
Too Much Experience to Be Hired? Some Older Americans Face Age Bias - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/24/521266749/too-much-experience-to-be-hired-some-older-americans-face-age-bias
======
Steeeve
For those providing the excuse of culture - culture is something strongly
valued in the Bay Area, and it's one of the biggest weaknesses.

Diversity brings so much more to the table than people who can drink a beer
together. Diversity in age and experience brings different problem solving
techniques and instincts to the table.

Put together a group of young single males of the same ethnic background and
you will probably get a group of people who don't mind working all night long
together six nights a week. Put together a group of people in different age
brackets, different educational backgrounds, and different cultural
backgrounds and you have a group of people who won't have to work all night
long together in order to solve problems and get things done.

Don't stagnate. Evolve.

We can all do a better job of opening up.

~~~
devmunchies
I find that the bay area and Seattle (my home) value the wrong kind of
diversity. Its the unimportant stuff like skin color and gender that everyone
means when talking about diversity.

The diversity that matters (diversity of thought and experience) is not the
major area of focus for some reason.

~~~
GuiA
Diversity of experience is directly correlated to diversity in skin color,
gender, socio economic status, age, nationality, etc.

You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males who
all went to ivy leagues because one says he's a libertarian and the other a
neo marxist, but that's kinda missing the point.

~~~
coldtea
> _Diversity of experience is directly correlated to diversity in skin color,
> gender, socio economic status, age, nationality, etc._

There's a very limited "diversity of experience" across skin color and gender
given the same "socio economic status".

A rich gay person can much more easily command and/or buy acceptance and
tolerance even in the most extreme places (and historically tons of gay
persons got off just fine in societies that otherwise frowned upon the poor
gays).

And usually the tech version of "diversity" only extends to people with the
same experiences -- regarding age, education, aspirations, etc, regardless of
nationality. An indian nerd colleague is OK, as long as they too lived and
breathed Star Wars, Lego bricks, old NES consoles, and doesn't bring much in
the way of his country's culture (except cute and inoffensive dietary and
cosmetic differences) etc.

> _You can say that there is "diversity of thought" in a group of white males
> who all went to ivy leagues because one says he's a libertarian and the
> other a neo marxist, but that's kinda missing the point._

So is saying there is "diversity of thought" to the kind of people that end up
in VC as programmers -- regardless of their ethnicity or gender.

~~~
GuiA
_> An indian nerd colleague is OK, as long as they too lived and breathed Star
Wars, Lego bricks, old NES consoles, and doesn't bring much in the way of his
country's culture (except cute and inoffensive dietary and cosmetic
differences) etc._

Have you thought that perhaps they emphasize playing with LEGO and NES games
and tone down their culture to "cute inoffensive cosmetic and dietary
preferences" because they code switch to fit in?

~~~
coldtea
Yes, but that's orthogonal, since my critique is to the other side. If
anything, it furthers my point.

That the other side (let's say "whites") is all about diversity as long as the
ethnic others have the same cultural norms and aspirations as them in most
areas, except some cutesy details.

------
klancaster
I first felt this when I was asked by a sales rep if I would be interested in
coming to work for his company since I had exactly the credentials and
experience they were looking for. He said he would talk with the head of
development and get back to me. Time passed, and when he did get back to me,
he said that the dev manager was looking for someone under 35 and that my
resume - which did not have my age - told him that I must be older (I was
around 45 at the time). In retrospect, I should have sued, but instead just
let it drop.

~~~
Overtonwindow
If it was in writing you should have absolutely sued. That is clear age
discrimination.

~~~
ChuckMcM
To what end? Do you really want to work at a company that you sued and as part
of the settlement they had to give you a job? What sort of damages do you
think you could convince a judge or jury to give you for 'not hiring' you?

I get that it is wrong, and that the employer's should have some downside for
discriminating against older employees (other than losing out on some great
employees) but as an individual seeking a job, the downside is much greater
for the individual to sue than the company.

Rather than sue, send a note to the National Labor Relations board and have
them set up a sting operation and catch them in the act. Justice is served and
your life isn't impacted by being part of a lawsuit that would do you no good
anyway.

