We Hire Old People

#263

Post by Dhirvish »

webmaven wrote: post #211
soneca wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks, appreciate qualifying a bit what is considered “old”. I am 41, but only 4 years of software development experience. So only applied for junior positions yet. I don’t think I faced ageism applying to jobs, but I rarely applied to SV jobs (I am not from the US). What do you think is the reasoning people having ageist behavior use to convince themselves they are not bad people? That old people won’t learn, or wo…

You're assuming that the bias is overt and conscious. It doesn't have to be, any more than sexism, racism, or classism do. One looming issue for small orgs is a worry that an older employee will drive up the cost of the company health plan.

Which again touches on a social issue, ageism is the entire point of this thread.

The idea that any health company gets to "choose" who costs more or less is dumb. Everyone is young at some point and everyone is old at some point: Fact. So everyone should pay the same at every point throughout their career and everyone should be covered. They did surveys of people in UK about US health care on one of the late shows last year and they were dumbfounded at the basic things their system covered that ours didn't.

One example, if you have a baby - which is required for the human race to continue, the health system covers it. It cost my wife and I a total of $10k to have our 2 kids in the last 6 years. That's day 1 of parenting, negative $5k in the hole: WITH HEALTHCARE FROM AN AM LAW 200 COMPANY. And I was a tech supervisor for cripes sake.

Re: We Hire Old People

#264

Post by Dhirvish »

gravypod wrote: post #220
ryneandal wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that offering gig work to FT employees could have legal repercussions sounds off alarm bells about the US's unhealthy attitude towards employees. It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work.

(Opinions are my own, not my employer's) > It's unfathomable to me that corporations can have so much power over one's time outside of work. I think this, and the general brain-drain from the broader industry, is really holding the tech sector back. So much OSS could be written if contracts weren't abusive in this way.

I mean the fundamental issue is we've created a society that's automated an INCREDIBLE amount of work, and yet the daily work week is no shorter.

We've got automated switchboards, giant robots that make cars, giant robots that do our farming, massive plants for producing power. We even have enough housing already built in this country to house 6x the total number of homeless people. It's a false economy, and we know it because we're primarily a "service" economy.

So if most of our food is produced by robots, we have enough housing, and most of our jobs just exist to push health care paperwork around. Why are we not all on 20-30 hour work weeks?! I'm pretty sure most people would be fine doing 5-10 hours a week of essential nursing or working a field or whatever outside their "primary" job if you got 10-20 hours off the rest of the week.

Our system is freaking stupid.

Re: We Hire Old People

#265

Post by gonehome »

Dhirvish wrote: post #262
gonehome wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might be simpler - it's a lot easier to hire straight out of college kids that have no other obligations. You go to Stanford and MIT (already pre-filtered) and find kids that are really good. You don't have to overcome existing job obligations, etc. Then this cascades with referrals from this group. A lot of software/silicon valley companies haven't been around that long so people haven't had time to work…

Right, but you realize that's only a few thousand people produced per year right from the Ivy League? We're a country of 350+M and there are 10s of thousands of small to mid sized businesses that need the help too. The entire HR industry is setting up a false system that is completely unsustainable and just yelling out: "Those people don't exist", when they do, you're just not approaching it correctly.

My comment was about why competitive Silicon Valley companies skew young and out of college, not about anything beyond that.

Silicon Valley has an advantage (fame, high pay) that makes it easier for them to focus recruitment on highly selective schools. This creates knock on effects.

I’m just describing what I think is happening, nothing else.

Re: We Hire Old People

#266

Post by syshum »

pengaru wrote: post #216
irrational wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have far fewer obligations in my 50s than I did in my 30s. Kids are gone, I’m happily married and not in the dating scene, I am settled in a home. Other than work and hanging out with my wife, I don’t have anything else going on. But back when I was dating and then had young kids and then even older kids (with all of their activities) I had a ton more obligations outside of work. It started going down in my mid 40s…

Allow me to count the number of over 50 year olds I crossed paths with while burning the midnight oil Getting Shit Done crunching at the office... The only time those offices had lights on after hours were when the cleaning people occupied them. My assumption has been even after the nest empties these folks have better things to do like relaxing in their preferred home(s), eating their preferred meals, sleeping in th…

I thought the idea that "work" could only be done in the "office" died?

Re: We Hire Old People

#267

Post by OldHand2018 »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #253
OldHand2018 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It appears that undergrad CS degrees were a thing by the early 1970s: > 1973 Two-hundred B.S. degrees awarded [1] https://www.cs.purdue.edu/history/table1.html PS - Purdue is the oldest CS department in the US, though perhaps another university started an undergrad program earlier?

At UF they had been maintaining and operating the duplicate "backup" full IBM mainframe system for the Apollo program at Cape Canaveral, and offering degree programs for some time by then. At Nova they had the big iron too even though there were only 11 students. There's more to the story on that one.

Great, then a BS in CS existed even earlier?

Re: We Hire Old People

#268

Post by fuzzfactor »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #267
fuzzfactor wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At UF they had been maintaining and operating the duplicate "backup" full IBM mainframe system for the Apollo program at Cape Canaveral, and offering degree programs for some time by then. At Nova they had the big iron too even though there were only 11 students. There's more to the story on that one.

Great, then a BS in CS existed even earlier?

Yes, they were graduating and going to work for NASA, Wall Street, insurance companies, military & contractors, IRS and mainly things like that.

Nobody small could afford a mainframe.

Re: We Hire Old People

#269

Post by bradknowles »

webmaven wrote: post #198
MattGaiser wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Damn. I have no great experience and can get interviews in a day or two. And everyone I talk to complains about no experienced tech people.

That's because what they really want is a 20-something that has 10 years (or more) of experience.

I’ve had recruiters basically ask me for exactly that.

I had twenty years of experience at the time, and they wanted someone who was exactly like me with all my skill and knowledge, but ten years younger.

I never responded to them, but they have been the butt of many jokes since.

Re: We Hire Old People

#270

Post by cudgy »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #205
webmaven wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even absent external commitments (which, BTW, also biases towards men), older folks are often more resistant to 60 hour weeks since they've either observed or experienced burnout and understand that these unsustainable death marches typically result in lower productivity, more bugs, bad code, and mounds of technical debt.

I generalize of course but I think older people realize there's more to life than the office and career. Takeaway pizza behind a laptop feels less glamorous at age 40.

Was hoping that millennials and now Gen Z were seeing this sooner than the previous generations. Which gen are you from?
Post reply on HN