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Show HN: Hire an Oldster

tryoldster.com

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Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#301

Post by LargeCompanies »

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…

Umm I guess your talking about startups and creative agencies... Ones that do not have a lot of money and their workforce is young. Oldsters its best to avoid that scene!

Otherwise here in the east coast there are many of jobs in insurance and government, so much so more then of half the workforce is from India because they have the skills needed.

For those not able to find work where are you located and what are you skilled in/how many years of experience?

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#302

Post by flukus »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #253
flukus wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've got a year on you and I think I'd agree that OO is snake oil. The worst code bases I've ever seen (and I've seen some horrors) have been from over used inheritance and mixing logic and data. Provided you avoid global state (also a problem with OO) I think a c program would be more understandable than a lot of java/c# ones. Not to say there aren't useful features, that would go well with a language like c, like i…

You would probably enjoy Go, for the most part.

I've been thinking that. Rust is probably next on my list though.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#303

Post by mixmastamyk »

danenania wrote: post #287
mixmastamyk wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but I find the problem isn't competing against twenty somethings once you're hired (could be done with one lobe tied behind your back, haha). It's getting hired by them at all, and very difficult if you're not "internet famous."

Having recently interviewed lots of developers (in NYC), my experience was that there's such a shortage of senior and even solidly mid-level talent out there currently that an employer would have to be crazy to turn down anyone for non-merit based reasons. We would have hired a 300 year old sea turtle if it could get the job done... internet fame definitely not required. Perhaps the problems are more at the margins (…

And yet they do. Granted, I've made a few mistakes in my career, am not good "on the spot," and picky about the places I will apply to.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#304

Post by pc86 »

mikekchar wrote: post #241
pc86 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 can't imagine what the difference between 50 and 25 will be. I think the problem we run into is that neither can most people. > 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. And, again, the issue is that most people honestly believe that they don't need the extra comp…

> You know what, I've tried that before a few times and it never seems to work out" nobody will accept it as an answer

Because that's hand-wavy nonsense about "a few" data points. If you said that whatever you're discussing never worked out because of A, B, and C, and at least once of those is still an issue, then it would probably be accepted.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#305

Post by burnallofit »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #82
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…

> unwilling to run the same 60 hour gauntlet that a 25 year old _can_ etc. Older people _can_ run 60 hour gauntlets. We're just wise enough to know that it leads to no good outcome.

"Your lack of planning does not translate into my crisis"

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#306

Post by Chris2048 »

logicallee wrote: post #127
epalmer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not that bad. All are in a push CMS. We have a staff for content and UX. Many sites are small. Probably total 15,000 pages for all sites. These are univeristy sites so they are not complex apps. But there is a lot of backend code and middleware for pushing files to the CDN and to an xml database.

All right. I'll be honest, I forgot what thread we were on, I was just in awe at all of the sites you run. My next thought was, "man, I wish I could use some guy like him, but he is just too expensive." One thing is for sure: there are definitely, 100%, no-questions about it, over 1 people who can be reached and who, at least for a few months, would take over 15,000 pages and 154+ sites. (An early 20s hacker). For un…

> There's nothing stupid about working for $30,000

No, it's just rational as an individual, yet it ends up driving down wages. If, as a group, this kind of pay was shunned, that wouldn't happen. Don't devalue your job, wait it out.

Employers are in a better position to divide and conquer, than employees are to unionize.

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#307

Post by Chris2048 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #168
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 read #2 about kids and beer bonding and it really irks the heck out of me. This is our industry? A bunch of selfish immatures? Nice.

selfish? It's our god-given duty to procreate now?

Re: Show HN: Hire an Oldster

#308

Post by Chris2048 »

JustSomeNobody wrote: post #281
ijustdontgetit wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it irks me when people with kids think they are better than people who don't too. ;)

So, by saying the behavior irks me I am saying they think they're better than me? That doesn't make a lot of sense. They could be completely indifferent.

Unless you think drinking beer is selfish, then it would be assumed that not having kids is selfish.
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