~~~
fatjokes
I'm pretty sure that's not what the court would award you, i.e., a job. They
would award damages in the form of lost potential income plus punitive
damages.

~~~
ChuckMcM
First, Yuuuuge disclaimer, I'm not a lawyer, this isn't legal advice, and the
rules are different pretty much everywhere so, in this context I'm speaking as
a California resident about employers in California, and there are reasons it
is hard to win a hiring based case[1] ...

To award damages you have to make the case that you were harmed. It is one
thing to sue a company that dismisses you for discriminatory reasons, you had
a job and a salary, and a court could find that you were discriminated
against, so you were "harmed" by the loss of pay. The court could award back
pay and punitive damages to make you whole. However if you had yet to be
hired, there isn't any way to prove either what your salary would have been,
or if you had worked there that you would not have been dismissed for any of a
million completely legal reasons. As a result and claim for damages would have
to somehow prove that by not hiring you you were somehow not hireable or
through perhaps a long an tortuous interview process you were financially
harmed. Both very hard to do.

The big difference is that you've never worked there, so you haven't been
harmed. However, it is _illegal_ to discriminate and the remedy for illegal
discrimination is a fine administered in response to a criminal complaint.
That is why you get the NLRB involved, they can bring criminal charges, you
can't[2].

[1] [http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/lawsuits-based-the-
hi...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/lawsuits-based-the-hiring-
process.html#)

[2] Not strictly true, you could swear out a complaint but it would be up to
the District Attorney to decide if they were going to prosecute based on your
complaint.

~~~
lightedman
As a California resident who has gone through this, you don't contact the
NLRB, you contact the Department of Labor Standards Enforcement first, who in
turn takes the case to the NLRB if you can not reach a settlement agreement
with the company that discriminated against you.

That's why it's so hard to win a case like this in CA, nobody knows the proper
steps to take.

------
cbanek
I don't doubt that there's age discrimination going on in the industry. What
I'm wondering is why?

Pros of being older:

\- More work experience (hopefully useful to whatever position applied for)

\- More mature mental / emotional outlook

Cons: \- Possibly higher salary requirements because of the pros above.

\- Higher relocation cost?

\- Perceived feeling of being able to work less hours?

Overall I'm just not sure I understand the economic reasons for wanting to
only hire young people. Especially when most jobs are only for a few year
period (nobody is looking for life long employees anymore). Is this possibly
some kind of part of the backlash against elitism, where we hate experienced
people that might know what they're talking about?

~~~
grepthisab
I've worked with some extremely smart older people, who did some awesome stuff
in the 70s/80s. My impression is that usually, in my experience, they're very
jaded and set in their ways. They seem to like to do things their own way and
give the impression that they're infallible because they deconstructed an x
stack in y decade, and complain about the cyclical nature of programming. They
also seem to usually not go out to happy hours/events with the team to get to
know one another as often, so they're excluded a little more, which leads to
fewer people getting to know them.

I have seen exceptions, one of the PMs on my current team must be in her 60s
and she exhibits none of the characteristics above and is a really amazing,
smart person. It's just that most of the older people I have personally met
seem to have the traits I described above. This would give me a little pause
when choosing between equal candidates for, say, an angular dev position where
both candidates have equal experience in the stack, but the older one has the
baggage(?) of having been a programmer since the 70s and knows COBOL or
something. I would likely have an unconscious bias to hire the younger one.

~~~
treehau5
I see people as young as 25 being set in there ways as well when it comes to
the latest hipster trends. For example we had a heated argument about Vue vs
React at work the other day. Turns out the other party arguing in favor of Vue
had actually never even used React before. They were just blindly recycling
the same bike-shedded arguments against JSX as every other middle-tier dev I
have ever encountered seems regurgitate. You can get set in your ways at any
age.

