
Job applicants over 40 filtered out by employers - fraqed
https://www.uu.se/en/media/news/article/?id=9014&typ=artikel
======
zebraflask
I just turned 40. There is an unfortunate grain of truth, especially among
start ups, but it would be a mistake to think the situation that dire.

I am constantly pestered by recruiters and companies to interview. I think one
of the things that helps is that I trimmed my resume to omit material older
than 5 years, removed unnecessary dates, and I make a point of drawing
attention to studying for new industry certifications. It probably doesn't
hurt that I stay physically fit, either. As cruel as it may be, if you're out
of shape and look "frumpy" or "run down," that will count against you far, far
worse than your age.

The key is to make the age factor irrelevant by not drawing unnecessary
attention to it or by projecting a stereotypical "middle aged" image. We can
argue all day about whether that's fair or not (it's not), but you have to do
what you have to do.

~~~
arvinsim
> It probably doesn't hurt that I stay physically fit, either. As cruel as it
> may be, if you're out of shape and look "frumpy" or "run down," that will
> count against you far, far worse than your age.

I am still in my early 30's but this really resonated me. All my life I have
been conditioned to think that character, experience and expertise is what
matters.

But the reality is that people will form impressions of you by they first 5
seconds they meet you.

~~~
Kluny
Once they get to know you and your work, looking frumpy or whatever becomes a
much smaller factor in their opinion of you. But the first impression is often
what determines whether they will get to know you or not.

------
sandoze
I might have 'lucked out', I'm 41. I under performed in my 20s (it was the 90s
after all and the bubble burst just as I was gaining momentum in the market)
and received my college degree at 30. I assume most people who see my resume
consider me 8 - 10 years younger than I really am. Doesn't hurt that I hit the
gym and haven't gone gray yet. I went the mobile route (iOS) and haven't had a
pay cut in 8 years (currently 200k+ living in the mid-west). Not without its
ups and downs, I tend to not get hired at start ups, maybe those 20 somethings
smell something is up, but fortune 100s are quick to give me an offer letter.

With age comes maturity. It's allowed me to get along better with my co-
workers (so many upper 20s, lower 30s tend to be a bit... hot headed) and I'm
not afraid to negotiate. The older I've gotten, the more comfortable in my
skin and in my skill set I've become.

If there's ageism I've yet to experience it and I've worked with people well
in their 50s doing mobile. It comes down to who you're working for, what your
skill set is, timing and, in my opinion, health. You've got to stay healthy
and look healthy! Also, I tend to prune my resume, no one wants to see your
experience 8+ years ago.

Or maybe it's all luck, ask me in five years what I think when Objc/Swift goes
the way of PHP, I might be singing a different tune.

~~~
zerr
> currently 200k+ living in the mid-west

Is this an employee salary or contracting/consulting income?

~~~
tooltalk
I'm not sandoze, but the figure seems reasonable for folks with 20 years of
experience. Most of my buddies make about that much (plus 25% to 50% bonus) in
NYC. I make slightly less than that.

~~~
pc86
NYC is slightly more expensive than the mid-west.

I can say that I live in an area closer to the rural mid-west than NYC, and we
consistently see 1-year contract rates for iOS developers in the low $200's,
up to $280-300k if you have 8+ years of relevant domain experience (again
1-year contracts). If sandoze is consulting $200k is 100% reasonable. If
they're a full-time employee, $200k is pretty high but definitely possible
with their experience.

------
notadoc
Harsh and an obvious problem for those over 40 and industry in general, but is
this simply the natural result of companies optimizing for maximum
productivity at the lowest possible cost to them?

Many 40+ year olds have families or other life obligations outside of work,
and thus they may not be as willing to put in absurd hours that a young
employee could be squeezed for. The older employee also might be more likely
to take weekends off, and want to use vacation time.

Additionally, someone over 40 is supposed to be in or near their peak earning
years, which lasts ten to twenty more years (or did historically anyway) so
their expenditure is going to be significantly more than someone with a few
years of experience.

I realize it's one of the lamest analogies possible, but for many companies,
employees are quite literally a cog in a larger machine, and so they want the
cheapest possible cog at a reasonable quality level that works the longest
before breaking down (quitting, getting fired, burning out, etc).

To fight this, I'd bet those over 40 would have to aim to get into important
management and executive positions, which are less likely to be swapped out
for less experienced, less demanding, and cheaper labor.

