The Diversity Issue Silicon Valley Isn't Trying To Fix: Age Discrimination (medium.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The tech industry has recognized it isn't as welcoming to women or minorities as it should be, and is loudly taking steps to solve that issue. Major companies are now releasing diversity reports to highlight their efforts. But as Stephen Levy points out, none of them seem interested in doing something about a different diversity issue that's been pervading Silicon Valley for years: age discrimination. He says, "One company, Payscale, does supply some estimates. Looking at its numbers in 2012, Payscale noted, 'The typical tech employee wasn't around for the original release of Star Wars. And as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms. In my view, age information should be included in those diversity reports, to underline the need for change— and, even more important, those in charge of company cultures should view age diversity as a plus. Right now, that's not happening."

Comments

Numbers tell you nothing

[wonkey_monkey]

as of last year, the average age at Google was 30; at Facebook, 28; LinkedIn, 29, and Apple, 31. In comparison, the average age in more traditional tech industries like data processing or web publishing was almost 10 years higher than Silicon Valley/Internet firms.

Maybe the older guys are wise enough not to go and work at Facebook. And why is no-one tackling the obvious discrimination against youngsters that's going on in data processing and web publishing?! ;)

Raw statistics like this are almost worse than no data at all when it comes to identifying discrimination.

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

No one's discriminating by age, just by salary requirements. This is a natural consequence.

No.When you're out of work, you'll take anything at just about any pay. But what I have run across is if you're unemployed then you're no good - if you're any good, you'd have a job.

And there's this nonsense of having to match requirements 100% to even get an interview. Back when I started in the late 80s, being proficient in a programming language was enough - mainframe jobs many times also wanted CICS knowledge on top of COBOL. Knowing the OS or platform was a plus; after all, outside of the language, everything else is just API. But that changed with the advent of Java; that seems to be when the industry started getting retarded. And when web development took off with all these different languages and tools, we went into full ludicrous hiring mode - yeah, the H1-b scam added to it immensely.

Back in my IBM days, an old timer took me aside and said that when he started, there weren't any of those people - as he was pointing at the Indians. Then we were shut down and everything went to India and the rush to get what jobs there were in the area happened. It was amazing how fast the younger guys got jobs even though they had less skills than we did. So much for "if you have the skills, you can get a job" fairy tale,

Re:Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

And there's this nonsense of having to match requirements 100% to even get an interview.

Let me fill you in on a little secret - when you see those, it's because they don't WANT you to apply. There's two scenarios:

1. They already know who they want to hire, but they have some kind of policy requiring them to post the position anyhow. This is often coupled with a policy that any Internal application gets an interview even if they don't fully match the requirements. This way they can hire their Internal Pick as the 'best candidate', because all the External applicants have been discarded already as 'not fully qualified'.

2. They want is to be able to bring in a bunch of H1-B's, and they need to be able to claim that they can't find any qualified applicants in order to do so.

It was amazing how fast the younger guys got jobs even though they had less skills than we did. So much for "if you have the skills, you can get a job" fairy tale

Yes, they had less skills. They also will usually work for less as well. They are less likely to know about their Rights, and less likely to file complaints when they get treated like shit. They are less likely to have family, which means it's easier to get them to travel, work excessive hours, and take on more work than they ought to. They are far less likely to need time off for medical or family reasons, which also means group Insurance plans are offered at a lower rate. Retirement is also a consideration- the young kids are not likely to stick around long enough to draw a Pension.
No, none of that is really fair, and much of it is probably technically illegal to consider, but that's the reality of the situation.

Re: It's in San Diego

[Anonymous Coward]

Sell your house and live like a king in the Midwest. Plenty of jobs and cheap housing.

But my guess is you don't want to give up the San Diego weather for financial security.

It's blatant at some places

[clifwlkr]

I was at a 'hot' company a little over a year ago. They literally had the who's who of silicon valley and the east coast investing in them. I figured it was a great opportunity to be involved with at the time. Then I was sitting in a company wide meeting (kind of a pep rally that happened every week) and the head guy gets up and says exactly this:

"Look around you. Notice you don't see very much grey hair? That's on purpose. We want people on they way up, not their way out!"

I was shocked that they would be so blatant about it. Not even a hesitation in a corporate wide meeting of 500 people and recorded to boot. If I didn't care about torpedoing my own career, I would have filed a suit that day, being 44 at the time. Funny thing was their code was some of the worst I have ever seen and was having to re-write large portions of it do to the horrible architecture and coding patterns in place. Literally in just a few months I had re-written what was not working for their largest clients and had it running in a fraction of the time. The desperately needed people with experience.