The solution to the happy-hour problem is to have your happy hours during
work, not after hours. Even I, who am young, healthy, no kids and loves beer,
would get tired of having to go to xyz happy hour at 6p.m just to keep my
edge.

The other thing: I bet that old guy is the first one in every morning. And
probably brings his lunch every day. Also is not interested in an afternoon
ping pong break. Translation: He or she probably actually works more, despite
being "at work" less.

~~~
olivierva
Totally true, I sit at my desk at 7am work till 6pm. The kids come in at 11am
and do oh so much over time when working till 7pm. And don't get me started
about their relationship problems. And this happy hour is the worst social
thing ever. I work in London and there are a lot of people here who don't
drink alcohol because of religious reasons or it's not a big part of their
culture. Happy hour is only social for people who like to get drunk. No
problem with that but a company with a drinking culture will never be diverse
and will therefor suffer creatively. I once managed a super multi cultural
team (9 nationalities and 5 different religions). We socialised by going to a
museum or a historical walk through London. That said, I see a lot of young
people who can only can do small talk after a couple of drinks. Which is a
shame because it shows when new people join the team.

~~~
nfriedly
> I sit at my desk at 7am work till 6pm. The kids come in at 11am and do oh so
> much over time when working till 7pm.

Why are you working 11-hour days when your colleagues are working 8-hour days?

~~~
olivierva
Efficiency: I do my thinking/coding/building/writing (not writing emails) in
the morning before anyone comes in and can interrupt me. I plan all meetings
(which I don't consider proper work) in the afternoons. In short: work first,
chatting and socialising afterwards. Some people do like to do it the other
way around, which I totally understand and respect. I'm more of a morning
person. TDLR; My first 8 hours I start with creating value and at the end of
the day I a put in a few extra hours (not always) to socialise ;-)

------
tabeth
So who's not being discriminated against? Let's review who's currently getting
the short end of the stick.

1\. Women [1]

2\. Older Americans [2]

3\. Minorities [3]

4\. Foreigners [4]

What can be done about this? The answer is clear: anonymous screening,
interviewing and hiring of candidates. All other solutions are subpar.

People will argue that there's value to be had in asking about things such as
hobbies, and other irrelevant, superfluous information, but those who advocate
this are probably not in one of the groups mentioned.

\---

[1] [http://www.vogue.com/article/female-discrimination-tech-
indu...](http://www.vogue.com/article/female-discrimination-tech-industry-
study)

[2] [https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2014/01/31/the-ugly-
tru...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/lizryan/2014/01/31/the-ugly-truth-about-
age-discrimination/#1f36519e44e7)

[3] [http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/25/news/economy/racial-
discrimi...](http://money.cnn.com/2015/11/25/news/economy/racial-
discrimination-work/)

[4] [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alev-dudek/foreign-born-
citize...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alev-dudek/foreign-born-citizens-in-
america_b_8030968.html)

~~~
jMyles
Just to be clear: are you advocating that all organizations be required to
perform this "anonymous" form of hiring, lest they face the long arm of the
law?

I think that's crazy. Talent seeking is a space where diversity makes a great
deal of sense, as evinced by the fact that many very diverse companies do very
well.

~~~
tabeth
I'm confused -- anonymity wouldn't affect diversity, unless the organization
was discriminating to begin with.

What are your arguments _against_ anonymity, exactly?

