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Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

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Re: Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

#21

Post by JohnFen »

glonq wrote: post #15

50ish here. If I'm ever looking for a new job again [hopefully never!], I'll be sure to dye my hair and drop dates from my job history.

I'm late 50s, and a couple of decades ago I stopped giving a complete job history for the most part. I did this because my full job history is lengthy and I don't want to have a CV that spans so many pages.

Instead, I include my job history over the last 10-15 years, and include select items that are older than that if they are particularly relevant to the position I'm applying for.

I don't try to hide my age -- my age/experience is a significant advantage I have over most other applicants. Age discrimination is a real thing, of course, but is very far from being a universal issue. If a company doesn't want to hire me because I'm too old, I count that as dodging the bullet of getting hired by a sketchy company.

Re: Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

#22

Post by JumpCrisscross »

paxys wrote: post #10
kevin42 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hopefully it is a societal win, discouraging companies from age discrimination in the future. For us old guys, that feels like a win.

IMO a judgement like this doesn't discourage anything, just reinforces that fact that breaking the rules is advantageous and fines are a small cost of doing business.

Five years of litigation is no cake walk.

Re: Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

#23

Post by JohnFen »

BadCookie wrote: post #20
JohnFen wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> shifting the platform out from underneath their workforces causing older workers to stumble But the older workers don't have to stumble. They can learn the new platform. I'm an older worker and have done so many times over my career. It's not a huge deal -- especially because keeping up with changes in technology is a thing that everyone of every age has to do anyway.

Sure, you can learn new platform X well enough to be productive in probably a matter of days, but you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X unless you lie about it. And many job postings expect you to not only have years of experience with platform X, but also significant experience with particular database Y and cloud service provider Z. How did you get your first job for each new platform that you…

> you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X

Why would you have to? You get the experience by working with the technology, just like everyone else. The older worker and the younger worker both need to have X amount of experience.

I don't see how this aspect is related to age at all.

> How did you get your first job for each new platform that you learned? Let me guess—you knew somebody. (Am I wrong?)

You're wrong. Connections are important for getting any new position, but connections aren't what got me "in" on a new platform. I've learned new platforms either (usually) on my own, or because working with the platform became part of a job I already had.

Re: Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

#25

Post by BadCookie »

JohnFen wrote: post #23
BadCookie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, you can learn new platform X well enough to be productive in probably a matter of days, but you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X unless you lie about it. And many job postings expect you to not only have years of experience with platform X, but also significant experience with particular database Y and cloud service provider Z. How did you get your first job for each new platform that you…

> you can’t manufacture 3 years of experience with platform X Why would you have to? You get the experience by working with the technology, just like everyone else. The older worker and the younger worker both need to have X amount of experience. I don't see how this aspect is related to age at all. > How did you get your first job for each new platform that you learned? Let me guess—you knew somebody. (Am I wrong?)…

So your company did a rewrite using platform X? Interesting. I think being in that situation requires a bit of luck. Many companies (understandably) don’t want to or can’t afford to rewrite their legacy code.

I still don’t see how learning a platform on your own got you past HR resume screening. Learning something via a side project over a couple of weeks is hardly the same thing as having multiple years of professional experience already.

Are connections always important for getting a new position? I doubt that a doctor needs to already know somebody at a hospital in order to get an interview … but I could be wrong about that, I guess.

Age matters because someone just out of college probably at least did their internship in whatever platform is popular right now. They also will probably accept lower pay and worse working conditions. So the older worker has little or even negative advantage if they’ve been using the “wrong” platform in their recent job and don’t have a strong personal network.

Re: Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

#26

Post by JakeAl »

Been dealing with this since my 40s. And good luck hiding it on your resume, most application forms these days require dates and even addresses. I am also discriminated against based on location. Some companies won't even interview you unless you are local, even for remote jobs, even if you're willing to relocate.

Re: Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

#29

Post by Mountain_Skies »

glonq wrote: post #15

50ish here. If I'm ever looking for a new job again [hopefully never!], I'll be sure to dye my hair and drop dates from my job history.

Unfortunately many companies make use of their ATS mandatory when applying for a job and those systems usually require start and end dates for all but your current job. Even if ATS doesn't requirement, HR likely will when they do employment verification.

Re: Company refused to hire 49-year-old due to his age, feds say. Now he's owed $90k

#30

Post by halJordan »

paxys wrote: post #2

Be discriminated against, fight five years in court and get a $90K payout. Where's the win exactly?

I guess at this point its time for me to be age-discriminated bc im starting to say the same cliches as my father, I viscerally understand the phrase "ffs."

We all know the wheels of justice turn slowly. A wrong was righted and we're throwing it away because it wasn't speedy enough?

And there's even a second win, god forbid! The defendant had a fair day in court so we can have confidence the right thing happened! Dont be too quick to demand reprisals and call it justice.

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