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Show HN: Hire an Oldster

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Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#261

Post by pugworthy »

aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

I find #2 rather amusing and incorrect, at least as far as the "beer hour" part goes. I'm 55, my youngest is 24 and married. It's all the guys in their 30's that have to pick up their kids. Those of us with grown kids have tons of time, it's the 30 somethings that have kids to pick up.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#262

Post by [deleted] »

aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#264

Post by spc476 »

emcrazyone wrote: post #131
epalmer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm 63 with a BS in Chemistry and MS in Environmental Systems Engineer. I was a student teacher of microbiology when I was in graduate school. I started coding fortran in HS about 1969 or 1970. > I'm pretty knowledgeable about paid search and social but I don't think my Political Science degree has anything to do with that. To imply that someone's age precludes them from understanding paid search, mobile advertising,…

so you're the exception to the norm; you're one data point against... ;)

I'm a developer and am currently 47 (about to be 48). I'm the youngest developer in my department (basically call processing) where we work with C, C++ and Lua (which I introduced into the company). Down the hall is another department writing software to be embedded in Android phones (Java, obviously). With one exception (I think he's 30 ... maybe) the average age is mid-50s. The department working on the UI (HTML, CSS and Javascript) are in their 40s, like the department working on the (non-call processing) servers (Java mostly).

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#265

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #234
rhizome wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm your age, and I think a good example of what you're talking about is javascript frameworks. Younger programmers might dissect each one and suss out the details like any of us might have done with CONFIG.SYS, but as an older programmer they all seem essentially similar and as far as professional skills go I can probably either just choose one or wait until the dominant one shakes out. This of course is aided by my…

You're mostly right, but that means you're missing an extremely important piece of the picture. Both the browser and Node provide hardly any structure at all compared to Cocoa, WinForms, or even the Java standard library. Experienced developers recoil because it feels like building a house with hand tools, compared to having a team of contractors at your disposal. This results in JavaScript developers building their…

> Only a fraction of a percent of people use the web's most powerful feature, which is JavaScript functions.

…What!?

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#266

Post by edblarney »

mgkimsal wrote: post #231
edblarney wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We're just wise enough to know that it leads to no good outcome." I'm middle aged, working with some very young people right now, and I'm having an epiphany, because they are running around like chickens with their heads cut-toff, and I see there's no reason for it, they are equating 'sweat and crunch' with 'value' and making all sorts of mistakes. The epiphany is: they remind me exactly of me at that age! And they…

> though I did definitely respect my managers Maybe you thought you were respecting them, but did they actually perceive it as respect? Or something else?

I was wild, but deferential to them.

They knew it.

I always took their direction.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#267

Post by lgieron »

bettyx1138 wrote: post #208
rhizome wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what an effective approach would be for 40+'ers who don't have kids or other outside constraints. I'm thinking they wouldn't necessarily want to bring it up in an interview, since familial status is a protected class and employers may blanch at statements along these lines.

i'm 51 (altho i probably pass as 40-something) and if during an interview it feels right, i'll mention that i'm child-free and unmarried (thus free to travel and work flexibly i try to say implicitly). i know employers aren't supposed to take those things into account but i think they do anyway.

On the other hand, a family makes you much more dependent on the job, which is what employers want too.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#268

Post by koja86 »

Been thinking about related topics recently (probably as a result of this wave on HN) and realized that despite I am still a young pup (30) my goals are not that different. Knowing that certain company is actively hiring older, more experienced folks I would take it as a sign of potentially very interesting workplace where experience is actually needed and office environment might be actually sane.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#269

Post by infinite8s »

logicallee wrote: post #222
taco_emoji wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like you're not fully articulating your point here; in what circumstance would prioritizing leisure entail working for 6% of one's market value?

doesn't really matter. as I just wrote, my only point is that the supply at that price is greater than 0 - that some people will do it. who are in their twenties. you won't find someone even over thirty willing to do it though. it's a descriptive statement.

Are you sure the people that will do it are the ones you want to be doing it (if you are paying?). If they are so vastly underestimating their market value, perhaps it's because they are actually vastly overestimating their ability.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#270

Post by ido »

pc86 wrote: post #57
aresant wrote: post #42

If you take a survey of hiring managers they will point to three primary reasons that candidates 40 - 60 have a harder time finding jobs: 1) They are typically more expensive than "market" for the same role a younger person can fulfill at acceptable tradeoff of competency - higher salaries, higher related costs like healthcare for a family, expectations around retirement programs, etc. 2) They are less flexible - the…

I look at the skillset between when I was 25 and now (30) and it's astounding. I can't imagine what the difference between 50 and 25 will be. If you're hiring 40-60 year olds you cannot simply hire a 25 year old and get an "acceptable tradeoff of competency" unless you didn't need anything close to that competency in the first place. Also if you're 50 and are relying on a new job's retirement program you're probably…

    I look at the skillset between when I was 25 and now (30) 
    and it's astounding. I can't imagine what the difference
    between 50 and 25 will be.
While it's true that there's some new tech/tools coming out, stuff doesn't necessarily change that much...I started working as a programmer at 18 (I'm 33 years old now) when the popular new thing was java.

In between I used many different languages and tools (c, c++, python, matlab, js, haxe, as3, in no particular order & probably some that I've forgotten) but now I'm using c# which very in-vogue in my line of work (game development, due to the popularity of unity) and it was a virtually seamless transition from java (I actually started using c#/.net in 2009 as a tools programmer independent of unity).

EDIT: nevermind, I realize now you meant you improved drastically in 5 years, not that the tech field has changed drastically.

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