
Job applicants over 40 filtered out by employers - fern12
https://phys.org/news/2017-06-job-applicants-filtered-employers.html?utm_source=menu&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=item-menu
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eatbitseveryday
How does one determine the age of an applicant from the resume? It's not
recommended to put your birthdate. Years in the workforce?

~~~
Markoff
graduation year or first employment

though you can just list your education without specific years and also skip
mentioning first worthless jobs anyway to make yourself younger

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nonsince
It's not about losing the ability to adapt. Older people are more expensive
because they're more experienced. Businesses would rather skimp on quality. I
say this as a 22yo.

~~~
awkwarddaturtle
That's not entirely true. Also, "experience" doesn't necessarily mean
"quality" \- especially when it comes to tech. Older people are also more set
in their ways, less versatile, less likely to think outside the box, have far
less energy and also have more responsibilities.

In a startup I worked at, we didn't hire any developers over 30. The only
people over 30 was out CEO and he got hired after our 2nd round of VC funding.
We wanted devs who fit our culture and of course people who could be "molded".

A 40 year old just wouldn't have fit in with a bunch of 20 year olds and he
certainly would have trouble keeping up when we developed into the early
morning to meet our deadlines/milestones/go-live dates.

But then again, startup culture is very different than established oldschool
corporate culture. But starting up a company ( especially in tech ) and trying
to survive is geared towards younger people.

Also, a 40 year old with with 15 year of VB experience in corporate america is
worth nothing to a startup building enterprise software in VC++. I would
choose a fresh grad from a top CS school with strong GPA and good work ethic
over some 40 year old VB developer.

~~~
cgdub
Sounds like people over the age of 30 are too smart to work "into the early
morning" in exchange for lottery tickets.

~~~
fuzzfactor
Might be smart at any age to take the cash plus the lottery tickets in
addition to the technical progress which could be leveraged to greater worth
than both combined.

It can be said that the increasing emphasis on growth rates over other factors
in the 21st century has driven the need for average engineers in excess of the
above-average engineers that could be supplied, resulting in an overall
decline in the quality of the engineering as time goes by.

Most importantly, some 22-year-olds have higher quality standards than others
to begin with, and among these some will have trouble maintaining their best
quality while others can continuously improve with age in ways that can not be
done over the short term.

When it comes to being set in your ways at work, this should not be confused
with a lifestyle of non-trendy workwear and preferring to just grill out by
the pool every Saturday. Someone whom by nature is more versatile at work, can
also have further years dwelling outside more boxes than less experienced
operators are aware of. And thousands of hours more training to develop more
not less energy plus increasingly efficient application of it, and with more
decades of responsibilty-handling experience, no wonder they are filtered out
by age-limiting employers who can not yet comprehend the outsized
possibilities.

Sometimes older workers are so old-fashioned they don't spend any time at work
on Facebook at all, getting shit done out of habit when needed can have its
advantages when progress needs to be measurable.

Someone with 20 years of this type of versatility at work is simply 10X more
valuable than someone having only two years along the path. You have to expect
them to be worth more in compensation.

An outfit that is truly capable of leveraging its people will get a 10X
return, and will very rarely approach 10X the compensation.

Too bad for so many so-called leaders it can be beyond their inherent
limitations to herd the cats when there is a much more experienced, better-
compensated, or more-performant cat in the herd. You can not let team
perception of a compensation multiple become inflated beyond reality, instead
it should be used to inspire younger workers to double their own productivity
as realistically as they can without expecting to get 2X their compensation
either anytime soon, while still making visible progress toward being better
compensated for years of increasing productivity themselves.

You too, could be there someday, but only if you manage to overcome the
obstacles to survive some of which are geared towards younger people.

Or maybe you plan to stagnate if you think it is unavoidable as you get older,
your choice.

You probably won't get 10X the appreciation either way.

Then again there are those having decades of preference for working without
days off when meaningful milestones need to be reached, and they couldn't
realistically depend on many in their 20's to keep up very productively anyway
under those conditions during their early years in our 24-hour business. Plus
even under ordinary conditions a super-hairy 36-hour day can still come up.

Younger workers just seem less motivated these days, I don't call it lazy like
some oldtimers do but it can give an unfair advantage to a seasoned higher
performance operator who is often able to overcome milestones in ways that
make the difference between a deadline being destructive versus productive
financially.

Plus it takes a few years of hand holding and confidence-building before I
want you doing this on your own.

These are some expensive ships.

At any age, starting up a company full-in takes a certain particularity of
ambition that not everyone will know or understand. If and when I start
another company, I would want to be able to leverage both the dedicated top
40-year-old VB developer in addition to the dedicated top fresh academic
performer, along with the dedicated top 60-year-old FORTRAN operator.

Anything less would be limiting the shareholders' upside to less than its full
potential, I might as well give up if I can't afford the 20X 60+year-old this
time (40X the first year recruit).

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Joakal
Anyone able to translate the PDF? Google Translate a Document gives me
'insecure connection error'.

~~~
fern12
[http://www.ifau.se/globalassets/pdf/se/2017/wp2017-08-the-
ef...](http://www.ifau.se/globalassets/pdf/se/2017/wp2017-08-the-effect-of-
age-and-gender-on-labor-demand.pdf)

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nickthemagicman
So what are people supposed to do? lol Just die? Seems harsh.

~~~
ncr100
Prove it was an illegal action and defend your right to employment:
[https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm](https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/age.cfm)

"The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) forbids age discrimination
against people who are age 40 or older."

~~~
Harken
...and if you're filtered out at the resume stage, good luck proving the
intent.

~~~
dragonwriter
_If_ you can get to discovery, consistent filtering at the resume stage is
probably the _easiest_ thing to prove is unambiguous age discrimination.

