
Ask HN: Have you ever faced ageism? - leonagano
On your workplace? When job hunting?
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runjake
I am in my late 40s and regularly interview people who are as old or older
than me and occasionally they'll bring up alleged ageism from an old job or
how hard it is to find a new job.

And I feel for them, but inside my head, based on the interview, I'm thinking
"well, it's probably not strictly due to age, but rather that your experience
has left you with strong opinions about things and as a natural response makes
you less flexible to new ideas."

Based on this insight, I regularly catch myself making my own assumptions and
yeah, I'm often correct, but I still want to maintain a healthy dose of self-
skepticism.

Sometimes, I'm wrong. And sometimes the paradigm has shifted to a new model I
am unfamiliar with.

~~~
jnbiche
"alleged ageism"

How long have you been in your job? How many times have you changed since you
hit 40? Do you look your age, or younger?

Personally, as someone well over 40, I've found it not worth my while to even
apply to a company whose leadership is in their 20s. I've very rarely gotten a
job offer from such a team. On the other hand, I've had pretty good success
getting offers from companies with older leadership.

Not sure what you'd call it, but whatever it is, most of the devs I know who
are my age have had a similar experience.

(and it's not new technology or a rusty mindset: I'm familiar with far more
new technology than the average 25-year-old software developer. I'm constantly
adopting new approaches and paradigms.).

That said, as advice to anyone in my position, it's probably a bad idea to
bring up specific instances of alleged ageism in a job interview. Try to avoid
any negativity in job interviews.

~~~
runjake
> How long have you been in your job?

A long time: decades at my same org.

> How many times have you changed since you hit 40?

Zero.

> Do you look your age, or younger?

I look my age, but I am fit and normal weight.

Totally good points you made.

I guess I still preach that people our age fight their own internal "ageism":

\- Try your best to maintain a curious, learning mind.

\- Try to keep an open mind that the way you've been doing things for decades
may not still be the right way. There may be a new right way and it might take
a little time for you to grasp why. That's all ok.

\- Provide great mentorship: Let the younger people make their own mistakes
and stumble into their own findings. But be there for them when they want to
bounce things off of you or talk about their experiences.

~~~
jnbiche
With due respect, if you're in your late 40s and have been in the same job for
"decades", then you don't have any personal experience with the hiring ageism
common in our industry.

And I totally agree with and live by the 3 points you made (except the 3rd, in
some circumstances). But that's the problem with ageism. If you look like
you're over 40, then it doesn't matter if you follow that advice or not,
younger companies will often _still_ hold your age against you.

------
leet_thow
Undoubtedly, yes. I have never been hired by anyone younger than me. Young
managers, of which there are a lot now, simply don't feel comfortable hiring
someone with more experience than them. I've also felt discrimination from
being a lifelong bachelor. A lot of married guys are unhappy with their
situation (there is scientific evidence to back that claim, search happiness
and children) and they do not want to be around someone who is not in the same
situation.

------
AnimalMuppet
No.

I have found that as I get older it takes longer to find a job, but I don't
think it's ageism. It's just that I have over 30 years of experience, and I
want to be paid accordingly. But you see job postings for "senior software
engineer", and they want 5 to 7 years of experience. If that's what you need,
then I'm not your guy.

There are employers who understand why I'm worth more than the younger people,
and who will pay for the experience. But there aren't as many.

------
openlowcode
Not sure it is ageism, but I hate how scrum-master (young people who has a few
days of training and made arrogant by their 'master' title) take agile methods
as a pretext to disregard any experience we built the hard way on the way to
manage IT projects.

------
giantg2
Ageism in the legal sense (40+)? No.

I have been overlooked or talked over in some scenarios because I am younger.
I have even been told I can take a hit for the sake of office politics because
my career has plenty of runway.