~~~
saurik
I don't know if this is the specific problem that the person you are
responding to was alluding to, but: a purely anonymous system is going to end
up with hiring tons of young white males--surely fewer than a company that
actively discriminates against other groups, but noticibly more than a company
that is actively looking for diversity--due to young white makes making up a
large percentage of the available talent pool at any given level of expertise
(due to a combination of factors, including but not limited to all of
"available time", "increasing population", "availability bias", and "systemic
oppression"). A company might specifically find value in "we don't just want
the world's best engineers: we want a diverse set of backgrounds and
viewpoints", and a forced anonymous hiring process actually removes the
ability to do that, which might actually help continue to entrench the
systemic oppression issue (as then everyone builds things for the same market
demographic as that's all they understand).

~~~
tabeth
A lot of what you say really requires some evidence.

For example:

> a purely anonymous system is going to end up with hiring tons of young white
> males-

A system that's non anonymous has already proven itself to hire a ton of young
white males...

> surely fewer than a company that actively discriminates against other
> groups, but noticibly more than a company that is actively looking for
> diversity-

Citations needed.

> A company might specifically find value in "we don't just want the world's
> best engineers: we want a diverse set of backgrounds and viewpoints",

Discrimination isn't good, period. That means discriminating for or against
white males. Also, you imply that the groups I mentioned couldn't succeed on
their own merit.

Overall, you basically encourage discrimination. Got it.

~~~
lacampbell
_A lot of what you say really requires some evidence._

You literally just kicked off a discussion by using four op-ed pieces as
sources. You have no grounds to tell people their posts require some evidence.

Get some actual facts and figures and then make your point.

~~~
threatofrain
His point is actually your point, but less emotional.

Also, in debate, you have neither the grounds to speak or be silent. Rules to
free discussion exist because we want them to.

------
kitsunesoba
Regarding this issue, at least for software engineering positions in the Bay
Area there's a possibility that I haven't seen mentioned that I don't condone
but understand.

Here, most companies' SE departments are dominated by younger engineers
largely because that's what's readily available and affordable. These
engineers are likely to want to be working with/surrounded by engineers within
their general age range not out of any particular distaste for those older
than themselves, but rather because highly experienced engineers are
intimidating and on some level difficult to relate to. 20 and early
30-somethings want to be treated like they're intelligent, capable workers who
are well-peered with their fellow engineers and introducing titanic
knowledge+wisdom gaps can toss that out the window. It can make a young guy
with 3+ years of solid experience in the industry feel like he's a half-
useless greenhorn who can never catch up, which is demoralizing. These people
are quite aware of the gap (see the rampant impostor syndrome in the same age
bracket) but would prefer to not have it pointed out constantly. Just as one
can't magically subtract years from their age, one also can't just snap their
fingers and stop being young and less experienced.

While engineers don't directly control the recruiting process, they are often
the ones doing the phone screenings and technical interviews and often have a
lot of swing as to who gets hired. I wouldn't be surprised if this is
partially why SV company hires continue to skew young.

~~~
walshemj
younger engineers "want" tough I want 50k a year

------
brudgers
Older workers are more likely to utilize health insurance for major
procedures. More claims will drive up group health insurance rates. For a
business that subsidizes employee health insurance, this is a bottom line
cost. For a business that does not, higher health insurance costs are still a
competitive disadvantage.

Because health insurance is so expensive, the costs can be non-trivial and not
hiring older workers can be economically rational. The cost of adding people
who utilize health care services to the pool establishing group policy rates
is why employer provided health insurance policies typically excluded pre-
existing conditions until it became illegal.

As fear of going without is a brake upon entrepreneurship, the rate increase
from older workers is a brake upon productivity that derives from national
health care policy.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
>> Because health insurance is so expensive, the costs can be non-trivial and
not hiring older workers can be economically rational

That is not rational- it's selfish and greedy. It's also very short-termist,
because everyone grows old eventually (or at least hopes to). If we all don't
hire older people, we'll all be without a job further down the line.

Failing to establish the conditions that will allow older people to be
employed is not being rational. It's being completely incapable of thinking
more than a few years into your own future.

Honestly- when did "rationality" become synonymous with "tunnel vision"?

~~~
BoysenberryPi
He said economically rational which it is. It has nothing to do with whether
or not the decision helps you sleep well or not. From a pure economic
perspective its the right decision to make.

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I'm so not making a moral point. What I'm saying is that, practicallly
speaking, thinking only of yourself in the here and now is in the long run
detrimental to your own best interest, counterintuitive as that may be.

Selfishness is not rational. It's dumb people's rationalisation of their own
short-termist stupidity that calls it rational.