~~~
nhebb
> Many 40+ year olds have families or other life obligations outside of work

Why is this a (seemingly) common belief? It seems backwards to me. I had a lot
more obligations outside of work in my 20's and 30's when my kids were young
than after 40. I'm in my early 50's, and I have more free time now than ever.

~~~
arthur_sav
I'm in my mid 20s and i don't know any friends my age with kids.

It's just not very common to want a family before 30.

~~~
scott_karana
Not sure why people downvoted you... "mean age of first time mother" is
climbing and is nearly at 30 years old in most of the developed world now.

[http://time.com/4181151/first-time-moms-average-
age/](http://time.com/4181151/first-time-moms-average-age/)

[http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2014002-eng.ht...](http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-630-x/11-630-x2014002-eng.htm)

[http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/03/09/pregnancy-
around-...](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2016/03/09/pregnancy-around-the-
world-age-of-new-mums_n_9416064.html)

------
pleasecalllater
That's hilarious. In medicine, a 30-year-old MD is too young to make some more
complicated operations alone. In IT a 30-year-old programmer is just too old
to be hired.

The funniest interview I had was with some blonde girl in her twenties, who
read through my CV and said: "Oh, you see. We cannot send your application to
our client. You see, here I have hundred of applications from people at your
age, who are managers in their thirties, and you are not. There is most
probably something wrong with you." And it was a position for a programmer,
not a manager.

And it was when I was in my early thirties, not forties.

Currently, I'm almost 40, and I seek only for remote work (family issues). I
have been paid for programming for the last 14 years. I had different jobs
like sysadmin, dba, programmer; using over 10 different languages.

And despite all that searching for work is really hard. Usually, it stops at
the recruiter who is only interested in an answer to "how much do you want to
get?". After that, there is no counter offer, no negotiation, nothing.
Sometimes there is an answer like "you want too much, but don't negotiate at
this recruitment step".

When I get to the technical part of the interview, I usually get some Yeti-
Level programs to write. Yeti-Level, because you are not going to write
anything like that in those time restrictions in that jobs. A good example is
implementing a program which gets input from a file, in the input, there are
domino tiles, and a function needs to match them and find the longest chain...
all must be super optimized from the beginning. And you have 5-10 minutes to
do everything, including reading the task description, examples and writing
tests.

The funny fact is that this company is searching for candidates for months.
The sad fact is that due to such strange recruitment process, good old
experienced programmers will starve.

I really think that I did very bad choice with my career. There are so many
other jobs where people are not removed because of age, and experience is
really appreciated. In IT you just need to accept that companies want young
inexperienced kids, who want to get little figures, but a game room is a must.

~~~
jbreckmckye
> I really think that I did very bad choice with my career.

Sadly, I have come to a similar conclusion: tech is a great way to earn money
early (because the wages rise quickly), but the ceiling hits early and is
quite hard to break through. Use those early years to save up money, then
switch to something else.

~~~
mcv
My early years I was terribly paid. It's only recently (since I became
freelancer, in fact) that I'm making decent money.

~~~
c12
I worked with a freelancer once when he was brought in to help pick up the
slack due to two people going on paternity leave, guy was being paid more per
day than the two guys were getting in a week.

Contract work has interested me since then, but it looks like a real hard slog
to get good income.

~~~
mcv
My first year I made € 8000 (though that was mostly due to trying to make my
own product). I recommend building a buffer before you take the leap, though
once I'd had my first big project, it's been fairly smooth sailing.

------
ThomPete
I am 43 I know this is true. Even for people in their thirties.

This is why I decided to start my own company again after 4 1/2 years at
Square which was probably the last time I ever would be working for someone
else.

This way age becomes an asset rather than a liability.

~~~
tcbawo
I've often wondered whether this industry is similar to Hollywood with its
ageism. Once you get in, there are often many roles available. But at some
point, you need to start creating roles for yourself (if you can).

------
badsock
I don't understand why everyone bought the idea that we don't need unions
anymore.

This is exactly the sort of thing they make better.

~~~
kjksf
Citation required.

A union won't make a company hire you. Whatever power union has, it comes
after signing on the dotted line, so that particular problem would not be
solved by a union.

Unlike police or muni drivers or Detroit auto works, programmers are among the
most frequent job changers.

Other than Hollywood unions (where main benefit, as far as I can tell, is
ensuring that you don't get taken advantage of too much at the low end thanks
to minimum wages etc.) is there any example of a union for a profession where
you change your employer every 2-3 years?

~~~
dec0dedab0de
_is there any example of a union for a profession where you change your
employer every 2-3 years?_

I know a few construction workers who essentially work for the union. A
contractor will get a job, and they'll contact the different unions and say
they need people to get it done.

