It's because the people hiring you are in their late 20s and have culture fit as the second most important attribute. I've seen it first hand where my team chose a 30 year old man child over a 40 year old. The latter actually got marks against him because he wore a suit to the interview.
Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
11–20 of 47 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#12Good comments so far, specially those touching on skill-set rust and interviewer bias. I'd like to offer a different perspective, not because is better but because is another uncorrelated factor.
Maybe more seasoned people struggling to find work are looking for jobs as if they were young?
As a single data point, I have 10 years of (paid) experience and a graduate degree. When I was about 30 I struggled a lot to find any IT related position. Part of it had to do with me doing the same thing as all the fresh crop of B.A.s were doing at the same time: send resumes, apply to jobs online, contact my alumni association, etc.
The thing is that I was competing in a market where I was seen as past the pull date: overqualified and too expensive for entry level positions, but still not mature enough for management.
Fast forward 8 years and I am doing much better. One thing I accidentally discovered is that there is a lot of weight in having a list of colleagues that know you, trust you, and are willing/able to let you know of career opportunities that are not heavily publicized. I have been in both sides of that kind of relationship and it is a win-win.
So, maybe some people struggling may benefit from being a little more social? Or maybe their own network is very isolated (all work at the same place) so they all enter times of need at the same time and are not able to help each other out?
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#13Employers want cheap workers and experience is seen as expensive. This is why most companies have one or two real developers and dozens of juniors learning on the job.
If you're experienced, you're better off building a startup.
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#14I haven't found that, or anything even close to that, to be the case at all. Maybe it's a geographical thing? I'm on the East Coast and from what I can see, if you have a "hot" skillset (Hadoop/Big-Data, MongoDB, Clojure, Node.js, Angular/Ember, etc.) you won't have any problem finding a job, regardless of your age. Personally, I'm 41 with 15+ years of IT experience and I have never felt any sense of age discriminati…
Keeping your skills current is probably the most important point here. Could you please explain when you do this. Are you in a job that allows this within production projects? Or is this all on your own time outside of your day job? I know some companies run internal projects with the specific aim to help upskill employees in new technology.
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#15I suspect most 10+ years experience guys are actually 10 * 1 year experience guys. When you have someone like that in front of you in an interview, it is quite difficult to look past the fact that the person has no respect to his job.
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#16Contact me at zq@nemcv.com, I have personally helped 1000s of people in your exact situation to find the right job. Just be ready to take the red pill! :)
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#17Contact me at zq@nemcv.com, I have personally helped 1000s of people in your exact situation to find the right job. Just be ready to take the red pill! :)
PS: Its free!
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#18I haven't found that, or anything even close to that, to be the case at all. Maybe it's a geographical thing? I'm on the East Coast and from what I can see, if you have a "hot" skillset (Hadoop/Big-Data, MongoDB, Clojure, Node.js, Angular/Ember, etc.) you won't have any problem finding a job, regardless of your age. Personally, I'm 41 with 15+ years of IT experience and I have never felt any sense of age discriminati…
So basically be a freelancer. Market yourself heavily and learn whatever language or technology your employer uses. At this point, why get a job? You can easily earn more as a freelancer or contractor.
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#19I haven't found that, or anything even close to that, to be the case at all. Maybe it's a geographical thing? I'm on the East Coast and from what I can see, if you have a "hot" skillset (Hadoop/Big-Data, MongoDB, Clojure, Node.js, Angular/Ember, etc.) you won't have any problem finding a job, regardless of your age. Personally, I'm 41 with 15+ years of IT experience and I have never felt any sense of age discriminati…
I agree, there's a difference between having 10 years of experience and having 1 year of experience repeated 10 times doing the same thing. Me, personally, I enjoy learning a lot and I get restless if I don't feel I'm developing my skills and keeping current.
You do realize that you're basically dismissing experts because they specialize instead of learning the basics for another technology each year. Or has one year become enough to be an expert on something?
Re: Ask HN: Why is that 10+ years experience folks struggle to find work
#20I suspect most 10+ years experience guys are actually 10 * 1 year experience guys. When you have someone like that in front of you in an interview, it is quite difficult to look past the fact that the person has no respect to his job.
So people that specialize in a field and become experts have no respect for the job. But the ones that hop around each year based on what's "hot" are better.