Slashdot Asks: Have You Experienced Ageism? (observer.com)

Friday the Huffington Post wrote that "Ageism runs rampant through Silicon Valley, where older workers are frequently overlooked for jobs." They ran tips from the man who recruited Tim Cook for Apple, who pointed out that it's difficult and expensive to recruit new talent, urging businesses to "stop seeing workforce diversity as a good deed; it's good business." And earlier this month The Observer ran an article by Dan Lyons, a writer for HBO's "Silicon Valley," who shared his perspective on ageism from his time at HubSpot. Their CEO actively cultivated an age imbalance, bragging that he was "trying to build a culture specifically to attract and retain Gen Y'ers," because, "in the tech world, gray hair and experience are really overrated."

Meanwhile, Slashdot reader OffTheLip writes: Information technology is a young business in comparison to many other industries but one of the few where older workers are not valued for their institutional knowledge... As a recently retired techie I experienced this firsthand, both as an older worker, and earlier in my career [as] one who didn't see the value in older workers. As Lyons states, older workers are good business.
What are your thoughts? And have you experienced ageism?

Comments

Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have hired over-40 programmers who were rockstars, and some over-40 workers who just could not deliver.

Age is just one variable among many, but people obsess over it because it is easier to ballpark someone's age in an interview than it is to get a read on other indicators of talent.

The biggest problem is that over-40 workers are universally more expensive than the 20's workers. They all want to jump in at the senior level, and feel justified in this based on their experience. This makes them a bigger risk to take, and ultimately more expensive if they don't pan out.

On the other hand, too much investment in kids results in software that works upfront but absolutely does not scale, and winds up full of ticking time bombs.

Re:Maybe.

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, too much investment in kids results in software that works upfront but absolutely does not scale, and winds up full of ticking time bombs.

omfg... THIS

Re:Maybe.

[fustakrakich]

Well, if you don't want to count experience, don't ask for the guy's employment history.

If you want to know if there is ageism, just watch the first reaction when you walk into the office. The same thing applies to race. Watch one or two people flinch a little when a black person walks in. It won't necessarily a be conscious one, but it certainly can explain why the denials are so fierce. People are simply unaware.

Re:Maybe.

[beelsebob]

My general experience is that the older, experienced programmers are exactly those who don't preen and prance and have egos. They just know how to get the job done. Meanwhile, the 20 somethings are all busy trying to prove themselves better than each other.

Re:Maybe.

[shawn2772]

But all too often when you see someone in a technical role in their 50's it's because they couldn't move up or because their attitudes had them shuffled from job to job and they couldn't build relationships and network they way they should have.

Keep in mind that this is context-dependent. Some (mostly larger) companies have sufficient need for senior technical people that there opportunities for people to have full, purely-technical careers without ever moving into management. In other cases, senior engineers that don't want to manage go independent.

I'm nearly 50, and have no intention of ever leaving a technical role. At my current employer (Google) there's no need for me to ever make that move. I hear you, though, I've run into my share of people who've just chosen to vegetate in place. They can be hard for management to dislodge.

I work circles around these people. One of them has spent, literally, the last 14 months trying to decide what the right tool is for our department. I got sick of waiting on him and implemented a collection of open sources tools with some glue code just so I could get some damned work done.

I just want to mention that this part of your story isn't very convincing to me. I don't know what sort of tool you're talking about, but depending on what it is and how it fits in, it may very well be fully worth taking two years to select something, and your hacked-together assemblage of components may be a really bad idea. What I'm saying is that the other guy may be right and you may be wrong, and his greater perspective is what allows him to see that your approach isn't good.

Or maybe not. I'm not judging, just pointing out that it's not impossible that you're misjudging.

Re:this does not need discussing here

[TheGratefulNet]

let me school you on *reading* since you are having trouble even logging in...

if you want to read between the lines, read this:

"dear management: your request to work yet another weekend for YOUR company is being declined. your lack of want, in hiring the proper amount of staff to get the job done is NOT my problem and I'm not willing to give up time from my life, weekend after weekend just so that your bonus check can be even bigger"

signed,

guy who's old enough to see thru mgmt's BS. your 'emergency' is not MY emergency. its not my company; you guys made that abundantly clear over the last few decades.

Re:Willingness to learn

[TheGratefulNet]

I can see you are young. you think its about SPECIFIC SKILLS.

lol

its not. a good guy in C can get any job done, really. c++ guy, java guy, whatever. this insistance on specific domain knowledge IS THE PROBLEM!

we used to have people who knew how to code and would learn the specifics on the job. that worked and it can still work, but companies are spoiled fucking rotten and they have had too much specific selection for too long. they now only want narrow skills and you can't keep chasing that and stay employed. there are too many things that come and go for you to retrain on specifics like that and still be effective.

your view is part of the problem! you really do seem to think that its 'old skills' that is the problem. I guarantee you that even if I had the latest 'skilz' that the grads leave school with, today, that will still not be enough. I demand a salary that is higher than theirs and companies refuse to pay unless they absolutely have to. they generally talk themselves into paying younger kids, for all the reasons mentioned in all the threads, here.

its not about skills. that argument does not hold water if you have been in the industry long enough.

Re:I haven't

[Anonymous Coward]

Networking is key (I'm in my late 40s). I changed jobs last year and went to work for someone that I've known for 20+ years now, working along side someone else that I've known for 15 years. When you can tap your network like that, you bypass HR and your resume (or LinkedIn profile) lands on the right desk to get you hired.

It's one of the things I tell young collage-age kids. They need to pay attention to their social networks in college and build them and continue to expand them into their 20s and 30s. Because those connections will be what gets you good job after good job in your 30s and 40s and 50s.

(I don't care if you do it by hand, or do it via a tool like LinkedIn. But you must cultivate those contacts unless you want to find yourself in a dead-end job in your 40s.)