~~~
fludlight
The unions in construction also provide continuous training for their members,
and good training to boot. I've had real estate developers in NYC tell me they
won't do foundation work with non-union labor because it's so important to get
it right the first time.

~~~
Johnny555
Though the drawback is that union workers tend only to want to work with union
workers. So you can't go with the union workers to do your foundation, and use
a non-union contractor to do other work.

An employer I used to work for found this out the hard way when word got out
that they had hired a non-union carpenter to do some custom cabinetry on an
office build out (he was an expert craftsman who was not cheap, so it wasn't
done for cost savings).

Suddenly it got very hard to find workers to finish the electrical and
plumbing work.

~~~
gaius
_Though the drawback is that union workers tend only to want to work with
union worker_

That is the whole point... a worker's only leverage is to withhold labour. As
an individual that is insignificant but en masse...

------
SOLAR_FIELDS
Since it is not legal for employers to require you to give your age as part of
an application, doesn't this simply encourage candidates to lie about their
age? One way that age is given away on resumes is to look at work history or
date of college graduation. In lieu of the current situation, is it not
advisable to simply not give the date of graduation and only provide the
previous 5-10 years of work experience on resume?

It isn't a perfect approach, but it makes it more difficult to discriminate
since by the time you have a face-to-face interview with the employer you are
already well along in the interview process.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
It is difficult to hide your age. LinkedIn makes it impossible. If you want to
be competitive, you need to share your accomplishments. If they are actual
accomplishments, they are Gooogleable in a simple search anyhow. Hiding your
age by leaving off dates says, "Hey! I'm old enough to hide my grad dates!"
(which means you are now over 30) This culture is not helping itself. We all
need to find the bravery to stand up against this at every age, because, I
hate to break it, every person under 30 on this forum will be over 40 before
they know it. I sure hope it finds them at the very tippy top of their career
game. Our economy doesn't look great right now. Best of luck finding that
chair before the hip-hop stops.

~~~
zeckalpha
I am under 30 and do not list my graduation date.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
you may want to start listing it and take advantage of the ageism in your
favor while you can. :) I had a 28 year old friend who was getting botox a few
years ago. I could not believe it; they looked so young to me. They told me I
didn't understand how bad it had gotten in NYC. I thought they were nuts. Now
I see why they were freaking out. This climate is so unhealthy. If we thought
we had real problems with body image and eating disorders--- I fear the level
and scope of mental illness this kind of youth-loss anxiety tech bro culture
will deliver unto us as time passes and we do nothing. This plus body image
plus some of the social issues that come these plus drugs plus work only
social circles seems like a recipe for a kind of health crisis epidemic
that---- we totally see this coming and are doing nothing about it. In fact,
we are still convincing many of our own on this very forum that its even a
problem even as Chinese workers are facing overworking themselves to death as
a health crisis.

~~~
zeckalpha
Thanks for the advice, and it may hold true in some markets but in my market
I've been seeing ageism affect the young, too.

------
justboxing
> In the study, the researchers sent more than 6,000 fictitious job
> applications to employers who had posted job ads for administrators, chefs,
> cleaners, restaurant assistants, retail sales assistants, business sales
> agents and truck drivers to then compile the employers’ responses, such as
> invitations to job interviews.

Not trying to be in denial, but all these jobs appear to be blue collar jobs
(assuming "administrators" is office admins and not Sys Admins / Network
Admins :) .

Any data on whether this happens in our Tech / I.T. Industry, where every
other month, you read a story on severe shortage of skilled tech workers
everywhere?

~~~
tooltalk
I have to concur with you. I've been hearing about this death at 40 thing for
decades and I think it's a bit blown up, especially in IT field. There were a
lot of folks warning about this even during the dot com bubble when there was
very severe IT labor shortage.

In my 20 year IT career -- and I've worked mostly in tech/finance in the NYC
area -- the only downturns I noticed were during the most extreme financial
crisis, such as the dot com bubble (2001 -- I was at an internet startup) and
the housing crash (2008 - I was at Merrill). Most of my buddies in my age
group are doing quite well. Even those non-technical folks who used to
complain about the age discrimination two decades when they were in their
20's, are now employed in semi-technical jobs.

Now, I'm pretty sure that the age discrimination is real in other industries,
but it's still quite difficult to find qualified, experienced candidates in
IT, regardless of age.