~~~
BoysenberryPi
You said you are not making a moral point then proceed to talk about
selfishness and morality.

------
a3n
I put obvious clues in my resume that I'm old, beyond number of jobs and
dates. If you care about my age, I don't want you to waste my time; I really
don't care about your time, but that does save your time too.

~~~
romanhn
I similarly have mentioned having a family in the past during interviews. If
interviewers dislike the work/life balance considerations that come with kids,
I'd much rather find out about it in that interview than on the job.

------
LVB
I've always been intrigued by the age requirement to become an air traffic
controller--a federal job no less--which is under age 31 [1]. I recently came
across the study [2] that preceded this rule. An interesting read.

[1]
[https://www.faa.gov/jobs/career_fields/aviation_careers/](https://www.faa.gov/jobs/career_fields/aviation_careers/)
[2] [http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/faa-
aviation-...](http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-text/faa-aviation-
medicine-reports/AM71-36.pdf)

~~~
npunt
Fascinating. From what I remember reading about it, air traffic control is a
_tough_ job. Very stressful, long hours, have to be sharp, but quite routine.
It's a very downside protection job and seems to have the kind of properties
that would benefit from some serious (partial) automation.

~~~
jghn
In my first job we had a PM who was completely fried. Always on edge, super
stressed, not quite _right_. It was explained to me that up until not long
before that she had been an air traffic controller and this is what the job
did to people.

I have no idea to this day if that was a n=1 anecdata or if that's true, but
it left a lasting impression in my head.

------
paulsutter
Alternative viewpoint:

Roles that require less experience generally outnumber the roles that require
a lot of experience. As you go up the experience pyramid, more and more
experience is required, but fewer and fewer roles exist. I'm not talking about
management per se, just trying to count roles by experience needed within a
generic organization.

Challenge being that any group of individuals advance in age at a fixed rate
(one year per year).

Does that make sense? Not sure about it myself.

~~~
SFJulie
It makes sense. It is not age bias, it is knowledge bias.

You may be a good employee when you have experience, but you may also know
what to expect from a "good management", like paying the hours worked.

For instance, I have been literally barred from an interview because they made
explicit references to young people being more flexible about accepting to
work (way) more than the announced weekly work hours on the contract for free.
I said I would accept without making a fuss, they did not trust me.

Actually they were right; if you try to trick me, I will do too.

------
wellpast
I'm 40 with 20 years of real and varied industry experience (big and small
companies; crossing systems, desktop, and much web/distributed dev), rabidly
curious, and deeply study (and use on real, often side projects) bleeding edge
this and that. What I think is my core value is the long-developed ability to
build sound/robust architectures _fast_ , with very good estimation and
delivery prediction, and using latest tools, platforms, and technologies.

I know this may sound self-promoting, egotistical perhaps but I believe it's
true. Less experience brings a lot of risk in the form of opportunity cost --
without hard-won experience, you simply don't yet have the ability to predict
delivery or make the kind of "don't-look-back" decisions and optimal
prioritizations that comes with mastery.

I can go to market and find a few companies that can pay my current salary.
But the jobs I've been interested in (often medium-sized companies) seem to be
trying to fill out a slate of 5 junior/mid-level roles, implicitly devaluing
the kind of experience that I have.

I don't blame them. How do you demonstrate that you can truly "make better
prioritized decisions" or "build sound architectures quickly" \-- I _can_ do
these things, but the proofs are all counterfactuals. I know people in the
industry for more than 20 years who did not cultivate their skill set. So how
does a company first differentiate between me* and the other 20-year veteran?
On the job you'll experience the difference in talent between him and me, but
how do you a priori tell?

We need a way to show the houses we've built in our careers. How I can I show
you that the 100,000 LOC code base(s) that I built or refactored at my last
job(s) is stucturally sound with little leaks and supports agile development?
As opposed to the other guy who left his spavined˜construction to a company
in misery trying to maintain it?

