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We Hire Old People

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Re: We Hire Old People

#61

Post by gonehome »

ccleve wrote: post #30

I wrote the ad. Holy cow, I didn't expect to be #1 on Hacker News. Will answer any questions. Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Based on questions below, I'll give a bit more. Earlier this year I had a personal re…

I've also thought this would be an interesting approach, even explicitly.

The laws on age discrimination are about discriminating against old people, but not about discriminating against young people.

If age discrimination is real, that means that people are not valuing older people properly - they're undervaluing them. You could have roles that are explicitly only hiring people 40+ and that restriction would be legal (at least as I understand it).

I think this would be interesting to try.

Re: We Hire Old People

#62

Post by jays »

gravypod wrote: post #4

> The hiring process is in the form of a paid, short-term consulting gig that will lead to a full-time offer if we like you and you like us. We'll give you some tasks, you'll get them done, and then we'll talk. No need to quit your day job to do this gig; we'll work around your schedule. Interesting. I look forward to hearing if this works out long term. I'd be worried about legal implications of something like this…

We did this at the last startup I founded.

While it can be difficult on the paperwork side, it's nothing short of amazing. It helped us find high quality fits for the team AND we actually had a better understanding of skill levels.

We also used it to educate ourselves on what each employee would need in their on boarding and personal development plans.

Re: We Hire Old People

#63

Post by donretag »

If anything, perhaps the current tech job market is moving away (for now) from junior developers. Assuming it is also exacerbated due to teams being remotely located.

While searching for jobs, I look to avoid the "Senior Trap", when everyone on your team is senior, then by default, the new person is the new junior developer, regardless of actual title. While searching for a lead role recently, I have found companies where almost every dev is a lead. Startup, flat org. That is the Senior Trap ^ 2.

Re: We Hire Old People

#64

Post by draw_down »

yupper32 wrote: post #55

Why do I feel uncomfortable with this listing? Maybe it's because I'm a 20 something dev in Silicon Valley? Maybe it's because I don't trust anyone who calls themselves experts in anything? Maybe it's because I work with plenty of "older" devs in Silicon Valley? Or that I think the two-jobs-at-once hiring process is horrible? I probably shouldn't feel uncomfortable with it, but I do. I guess the ad isn't for me, thou…

There isn’t anything wrong with it

Re: We Hire Old People

#65

Post by MattGaiser »

ccleve wrote: post #48
MattGaiser wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is it that happens? Do you get to the interview and then they see your grey hair and treat you like Grandpa? Do they just not call you for an interview at all? Is it the leetcode and focus on the specifics of very new and flashy tech that is the problem?

Don't even get to the interview stage. My tech skills never got assessed.

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.

Re: We Hire Old People

#66

Post by cmiles74 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #45
ccleve wrote: post #30

I wrote the ad. Holy cow, I didn't expect to be #1 on Hacker News. Will answer any questions. Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Based on questions below, I'll give a bit more. Earlier this year I had a personal re…

I wonder what you attribute the ageism towards? I wonder what actual or perceived traits trend with age that hiring managers are trying to avoid? I'll venture one idea-- Once you have enough experience you start to be able to see the emperor has no clothes situations. Not being naively positive about everything can be interpreted as being overly negative (at least in the bay area). Funny enough it might just be the "…

When I'm feeling generous, I would guess the company doesn't want to spend the money required to compensate people with that level of experience.

Re: We Hire Old People

#67

Post by nomel »

jays wrote: post #62
gravypod wrote: post #4

> The hiring process is in the form of a paid, short-term consulting gig that will lead to a full-time offer if we like you and you like us. We'll give you some tasks, you'll get them done, and then we'll talk. No need to quit your day job to do this gig; we'll work around your schedule. Interesting. I look forward to hearing if this works out long term. I'd be worried about legal implications of something like this…

We did this at the last startup I founded. While it can be difficult on the paperwork side, it's nothing short of amazing. It helped us find high quality fits for the team AND we actually had a better understanding of skill levels. We also used it to educate ourselves on what each employee would need in their on boarding and personal development plans.

I imagine this simply would not work for someone with multiple offers though, which could act as a pretty severe filter of talent.

Re: We Hire Old People

#68

Post by II2II »

ccleve wrote: post #30

I wrote the ad. Holy cow, I didn't expect to be #1 on Hacker News. Will answer any questions. Here's one you might ask: Why? I'm pushing 60 and I've attempted to interview for developer jobs over the last year. Got nowhere despite 40 years of experience. Getting really, really tired of this industry's attitude toward people like me. Based on questions below, I'll give a bit more. Earlier this year I had a personal re…

Other good qualities of your ad: it is clearly written and provides an idea of what the position involves. I wish more companies took this approach while advertising openings.

Re: We Hire Old People

#69

Post by hkrgl »

bequanna wrote: post #51

Admirable, but in practice this is tough. We have always been age-agnostic and all our engineering hires are remote. I don’t explicitly ask, but can get a sense of how old someone is in the phone call portion of interview. My takeaway from doing hundreds of these interviews is that even after correcting for experience levels, age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone…

> age correlates with inflated expectations: salary, paid vacation, benefits, etc. This alone has been our hurdle to hiring people 40+.

I am curious why you wouldn't offer market-rate salary with paid vacation and benefits to all employees. What does age have to do with it?

Re: We Hire Old People

#70

Post by ryneandal »

gravypod wrote: post #4

> The hiring process is in the form of a paid, short-term consulting gig that will lead to a full-time offer if we like you and you like us. We'll give you some tasks, you'll get them done, and then we'll talk. No need to quit your day job to do this gig; we'll work around your schedule. Interesting. I look forward to hearing if this works out long term. I'd be worried about legal implications of something like this…

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.
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