Ageism – A new form of discrimination in technology | Hacker News Reader

Ageism – A new form of discrimination in technology

stefanos82.github.io

4 pointsstephen828 comments

Age is one point that some people might consciously or unconsciously weigh against a candidate. But there are many such points, and there is no reason you have to reveal your age early if you think it hurts you. It sounds like you are looking for remote work without a portfolio. You have a lot of drive and curiosity and probably know a whole lot, but how can you demonstrate to somebody who would hire you that you actually complete work independently? This seems like a bigger obstacle than age alone. I'm at the beginning of a job hunt myself and I'm finding it hard to take the time to make a portfolio that really reflects my best efforts. But I don't see another way to show what I know. The reasons you want to work remote are not important (to an employer). You probably won't flip anybody who doesn't want to hire remote. Everybody has reasons. I would think the priorities are:

- will this person "show up" and communicate effectively? Your blog post implies that yes, you will, and that's good.

- will the work get done?

Can you distill all your experiences into some examples of examples of code you have written that does something resembling what you want to be hired to do? Are there open source projects to which you can contribute to show that you can work remotely with others?

I fully understand what you are saying and I agree with you.

That's my problem; I never implemented anything from scratch. I would only fix problems my employer was facing at the time.

My major issue is that I don't know what to implement nor I find it feasible to do so without teamwork.

To do such thing I have to find something extremely interesting and challenging to persuade myself to start implementing it from scratch.

I'm not that type of programmer that wakes up and starts writing code out of the blue that later on pushes it on his repository.

I have to have a purpose to do such thing.

So much of any job is the discipline to do boring but important routine tasks. You will probably not be fortunate enough to find interesting and challenging things to work on, especially at the start. If you can have the discipline to show how you create tic tac toe, or connect 4, or some simple crud app that stores contacts or whatever, you can show that you can complete work. And you can talk about the choices you made, why your code is good or maintainable or performs well. Motivating yourself to work is not something that comes easily to everybody, but you have to show that you can do that even more so when you plan to work remotely. You can also try implementing the same thing in different ways - like tic tac toe in vanilla JS and react - and discuss the tradeoffs between managing state in both contexts. But anything that shows you n engaging with the practical work of programming will surely help you out. If you need a team, you might have to get out of your comfort zone and find some civic having events in your city if they have those. There you will find problems and teams. If you can't bring yourself to go, email the organizers or get on their slack and see if your skills match any problems that people are working on.

Also your blog has some good points (like fixing the VCR or tracking down the malware in the PHP). BUT the hiring process is what it is, flawed and stupid as that may be. Most companies will not take the time to assess us as entire people with rich histories etc. We are assessed in the context of the need they have that we can meet. Your descriptions of how your OCD affects your interview performance are fair. But it lieu of a strong interview, you should have coherent examples of you writing usable code and being awesome.

I mean this nicely: You cannot simply sell your story and your conviction that you will be great. You are already great. You have to sell the programmer you are now.

I'm doing my best mate, thank you for your kind words.

Much appreciated, cheers.

Hey. You are not wrong about any of this. But I'm concerned that when ageism doesn't kill your chances, your English writing/speaking skills will/has.(not that this is the main issue, because I don't know where you have been trying to find work) Perhaps you have already done this, but if you have not yet, do have a native speaking friend edit and proofread any cover letters, résumés, and blog posts that your potential employers might see. There are a lot of errors in the blog post that might give someone pause about your ability to work within the English-speaking corporate system. (not that this is fair or right, because everyone can learn, but you need to show that you care enough to present yourself with care when you have the prep time) In addition to this, your vibe is colorful and shows lots of emotion. This approach, if you are using it, could also hold you back. You need to appear masterful, in good humor, professional and confident in your coding abilities (even if you aren't). there is a small window of acceptable behavior, and your blog post sits outside it. (I liked it, but they won't) It isn't okay (in employers' minds) to not have a portfolio, so you need to make a small one as soon as you can. I didn't know what you meant by "going in without a portfolio", in that if you were invited to do an on-site, they would have already seen your portfolio/GitHub. In addition to all of this, you need to present yourself as someone who affirms and supports the prevailing culture, and your blog post reveals that you do not. Since it is public, I'd scrub it for any hints of negativity or confusion about "the culture" in tech right now. Again, I'm sorry you have been turned away, and you are not wrong about ageism at all. But get yourself a young, corporate-minded English speaker you trust, and have them look at your materials with all of this in mind. It might help you get your foot in the door. I hope it does, and good luck!

This is new? Um...

Also for mobile styling, there should be some padding / margin on the sides. I have to zoom out to see the whole text and it’s tiny as a result.

Thanks for testing it from mobile. Can you check it now? It should work as expected.

Cheers.

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