Then the second thing is how do get these companies to value the skill set?
"Working" is the mantra of the day, but "working" code that's not "sound"
__doesn 't just start bleeding you in a year or two but in weeks from now. In
other words, 20 years is worth paying for.

* Swap "me" for "some guy who _has_ mastered his craft to the level I'm describing". __Yes, needs definition, but assume there is a definition.

~~~
wellpast
Just for the record I've worked on large codebases but 100,000 LOC isnt the
goal just an example. Mastery of course (typically) yields smaller code bases.

------
ryanmarsh
Ageism is just poor leadership. By that I mean discrimination _purely_ on the
stereotypes of older workers is a response to one's own failings as a leader.

Think we don't like to go drink with our friends? Don't like to learn new
things? LOL. If I would rather go home than drink with you once a month then
maybe you should take that to mean you're a bore. Maybe be pleasant and
interesting?

If I don't like to deploy on new stacks for the sake of deploying on new
stacks maybe that's a strength? If you think I can't be motivated to use
something new that is legitimately better then maybe you can't articulate your
ideas well? Maybe you aren't very inspiring?

If you think I can't work hard because I don't do long hours that's on you.
Maybe you should stop wasting my time at work and get out of my way so I can
get the job you pay me for done during normal business hours.

I could go on...

------
DoofusOfDeath
I think there's an elephant in the room, at least for many of us who are over
40:

We are in some ways less intelligent than we were 10 years earlier. We
sometimes process complex problems a little more slowly, the maximum
complexity of our mental models is a little lower, and we can sometimes learn
more slowly.

We pray that our greater experience and wisdom compensate for that. For some
of us it does, for others not so much.

Perhaps many hiring companies do reject us 40+ workers for the wrong reasons.
But in some cases, perhaps their reasons are illegal but correct.

~~~
vikingcaffiene
I'm about to turn 40 and at the top of my game. Unless some magic spell hits
me when my next birthday comes, I'm not real worried about this elephant you
speak of.

It's about staying on top of your skills and never assuming you know enough.
Always be learning. Most older devs that I know that started sliding into
irrelevance did so because they didn't keep up on that.

~~~
DoofusOfDeath
I think you raise a great point. Perhaps I'm conflating some issues that
should really be separate.

It would be interesting to see a breakdown of _why_ older devs get less
awesome over time. I can imagine a variety of causes:

\- Slower learning due to reduced brain plasticity.

\- Early stages of dementia.

\- More poorly rested due to kids, age-related physical discomfort during
sleeping, or obesity-based sleep apnea.

\- Reduced focus on career development due to getting comfortable and/or
responsibilities outside of work (child-rearing, etc.) This includes less time
on evenings / weekends to self-learn new technologies.

\- Reduced exposure to new technologies, because they're now so expensive that
employers only want to pay them to work in their current niche(s) of
expertise.

\- False perception that they actually _are_ less awesome. E.g., they write
half as much code as before, because of a better idea about what's a waste of
time.

------
losteverything
Totally anecdotal but before the over 60yr old office manager was hired only
young were hired (college and under 30). Now, recent hires include two over 55
women. Interviwees are only older.

We concluded it is a simple as who does the hiring.

------
startupdiscuss
Did anyone notice that they specifically ask for a lower GPA?

Go for 2.8-3.1 GPA w/ lots of activities.

Avoid 4.0 with no other activities.

Now If they had just said go for activities, I would understand, but they
actually asked for a lower GPA too.

~~~
dikdik
It could be a cultural thing, they want those that care more about having fun
than just keeping their nose down and doing the work.

Or they may be want people who aren't very bright because they might be
willing to take more abuse from management?

~~~
jotux
>they want those that care more about having fun than just keeping their nose
down and doing the work

This is purely anecdotal, but many 4.0 students I knew in college were not at
all interested in "keeping their nose down and doing the work." They were 100%
interested in having "4.0 GPA" on their resume which generally meant doing
very well on tests, everything else be damned. So they were _awful_ to have in
a project groups and didn't participate in any activities because it didn't
contribute to their GPA at all.

------
koolba
If older employees are so awesome compared to young workers, why does this
bias/discrimination continue to exist?

Wouldn't a shop that rids itself of the stupidity of age based discrimination
rise above its competitors as it's able to seize on a talent pool that would
otherwise be ignored?