~~~
user5994461
The finance industry is much nicer than the web industry, when it comes to
aging.

------
nether
"You know what they do with engineers when they turn 40? They take them out
back, and shoot them." \- Primer

~~~
ronilan
This reminds me of the off topic question I always had about YC - "if it is an
incubator for fungus - is it valuable?"

~~~
cyphar
"And there was value in the thing, clearly, that they were certain of. But
what is the application? In a matter of hours, they had given it into
everything from mass transit to satellite launching, imagining devices the
size of jumbo jets. Everything would be cheaper. It was practical, and they
knew it. But above all that, beyond the positives, they knew that the easiest
way to be exploited is to sell something they did not yet understand."

I've always been quite impressed by the writing in Primer. The dialogue is a
massive departure from the clean world of Hollywood but it makes it feel far
more frantic but also real.

------
tomohawk
In government contracting, the jobs can be hit or miss. There's some really
good ones and some stinkers. They usually pay based on experience. Jobs
requiring 20+ years are of course more rare than ones requiring just a degree
and no experience. A buddy of mine who's 60 decided he'd take an entry level
Java job for a few years after being in a challenging senior architect role.
The pay is less, but he loves it.

Part of the challenge of getting a new job after 40 is deciding whether it
really matters whether you're making the same or more $$ in the next job or
not. Many people are unwilling to take a pay cut when they have 20 years of
experience, even though the job only requires 5.

------
Keyframe
Time for some heavy stick and penalties, laws exist:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination#Lega...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Employment_discrimination#Legal_protection)

Challenge is to prove it.

~~~
fludlight
An employment lawyer chimed in on this in another thread. Apparently
discrimination laws are generally only enforceable at the end of employment,
but discrimination is much more prevalent at the beginning. It's much harder
to prove that some didn't get hired for a prohibited reason than it is to
prove they got fired for one.

------
krapp
Welp. Guess it's freelancing and minimum wage shift-work until I die, then.

~~~
itg
Sometimes I really do wish I went into an industry where experience matters,
such as law or medicine.

~~~
collyw
Someone needs to clean up the crap left by all these 20 somethings.

We have 3 developers all nearly or over 40 cleaning up the mess done by
someone who appears to have been in his early 20's. The system works, but it
could have been done with a fraction of the complexity.

------
awacs
I left my former industry at 40 (now just over 3 years ago), bootcamp'd and
got into dev and it was the best thing I ever did. I've been gainfully
employed since the move and love my current job. I can't say it wasn't a lot
of work, and yes I feel the competition of the young folks, but it is what it
is.

~~~
daxfohl
Congratulations, and welcome!

------
ErikVandeWater
How did they actually test this? Without details, there is no new information.
As well, do we know that there are no confounding variables in these findings?

As a hypothetical employer I might think these roles are lesser roles, so if
you are older I would wonder why you had not been able to secure a greater
economic situation.

Second, as consumer facing roles, attractiveness is a benefit, with those over
40 having less of it. It is not discrimination on the basis of age, but
attractiveness that would be the cause.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
This is a tough one, because it's rooted in reason. The employer asks
themselves "This guy is applying for an entry-level or junior role at a very
senior age, why are they doing so? I must be on guard for potential problems
because if this guy is still applying for these kinds of roles at this age
there must be something wrong with him/her".

The worst part about this is that it's somewhat rooted in truth in a lot of
cases - but it shouldn't be a preclusion to an interview at least. I try to
view things as objectively as possible and give objective examinations to
avoid this kind of bias.

With consumer-facing roles, I think that is an acceptable bias to have. After
all, the courts have ruled that Hooters can discriminate on basis of gender
for their consumer facing roles (not back end such as chefs though). For joe
schmoe engineer that only writes code and rarely/never talks to the end user
though there is no excuse.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
I don't agree that most consumer-facing roles should be able to discriminate
in such a way. Does it matter if your wal-mart cashier is older or younger in
the same manner that it does at Hooters - or any other establishment that is
based on looking at people?

I'd argue not. Hooters - and modeling agencies, nudie bars, and so on -
actually have a business based on how their employees look. Stores, offices,
and so on? The truth is that it doesn't matter. Unlike Hooters, they wouldn't
lose a large base of their customers.

------
daxfohl
I didn't have too much trouble last year at 41. Took a couple months to get
any traction at all, but then suddenly got a few interviews and eventually
some offers all in quick succession. Maybe I was lucky though. After reading
this story I'm definitely more inclined to stick with the position I have
rather than to try to go out on my own again.

