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Ask Slashdot: Are We Older Experts Being Retired Too Early?

Posted by Soulskill on from the get-off-my-lawn dept.

caferace writes "I've been around the block. I'm a long-time worker in the tech industry (nearly 30 years), absolutely kickass SQA and Hardware person, networking, you name it. But I'm 50+ now, and finding new regular or contract work is a pain. And it shouldn't be. I have the skills and the aptitude to absorb and adapt to any new situations and languages way beyond what any of my college age brethren might have. But when I send out a perfectly good resume and use the more obvious resources there are still precious few bites for someone requiring to work remotely. Am I just whining, or is this common? Are we being put out to pasture far too early?"

7 of 629 comments (clear)

  1. Lie a little by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't put your age on the CV and knock off the first 10 years of experience. My father worked IT contract work till he retired at 64 by doing this.

    1. Re:Lie a little by SumDog · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Age on a C.V?! Who does that. No one.. (and you shouldn't. Employers can't ask if you are married or your number of kids either. That can get you sued in many places).

      We have a lot of older people where I work, some hired in. The trouble is we also get a lot of people who come through who've been in the same shop for 20 years and they think they know what they're doing, but when you ask them an SQL question they use a sequence of nested queries without any join statements. We get sysadmin who don't know how to map a network drive on the command line. We get people who want security jobs who can't answer, "What's the difference between a GET and a POST request?"

      Another issue is that maybe shops are only looking to employ 40+ people in management positions, being team leads and architects. Maybe you hate that stuff and are looking for dev jobs and people are reluctant to hire you for that. The problem here lies in that most IT departments only have a pathway up the chain via management. For a lot of devs and admins, this isn't too bad and they can manage people fine. But there are those that really don't want to manage people, who hate it and there isn't really a pathway for people who just want to stay coding.

      Finally, it could be that you're applying to all the wrong places where people do look down upon your for your age. They are probably shitty shops you didn't want to work for anyway. Are you willing to move? If not, you could also try short term contracts (3 ~ 8 months). There are a tons of those if you're willing to be away for a couple of months each year. You can also build up remote contracting opportunities this way too.

      So to recap, you might be stuck in a city of discriminatory employers and it's not you, or you're looking for dev positions because that's what you love but people want your age group for management or ... you're not as good as you think you are and are bombing interviews.

    2. Re:Lie a little by dreamchaser · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Just because two notable names have made a big deal about it doesn't mean there aren't still plenty of such positions. Asking someone to uproot their entire lives and move across the country to benefit you with their extensive knowledge and experience for work that absolutely does not require your on-site and on-hands presence far exceeds "flexibility".

      Sorry, no it doesn't exceed 'flexibility'. Sometimes one just has to go where the work is. Despite your assertion the trend is and has been for some time moving away from telecommuting. It's not just 'two notable names' say so. It's a real trend in many industries. Requiring to work remotely will seriously curtail the number of opportunities a job seeker can find.

    3. Re:Lie a little by blue+trane · · Score: 5, Interesting

      This thread exemplifies what's wrong with the workplace: one poster advises people to lie to get a job, another asserts that groupthink trumps the advantages of telecommuting.

      It seems that most workplaces are toxic environments, rife with moral hazards and perverse incentives. The goal is not to innovate, but to fit in, and please a greedy little Napoleon boss.

      The best solution is to create a Basic Income guarantee. Then people can choose to innovate on their own on what they really want to be working on, instead of letting some rich guy order them around.

  2. It's a sad truth... by ImOuttaHere · · Score: 5, Interesting

    After 30 years working in software engineering and program management, I was turfed. The company I worked for had been acquired by a huge rollup company. We all knew what we coming, and come it did.

    I survived eight layoffs and got caught in the ninth, four years after the takeover. This, even though I helped bring the kinds of technologies and software engineering talent that helped generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year in bottom line revenue.

    In my case, the company had decided to ship manufacturing (a common "given") and engineering (something that surprised many of us) to China. The only thing the new company was interested in was increasing the value of the "leadership's" stock options. They didn't care what they acquired, just so long as they could strip assets and downsize and ship jobs offshore to fatten the bottom line. They honestly believed that what few jobs that were left in the US could be picked up by young engineers coming out of college. Cheap labor, right? Wrong. Particularly when they don't yet know enough and have no experience in highly specialized electronics and software solutions.

    I wish I could find it, but I remember reading a German study that showed us old folks are more productive in a 24 hour work week than new or middle-aged workers working 35.5+hours a week. I know we older folks can really crank out the work, manage and maintain revenue generating business relationships, and can help the rich bastards make even more money than they already are if they'd keep us around, but...

    Trans-national corporations, banks, and businesses really don't care how they generate their money and no one, not one single organization is upholding labor law that might, just might, hold these rogues accountable.

    I've been looking for a job for over two years now. I can't believe the US job market is as tough as it has turned out to be. We hate to suffer like this, but I feel too old, that I know too much, and I'm too damned expensive for korporate Amerika. Too bad labor isn't organized and won't stand up for each other. It's every person for themselves, or so it seems to me.

    1. Re:It's a sad truth... by ndykman · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Citation needed. This current economic situation seems directly tied to out of control market speculation, heavy accumulation of wealth at the top (now surpassing the levels seen right before the Great Depression) and a fragmented work force that is unable to organize in many areas thanks to focused efforts to weaken labor laws.

      Also, given that tech people are so enamored of disruptive technologies, why do they think that couldn't organize in a effective way that avoids the worst problems but maintains the benefits? Create a disruptive union model that changes the game on both sides, perhaps?

  3. Opinion by DaMattster · · Score: 5, Interesting

    As a small business owner in IT managed services, age absolutely does NOT matter to me. I'm more interested in a person's willingness to continue to learn and not stay stagnant. If you are in your 80s and have continued to learn on your own and want to stay engaged, I can do the heavy lifting ... that's no problem, welcome aboard. Attitude, experience, and wisdom trump youth every time. My marketing director is 25 years older than I am and I can constantly learn from him because he stays on the cutting edge and subscribes to lifelong learning. My brother has a mechanical engineer on his payroll that is 92 years old and is an extremely talented and creative guy. He can design something on paper in a mere fraction of the time it would take a lesser experienced engineer to do. Don't ever make the mistake of judging someone on age - judge on attitudes.