~~~
tastythrowaway2
My guess is that the market for high quality software engineering simply isn't
there at scale. A lot of what we use day to day really just scrapes by the
threshold of passable. So that's the bar they need to clear. If your customers
are content paying you for 80% reliability, why pay for engineers who can
deliver 5 9s?

------
ianamartin
My mother and Father deal with with this internally as German Professors in a
university. My mom is in her mid 70s and my dad is is in his late 90s.

For reference, I'm in my mid/late 30s.

No one wants to hire my mom because she's too expensive, and no one wants to
hire my dad because he's too old.

The university they are currently employed at won't give them any reasonable
updates to their salaries. They have newer, younger managers telling them that
they suck at their jobs. And when you get enough of that, it starts to wear on
you, on your friends, and your students.

My Mom could go anywhere to any university in the country, but she built a
house and wants to stay in that house.

There's not a university that wouldn't hire her, and probably dad as well.
They have every credential you could ask for.

How do I find an attorney that could take this case and put this university in
place? My parent's have basically no money. But I have a cash cow. I'll pay
bucketloads to get this right.

PM me if you think you can help. And a I also have 5 other cases from women
and men with similar claims. If someone is willing to take it, we're talking
about 5 cases minimum, and I will front the cash. Get in touch.

~~~
meric
Your dad is 90 IMO enjoy more time with him than to waste his remaining time
on some lawyer.

------
startupdiscuss
If discrimination exists doesn't that imply someone can arb the situation by,
in this case, hiring all the smart older workers for more than what others are
paying and still get a good deal?

~~~
my_first_acct
As Keynes (or someone else [1]) said in a somewhat different context, "The
market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

[1] [http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-
solvent/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/09/remain-solvent/)

~~~
pandaman
In arbitrage you make money from the market being irrational so remaining
solvent could not be a concern for somebody doing it. It's for the market
being arbitraged to become rational or become insolvent.

------
blitmap
I believe age-based discrimination can happen to anyone of any age. The
government does not:

[https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm](https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm)

I am a younger adult performing IT functions.

Because of my age, some authority figures don't expect me to know how to
perform complex tasks with greater responsibility. Often those tasks are given
to older folks who (in my view) don't have the experience.

It goes both ways - I'm not saying any of it is right/fair/karma.

------
wbl
How much of this is explained by increasing health insurance rates if your
company has an older age pool?

~~~
drawkbox
This along with privacy, backroom fixed market pricing, making it harder to
change jobs and making it harder to start a business, is a big reason to
remove healthcare from employment.

Employment should provide salary only. People need to get their own insurance
for health, home, fire, life etc. Keep your employers out of your personal
dealings.

~~~
dragonbonheur
Then US hospitals should provide free healthcare for all and not insist on
getting insurance details before providing actual health care. Glad you see
the whole picture and embrace SOCIAList ideals like the rest of the planet.

------
Overtonwindow
As an aside, I always make sure my resume makes me appear to be someone in
early thirties. I combine the experience under a few recent jobs, and never
put when I graduated college.