Another talking point: the trend of waiting until late 30's to have kids
greatly compounds this problem.

~~~
tootie
I've been actively searching the last few months and my resume is getting
rejected on sight despite many years of experience doing exactly what the
requirement states. I honestly don't know if it's agism, their expectation
that I'll demand more salary or It's just written poorly.

~~~
ams6110
When you're past entry level, you need to be getting jobs through your network
not by cold-calling or submitting resumes in response to ads.

I've changed jobs three times since I was 40, but in all cases I knew people
at my new employer who could sell me internally.

I don't think it's so much age as it is that employers don't want to take as
much risk on an unknown person for more senior level positions.

~~~
tootie
It's how I got my last job. I haven't actually been hired off my resume in 10
years. Almost all of my network today do the crap I'm trying to get away from.

~~~
daxfohl
OP here. FWIW I got my leads entirely off of spamming my resume around. For
the prior 15 years I'd done freelancing for local companies and had a few-year
stint in a small company, so didn't have a network. I was in small-town
Michigan so once freelancing dried up I knew moving was going to be a
requirement. Thus I was able to spam the whole country. That probably helped
my cause a bit.

I noticed you mentioned LinkedIn in another thread. FWIW I don't have an
account and it didn't appear to hurt me.

------
Banthum
>A questionnaire study directed at a selection of employers shows that there
are three characteristics that the employers consider to be important and are
worried that employees over the age of 40 have begun to lose: the ability to
learn new things, being adaptable and flexible and being driven and taking
initiative.

Open question - is there any research on to what degree these three worries
are true?

~~~
kem
Not really an expert in this particular area, but the research I'm aware of
kind of suggests if anything the opposite is true, depending on what you mean
by "the ability to learn new things."

There's some cognitive decline, but it tends to start after 25 or so, and it's
mostly associated with slowed speed per se rather than learning ability.
There's also some controversy in that the declines might be associated with
serious health conditions, that are associated with age, rather than age per
se.

The other things you mention either stay the same or increase with age, which
strikes people as kind of counter-intuitive, which speaks to stereotypes
people have.

------
xiaoma
For founders who are fundraising, it's even more extreme.

Job applications generally don't and possibly can't ask about age, but it's a
required field on applications for YC or other incubators.

~~~
ddebernardy
That's extremely curious, if it's indeed the case, because older founders tend
to succeed more often than their younger peers.

~~~
xiaoma
For a investor who funds many businesses, EV matters much more than hit rate.
TBH, for an early investor, a success rate of over 20% is possibly a sign of
being too risk-adverse.

------
noncoml
So, age discrimination is not tech specific, but unlike other industries, tech
workers change jobs much more often and that creates the illusion that the
problem is more tech industry related.

------
prawn
With general increases in the age to receive a pension (increasing six months
every two years in Australia), but challenges in finding employment, what
bridging options are there? What's the landscape going to look like for 50
year olds if re-skilling after a lay-off doesn't always help?

------
alanfranzoni
There's ONE thing that really amazes me. A lot of people around the world -
not just in Europe or in US - keep speaking about talent crunch, STEM
shortage, etc, as an emergency... so, if this research is not flawed, the real
issue is that such talent is just ignored at 40?

