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Advice for Older Entry-Level Programers?
jmorse asks: "My uncle recently shut down his manufacturing business and is considering entering the job market as an entry level programmer. He's done a lot of ad-hoc programming in several languages to fulfill his business' needs, but has never held a job as a programmer or software engineer. I know it's a tough time to be looking for a programming job, especially when there are so many unemployed younger people who would gladly put in long hours. What advice do slashdotters have for an older guy just getting started?"
Do the same as the younger (entry level) ones do, but extoll the virtues of being able to map real world problems into the code and produce working solutions (as opposed to just writing the good code).
This is a place where many people fall - so it'll be a good leg up.
Companies may be reluctant to hire someone at entry-level if they're too old. They generally want someone they hope to retain for a long time, and dont have to start paying retirement benefits within a small number of years. This of course, depends on your uncle's age. While that might be age discrimination, it happens a lot. My g/f's father had that problem a few years ago, but has since found work elsewhere.
Unless your uncle can provide something other than software engineering, he might be SOL. Hopefully his manufacturing work can fill that void. For example, things like robotics in manufacturing. I'm sure he's familiar with how they're used in the manufacturing process. He could find a job working for a robotics developer that sells robots to companies like General Motors or Ford.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
In this job market, forget trying to get an entry level position. Why would anyone bother with somebody with no pertinent experience when there are plenty of people with years of experience available and desperate for work?
This depends on your area, of course. The high-tech meccas got hit hardest because of the blind panic in the dot com collapse (where entire programs were abruptly terminated, often leaving very senior people jobless), if he's someplace everyone else fled years ago he won't have as much competition as he would in the major cities.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I think "a long time" to keep an IT person is maybe five years. And if they really would like to hire someone who's more likely to stay longer, they'd be smart to hire the older guy. I guy in his early to mid-twenties is less likely to stick around. I doubt this uncle is in his late fifties or sixties so he's still got a ways to go before retirement. He's more likely to have a mortage and dependent children so stability and security will be more important to him.
As for a company paying "retirement benefits," it sounds like you're talking about a pension. I think 401k programs are more the norm for this kind of work in which the company's contribution (if there is any) ends with the employee's employment with them.
Reasons companies want to hire young people:
These are just my guesses and these just stereotypes of the young and old.
Any manager who wastes his company's time/money by having HR do initial screenings for him isn't worth working for.
But some companies have policies which low / middle level managers cannot circumvent.
It's not always the manager's fault.
Yours Sincerely, Michael.
Perhaps he would have an easier time selling himself as a software architect rather than a software engineer. i.e.: He's good at relating business requirements to system requirements and making sure the pieces fit together in a cohesive way.
This way his actual programming experience is _much_ less important than his people skills, ability to withstand long meetings in a single bound, and general political savvy in a large corporation.
Just my $.02...
"But actually trying to use m4 as a general-purpose langage would be deeply perverse" --ESR
Or what? What if the manager does circumvent (or in this case, ignore) the policy that says all candidates have to go through HR first? Is the company going to penalize him for finding an excellent candidate on his own? And if so, is that a company you want to work for?
There are so few times when the word "can't" is actually appropriate, especially in business, and especially in larger, moss-covered companies. Prob'ly 2/3rds of any given policy manual is extraneous CYA crap.
Don't go along with the stupid stuff. Your job is to do good, efficient, profitable work, NOT to follow rules, and if the company you're in doesn't understand that, then get the hell out.