~~~
mvid
I imagine that if I knew your name and email address, i would have enough
information to find the year you were born on the internet. Not having an
online presence is a red flag, unfortunately.

~~~
Overtonwindow
Hehe, actually in my line of work, it's an asset.

------
nonsince
I'm a young developer, but if my experience is anything to go by I think that
this age bias is driven by a desire for cost-efficiency over quality. It's
cheaper per unit of work (for some fuzzy definition of unit of work) to hire
two young developers than one experienced one, even if the quality of the
latter's work would be superior. I'd say I'm a good developer, but I think my
employability is as much due to my low wage requirements as it is due to my
skill.

------
RestlessMind
A possible factor (but not the only one) - older workers are more expensive to
hire due to higher salary expectations and higher health costs. That would
make them unappealing to a whole swath of companies - the ones with limited
hiring budgets, the ones with simple enough job requirements that a new-ish
grad can do them for cheap etc etc.

It would be interesting to see the data pertaining to salary+health costs
based on age.

------
arnonejoe
I left the bay area last summer for this very reason. I had a recruiter at an
agency in SF tell me how my resume should look for a "candidate my age" and
sent me a resume of an older candidate so that I could follow the format. The
bay area is the worst for age discrimination. It's the subtle bias I find
disturbing. I know a lot of awesome software engineers who are over 40.

------
misingnoglic
This is a huge issue for my mom - she's an amazing designer (graphic and
general), but she stopped working to take care of me and my siblings, and now
she can't find a job anywhere. She always makes it to some end round, but is
passed off for someone younger. I wish I could help somehow :/

------
equalarrow
I've said it before as an 'older dude', network, network, network.

I'm not trying to downplay any one person's hardships, but if tou have a good
netoekr of people that can vouch for you, it's 10x more powerful than coming
into a place hat in hand..

Good luck and network!!

------
SpikeDad
Gee I just got divorced and was looking at spousal support - the court said
that at my age I was only a minimum wage person. Good for me but shows that
the bias is legally recognized.

(That's after 30 years in the IT industry)...

------
Pica_soO
You got to visit actor camp, where you learn to pretend to be hyped by the
same rediscovered technologies and do "fruitfull" failures once more.

Oh brave old world, that holds such people.

------
seesomesense
I have found that some older employees have decades of valuable
experience.Others have one year of experience repeated thirty times....

------
neves
I bet that if were for software dev jobs the reject rate would be a lot
higher.

------
kazinator
> _These were actual guidelines that tobacco company R.J. Reynolds gave to job
> recruiters._

Right, but it also told its marketers to get children hooked on cigarettes.
Who gives a rat's about hiring at tobacco companies? Way to scrape the bottom
of the barrel for examples.

------
mark024
you're a young white male? of course you won't understand, "keep improving
yourself" what an elitist thing to say from the IT bubble.. most profession
plateau, it doesn't matter if you have 10 or 20 years of experience, even in
IT it doesn't.

~~~
artursapek
I've conducted a lot of job interviews and debriefs at "IT bubble" startups
and have not seen anything resembling race/gender bias. Where is this bias
happening?

~~~
mark024
Just recently I saw a reddit thread about a black web developer women being
paid much less than her coworkers, she overhead her boss talking on the phone
about hiring another guy because they have a lot of work, talking about how he
affords it, because he pays her so little and he can get away with it, because
"what she's going do", "who is going to hire her" a black developer woman.

~~~
ThomPete
If she is any goood any of the big companies would take her. There is always a
shortage of good talent.

------
E6300
Maintaining your health and the health of those under your care is your own
responsibility. You don't get to blame other people when you get yourself
infected.

~~~
davidgay
You must live in some imaginary world where bacteria and viruses respond to
your will and refuse to infect you.

And of course, if you happen to be asthmatic, it's all psychological, and you
get to decide, eg, whether that cigarette smoke will trigger an attack or not.

~~~
E6300
> You must live in some imaginary world where bacteria and viruses respond to
> your will and refuse to infect you.

Are you saying there's no such thing as prophylaxis? Doctors must wear gloves
for fashion, since microbes apparently just phase through solid matter.

> And of course, if you happen to be asthmatic, it's all psychological, and
> you get to decide, eg, whether that cigarette smoke will trigger an attack
> or not.

Regardless of whether you're asthmatic or not, deciding not to go near the
smoke is within your power.

------
Ghostium
Again? I'm annoyed of this topic. If you kept improving yourself along the
way, I'm confident you will find a good company that value your knowledge.

~~~
untilHellbanned
Let me guess less then 35? Male?

~~~
necessity
Let me guess: The same?