Once I heard that I put my resume out to a couple of people, had a job offer within two weeks, and am making 50% more than I was there anyways with rapid promotion within a few months, and been at my current job exactly a year now. So in the long run, their loss. But I can tell you it is in fact real and blatant out there.

That said as a programmer if you keep your skills up, there are still plenty of jobs out there. It's just a bit more work than it should be to find a good one.

Re:It's in San Diego

[TheRaven64]

I've seen this post before, yet I know of several companies in San Diego that employ people in their 40s and 50s, do embedded development, and are hiring. I think almost everyone I know at Qualcomm's site there is over 40. I think the clue is here:

mostly my resume submissions are ignored

How did you get to 50 and not know other people doing embedded development? Especially if you were working on Linux, where it's a big community. Most people hiring for this kind of skill set know that it's a waste of time to go through agencies and recommendations from existing (and former) employees are the best way of hiring.

You can't discriminate against old white men

[cyber-vandal]

They're all fabulously wealthy patriarchs who run the world.

Coming to Everyone

[Sir_Eptishous]

Rest assured, unemployment will continue to rise in the future. There is no going back.
Computers, Software and Robotics will increase "productivity" to the point to where less and less people, be they in the US or anywhere else, will be left without a job or an income.

You can guarantee "think tanks" are thinking about this right now.

How will First World society function when there is 20% unemployment? 50%?
Especially in a Social Darwinist society like the US?

Answer:
It Won't

Re:It's not discrimination if people aren't applyi

[Carewolf]

Race and sex *are* protected classes. If there's any evidence of this policy you've got a potentially lucrative lawsuit on your hands.

Not if you are white and male. "Positive discrimination" as it is called is not only legal, it is often legally mandated in many places.

Re:Does not work.

[tnk1]

As a hiring manager, and as someone who has looked for jobs, I feel for you.

The best way to get a job in this market is to have someone you know in a place that needs someone of your skillset. I have something like 10 people on my FB account, I have hundreds on LinkedIn. Why? Because there are recruiters camping out there to dragnet that database and offer you a job. You can also see if other people have gotten jobs in places you'd want to work, or if they are posting a job in the hopes of getting a referral bonus for you.

Some people hate LinkedIn. I'm not in love with it, but people keep asking me if I'm available to go to another job. Maybe like once every six months, I get an offer that would actually be a small step up and worth considering.

Using job boards works if you're desperate. I still regularly get pinged for shit contract jobs from people. Keep it up to date, keep it fresh, and pile on the key words. You will likely have some churn of course. The goal here is simply to get hired, work in your field for a year or so, and if you can't stand the job, get out. I never had a short contract back in the day, but if that was a possibility, it allowed me to at least be paid while I looked for another job.

One benefit of a job that the contract runs out and you're out of a job again? Not only can you simply state that your last contract ran out, but you can ask your former employers for references because you don't have to sneak around on your job hunt. They know you're leaving, they know it wasn't your fault (presumably), and so they may be happy to help out. Obviously, it helps if you make friends while you are there and do a good job.

As for getting picked up for an interview and not getting screened out, you need to write your resume to hit the hot key words in your field. Now, as a manager, and as an ethical person, I cannot advise you to lie about it. I can also tell you that if you simply lie, with nothing to back up, you'll get detected by the recruiter, you'll definitely get detected by the phone screener, and if you somehow faked it through that, you'll be torn apart in the interview.

However... don't go full retard on your ethics. Which is to say, don't disqualify yourself for a job that you probably could do, if someone gave you a shot at it. Some people hide behind "ethics" when what they really mean is that they think it is dishonest for them to attempt a job that they know they aren't perfectly suited for. It's like people playing a video game who invent all sorts of rules about how the game is to be played "honorably" or whatever, and then get beaten up by some kid who plays by the actual rules set by the game.

In other words, if you have the luxury of playing with your hand behind your back, then more power to you, but don't bitch about it when you do not have that ability and people who are actually playing the real game are dancing around you. That's your pride and ego talking. IF you are suffering from that, you need to drop it.

If you are ethical, then you need to do the following. Write the resume that needs to be written to get you a job. Which is to say, know what the keywords are put them on the resume. Then look at the resume. If you think using that resume would be a lie, then *do what it takes to make it NOT be a lie*.

Experience will be the hardest thing. You can't pretend to have a job when you didn't. Volunteering and such can help with that. Get references. Realize that you will not be paid well, and may well start at a shit position.

That said, key words are the easiest, conceptually anyhow. Look at the key words and then teach yourself everything you can about them. In this, you cannot simply open a book and skim it and consider yourself an expert. You must have memorized the book, backward and forward. Then done everything you can with it.

Use of keywords in the right places *should* at least get you some phone screens, and your actual knowledge of the stock questions should get yo