~~~
gedy
They only say that to loosen immigration for cheap, visa-dependent developers.

~~~
brooklyn_ashey
Thank you for saying that. The Elephant was just sitting on everyone's face.

------
justin_vanw
It's very hard (if not impossible) to avoid being biased when reading resumes.

Personally I would strongly prefer that resume's I review were anonymized and
all hints that might bias me were removed before any decisionmaker see's them
or they are filtered. This could help more women and minorities get a foothold
at that step in the process (I mean generally, not with me specifically).

However, while relatively simple censoring of resumes would remove some bias
from review, such as race (can often be hinted at by the name or university
attended), gender, etc, and it would prevent googling of the person's name,
age is extremely hard to hide. You can see a person's job history, which is
generally will tell you their age within +-5 years. One partial solution might
be to only list job history for the previous 10 years and remove the year a
degree was earned, but relative seniority at the beginning of that 10 year
work history will still be a very effective proxy for determining age.

So, unfortunately I think we can't hide age in an effective way without
removing critical information from a resume (removing everything else we can
that can be removed _should be removed or hidden_ ), but I think it's
interesting to speculate on why older workers will be filtered out. I suspect
it is a belief (or intuition aka unconscious belief) that someone applying for
junior or entry level positions when they are > 40yo is correlated with
'something being wrong', since if there is nothing wrong you would have
expected them to have reached a point in their career that they no longer have
to blindly submit resumes for these kinds of positions.

I wonder what would happen in a study like this if the resume's representing
older hypothetical candidates included some kind of cover letter explaining
the situation. For example, saying that they started out working at a bank for
15 years but they found a passion for cooking and that is why they only have 5
years of experience as a chef. My guess would be that not only would this undo
the bias against them, but you would find a strong bias towards them (just a
guess).

------
myro
My father, 60 y.o. engineere, in a few months retiree, asked me how to find a
reliable freelance basic lvl jobs. The thing is, the country just passed a
couple of recession periods, and the retirement program, the country is going
to greet him with is around usd100/mo. What obviously is not enough to cover
expenses. To find a local job at such age and at that economical situation us
just not worth time and effort. And there are literally millions of such as
him. I personally will probably not receive any pension at all (currently
32yo.).

------
gexla
> In the study, the researchers sent more than 6,000 fictitious job
> applications to employers

Might this be a clue?

Any job application which is in the reaches of an automated process must be a
joke endpoint. How many other automated applications do they get selling
employee skills, sex, penis enlargement pills, fast loans, malware and other
trash.

Disclosing information should be the first "BS" smell for a job. I'm often
well into getting work done before the person I'm working with figures out how
old I am, where I live or other personal details. Granted, that's freelancing.

I live in the Philippines where the age requirements are actually advertised.
And these ages seem pulled out of a hat. And I get the sense that people
running the show at all levels couldn't tell their asses from a hole in the
ground. It's a pleasant surprise to find someone who seems competent at
convincing you that there's some purpose for them taking up a spot at that
spot or role they are taking up in a serious time commitment out of their
life.

Clearly the hiring process is just as broken as everything else. Why expect
that hiring is going to be significantly more awesome than the rest of the
system?

Don't interact with machines. Get to know real people. Show people what you
can do. Preferably find people who tell you they could use your help rather
than you telling them that you need a job. ;)

------
empressplay
Have a side project in an en vogue "cutting edge" framework or language, and
they will care much less about how old you are.

------
geodel
I am unable to reconcile these facts that life expectancy keeps rising and
jobs opportunities keeps falling. Government across the world in low/mid or
sometimes even high income countries are already running huge budget deficits.
So they are not going cheap/free amenities to jobless masses when even people
with jobs are finding things expensive.

------
chiefalchemist
Is there (age) discrimination? Of course.

That said, there are qualifications and there's "fit." The more experience you
have, the stronger the signal on what you might (or might not) enjoy.

For example, if you're 40+ and most your resume says startup, do you really
expect a blue chip international to be interested in you? Do you really want
them to be? Sure, maybe YOU really need a job. But history probably shows
you'll leave as soon as you can land another startup opportunity.

Again, not doubt there's bias in the hiring process. But bias can have a
purpose. And sometimes you have to live with the depth and breadth of your CV.

------
EternalData
This is why employment-based purposefulness of life is so dangerous -- I think
it is nothing short of a tragedy that the way society is set up validates an
utter hopelessness if you are not employed, this despite the fact that there
may be structural factors arrayed against you. I've seen it almost chew up my
father and I want to resolve that it'll never happen to me, but I know so long
as structurally employment remains the default badge of worthiness in a
capitalist society -- that it will come to pass for me as well.

------
ruleabidinguser
Whats the logic here? Are applicants >40 generally worse performers?

~~~
hackits
No one has mentioned that sometimes older people don't fit into the culture of
the business.

~~~
ThomPete
So funny to be called older people when you are 43 and party with the best of
them. Anyway.

This is why I decided to start my own company again after 4 1/2 years at
Square.

This way age becomes an asset rather than a liability.

~~~
flukus
How do you recover? I'm only 33 and while I can still party with the best of
them it takes it out of me. No more $1 drinks until midnight on Thursdays and
being back at work at 8am.

~~~
ThomPete
I don't recover I just don't do it as often as I used to :) I have two kids
how wake me up between 5-6 am.

------
SQL2219
If only there were some kind of physically demanding test for employment, I
would then punish all those youngsters by going to the front of the line.

------
baybal2
The market conjuncture is not skewed only one way. Right now, people whose
career went under 10 years ago, are competing with people in their 20ies. IT
industry has a disproportional portion of people in "senior" level positions.

Companies want to hire professionals in their prime, and look at anybody else
as a second grade cadre.

------
woogiewonka
31 here. Couldn't find work for 6 mo despite being well qualified for
positions I applied for. My guess: too many applicants for the same position.
Ended up going the freelancer route, couldn't be happier now. Sorry, I know
this doesn't relate to age (I don't think) but just wanted to say that.

