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

Re:Fight Back

[roman_mir]

It is not stupid to avoid older workers if the government sets up rules that make it more expensive to hire them. It should be obvious that absent government oppression businesses would only care about best value for their money (ratio of quality to price). Once a business can be sued for anything related to entitlements provided to groups of people, once businesses are forced to carry extra expenses related to entitlements provided by government regulations, businesses will choose to avoid these groups altogether. Enjoy.