Can someone state honestly and pseudonymously why they don't hire oldz?
Speculating I would say:
- chose younger hire because cheaper and can be moulded into company specific role.
- younger candidate more easily managed by less experienced (cheaper) manager.
- wants to keep culture "pure," and needs kids to drink kool-aid.
- values power and control over less experienced technically acceptable candidates.
- get extra effort and all nighters out of people who think they need "experience."
- want to leverage kids love of novelty to react and respond to developments that seem like minor details to people with experience.
- younger people have less sensitivity to change.
- early stage companies want to reduce exposure to risk from having to re-negotiate once key developer has them by balls.
If you are old, present as harmless. The more hippy dippy and spergy you come off as, the less threatening you will be, the more you will disarm clients/employers.
I'm in my 40s. I interview frequently and the problem with most devs over 40 is that they are slow or dont keep up with technology.
I interviewed one guy in his 60s who went to school at MIT for his phd. I was excited. And then when it came to the coding exercise not only was he using perl, which had no relevance to our stack (which he was informed about) he took 3x as long to complete the question. I interviewed another older person who had no idea what JSON was. "Oh it's like XML, I get it."
It makes them look like a weaker candidate when they are slower or less knowledgeable. If you keep up with technology and trends it really makes a difference. It doesn't matter that "I can pick it up quickly" because as a hiring manager why take the risk when someone already has the knowledge?
Note: JSON is just like XML in that it's a horrible data interchange format ;) And if "knowing JSON" is a key skill you interview for... You possibly might want to ask different questions. Unless you repeatedly build the same thing - see below.
Any decent developer, no matter their age, should be able to figure out what JSON is in about as much time as it takes to have a coffee. If they can't do that, you have a real problem.
> as a hiring manager why take the risk when someone already has the knowledge?
As a hiring manager: Because we're not redoing already solved things, we solve new problems. The person with the knowledge holds the advantage for a few months. And then the person with the problem solving skills catches up. Of course, if you keep building the same type of app over and over - which is fine, and equally necessary - those months are never made up for, and experience matters more than problem solving.
Ultimately, you hire for the jobs you need to fill. For my part, I'm happy to take anybody who understands CS and is able to learn over somebody who already knows my tech but is stumped by new problems. (No matter the age)
That's why as a 40+ engineer I am always pushing myself to learn new tech. It's evening here in the UK, and while my kids are sleeping and my wife is catching up on her soap operas, I am just taking time out from learning GraphQL to see what's on here.
I recently read in an old Bill Gates interview that Microsoft (at least in the early days) hired as much as possible straight out of college because they didn't want people tainted by bad or even just different development practices. They wanted smart folks they could show the "Microsoft way" to simplify that end of managing their product development.
Is it generally true that "younger candidate more easily managed by less experienced (cheaper) manager"?
I'm a relatively inexperienced "manager" (team lead) and I have had staff both younger and older (I'm currently 36). Although my sample set is small I have strongly found my older hires much easier to manage. They understand how "work" works, what's expected, and don't mind dealing with the bureaucratic crap (that I can't do anything about). I really just want someone who doesn't mind coloring inside the lines and plays well with others.
In my limited experience, the younger candidates like to "go their own way" and are more strongly emphasizing resume building so they want to make major changes not out of strong technical reasons but simply because it "would be neat" to try it out.
Speaking as an "old" (46), most of my colleagues have truly rotted out. The typical HN reader will be given to self-improvement and curiosity...but outside of this bubble many others have to be dragged kicking and screaming.
Speculating I would say:
- chose younger hire because cheaper and can be moulded into company specific role. - younger candidate more easily managed by less experienced (cheaper) manager. - wants to keep culture "pure," and needs kids to drink kool-aid. - values power and control over less experienced technically acceptable candidates. - get extra effort and all nighters out of people who think they need "experience." - want to leverage kids love of novelty to react and respond to developments that seem like minor details to people with experience. - younger people have less sensitivity to change. - early stage companies want to reduce exposure to risk from having to re-negotiate once key developer has them by balls.
If you are old, present as harmless. The more hippy dippy and spergy you come off as, the less threatening you will be, the more you will disarm clients/employers.