~~~
77pt77
How do you put your freelance work on your resume?

Do you list projects, companies, time spans?

If you apply to a "regular" job, how are those references checked?

~~~
erichurkman
Good, long-term clients are worth their weight in gold. Both in terms of
regular income, but also references: references for new clients or new
employers.

------
Entangled
I am in my fifties with over 30 years programming experience and proficient in
20 languages yet one employer rejected my application because I didn't meet
their requirements and they found a better fit.

I work fifteen hours a day, can't stop learning and trying new technologies to
keep myself on top of the wave.

~~~
tcbawo
I have been in the business a while myself. It's a lot of work to stay current
(and well-rounded). But, I've had relatively long stints in my career with one
big industry change. I'm not sure that years of experience necessarily
translates from one company to the next, although a proven track record of
adaptability and flexibility is helpful. I've come to rely on networking for
job opportunities. Having someone willing to vouch for a candidate made a
difference when I was on the hiring side.

------
Aron
I'm more concerned personally with the fact that at nearly 40, I think I can
actually notice getting dumber. :-/

------
Animats
"Logan's Run". It's here.

~~~
banku_brougham
Good movie, good ending.

------
lquist
I don't speak the language, so I'm unable to read the underlying report, but I
hope this quote is out of context in the article: "There should be no doubt
that the employers discriminate on the basis of age," when the study itself
shows discrimination for very specific roles: administrators, chefs, cleaners,
restaurant assistants, retail sales assistants, business sales agents and
truck drivers.

------
TheBobinator
A few observations.

First off, companies like Cisco, Microsoft and Oracle, and even Google, are
running entirely off of the centralized education system in the US. These are
companies that got their software into curriculum and taught everyone their
way of doing things, then engaged in shoving their software and a lot of labor
into large organizations making a gargantuan mess that was glossed over with
lots of "free overtime". Compare Cisco CLI to Juniper, or Microsoft to Debian,
or MS SQL to Oracle; who's going in who's direction.

Why?

If you made the investment in understanding exclusively those companies
products you went along the technological imperialism trip and now that you're
on the other side, and you never spend time understanding the theory or
building critical thinking skills, you're washed up. 20 years working on a
massive oracle mainframe or with purely Cisco R&S becomes a liability, the
reason being, you never tried to find a better way to do things or try to
eliminate your job and replace it with something better.

There's an honesty in Meritocracy; The market has always valued the
independent thinking, hard-working, incredibly knowledgeable IT staff with a
tremendous depth of understanding of infrastructure, programming, politics,
and equipment over what 95% of the IT market has become. 95% of the people
I've worked with expect the solution to be in some arcane google search result
or in a book; they don't expect to go on the journey of finding the answer.
What they never develop is real creativity, a real understanding of the
systems they work with, or a real understanding of the architecture, why
things are done, or the process of how to build on themselves; to set a path
for themselves and others that that eventually brings about a finished
product.

The entire IT industry is maturing and getting older and as they do, older
staff that haven't done this is viewed as a liability. I'll agree, there's all
kinds of ways to try to hire gullible people who don't know their own self-
worth. Fact is though, those kinds of companies are on a long-term death
spiral of their own making. Every time a large corp outsources, I go look at
the 10-k and I see a major cash flow problem of managements making. "The old
cranky sysadmin way" is beginning to take at more and more companies and that
will trickle into academia as time goes on as management begins to understand
what technological imperialism means and what the results are; generally, a
total mess.

It's a very controversial thing to say these things because it makes a lot of
people who aren't that good, or who invested their time in the wrong things
feel like they are doomed. Fact is, there's no set career path in IT like
there is in other fields like Attorneys and Lawyers, Stock Brokers, Research
scientists and Academia.

The trick I've discovered is to put in no more than 40hrs a week at work, and
if overtime is needed, come home and practice, do architecture work, learn
algorithms, make good notes, read programming and architecture and project
management books. 40hrs a week is for work, 10-20hrs a week is for self-
betterment. Then you come into work, and find ways to eliminate your job. A
new approach that saves butt loads of time. Get your assignments done early,
then either come up with a new project to work on, move on, or study. Within a
few years of doing this, you will be a top-tier programmer\architect\systems
admin, whatever you want to do.

And while I do feel for people who feel they've fallen behind due to having a
family, the fact is from my perspective, the real issues with society are
things like 21% of GDP being spent on a scummy healthcare industry, or high
incomes of the top 1%, or lack of wage parity tariffs on imports from China.
The baby boomers have really messed things up for us. The fact you can't go
from a high paying IT job to a factory job or retail management position and
still have enough money to put your family in a decent home with 3 hots and a
cot and to put your kids through school and college is a failure of society in
general, not the IT industry. Those issues need fixed and frankly, contribute
a heck of a lot to our messed up society.

~~~
havetocharge
Good observations; some good points made here. We can expect things to become
even more competitive in the future. If one does not feel that their years of
experience are an asset in solving problems for others, then they should
perhaps look back and adjust.

It is convenient to place blame for personal issues on some anonymous
discriminatory entity (which may as well be real and not imaginary), but there
must be things one can do to better themselves, especially in such high
demand, unstoppable industry that we're in.

It is best to focus on finding ways to stay afloat (or even control your
drift) than wail and sink.

------
drawkbox
At any age, just ship products that are quality and marketable. Have good
routines and get things done. Stay well informed and educated. Your only
useless when you decide you are useless, everything else is just noise.
Averages and means are not necessarily definitive of what individual
experience will be.

Technology and mobile/web/games are _still_ young industries, in all new
industries they start/skew younger. Radio for instance was young at inception
but is now older in terms of age, it takes a couple decades for people to
decide it is worth pursuing or starting in.

Being a web developer has only been around for 20 years and being a mobile
developer only a decade truly (smartphone era). People are going to skew
younger here and more coders are 40-50 and younger. As time goes on this will
change and skew older. Incidentally because it is a young industry, there is a
large divide of people that grew up with the internet and ones before, same on
mobile. I think that hangs over the age thing. Older people used to be bad at
tech but most people in their 40s even grew up with it or used it very young.
Many of my older coder friends started with commodore 64s, Apple IIs and had
to find answers before Google, they are now mobile/game/app/web developers.
Many of them are more knowledgeable than younger coders today may ever be
because they were in the time when everything was being built and the layers
were easier to see. There is tons of cruft for a young coder to navigate and
once you get out of college (22-24) or masters (27-30) and work for 5-10 years
and get your head around this skill, they call you too old, it is a bit cruel
but goes back to the young industry bit.

On the brightside, our industry is also unique, we can break out on our own
and still compete enough to provide a living. In other industries and lines of
work, the costs to startup are immense and risky, bootstrapping is easier in
technology. Either in freelance or software as a service or starting
something, there is always an option if you keep
coding/building/shipping/solutions. Programming is a meta skill like business
and marketing that allows you to literally go into almost any industry.

Most people in tech around their late 30s or 40s want to start their own thing
and that is a benefit. Young developers may be too uncomfortable doing that
because of their confidence and experience. Even lawyers and doctors, if they
don't start their own practice, put up with the same push around that everyone
else does as they age and get experience. What you need to do is find your own
vehicle around this time so you can navigate the waters with a little more
command.

Just ship and build things, don't get caught up in the averages. There is a
lack of coders still that can deliver from start to live, in fact this
situation appears to be getting worse. Provide that and you will always be
marketable.

Side note: if you are over 40, I'd suggest paying for your own individual
independent insurance. I feel health insurance is another pressure on older
engineers in startups at least. I have seen at least two guys get run out
based on health conditions and age. Once health insurance is separated from
the job, ageism is less intense at these types of places.

------
subru
I will be 40 next year. Humans are expendable; we have to make our own worth.
If we don't do that, we end up like I am right now: a year from 40, homeless,
broke, in a lot of debt, out of work, failed startup, facing a felony on false
accusation.

Life is challenging for me now, and this article directly applies to me. Oh,
and there's that thing about being a white male and suicide. Now imagine being
a kind of intimidating looking type in a very non white anti trump area.

Tribalism is real. Had I stuck with my tribe early on I'd be more secure. My
demise is probable at this time.

I am solid in my desire to self terminate yet lack the ability to overcome
fear of death. I stay alive but it's closer than ever. It's almost a humane
thing to let me go. I wouldn't wish my brain on anyone.

Good luck all.

~~~
alexashka
[Deleted] - upon re-reading the parent, I feel I've misjudged the volatility
of the situation. Sorry.

~~~
edoceo
These are the wrong ideas to express to one who indicates an interest in self-
termination.

I wish I could double down vote you.

