Hacker News Reader

Comment by musgrove | Hacker News Reader

I'm seeing this now. I'm 48 and have applied to over 100 jobs. I have an MBA and have been well-qualified for every one of the jobs I've applied to, or else I wouldn't have wasted my time. I've had about 5 legitimate responses. I know it's not my resume, or much else. Age is just about the only answer, or not being able to afford me because I'm "over-qualified" which makes me wonder why they're advertising for the position, if they don't expect to hire a qualified candidate.

View on HN

Is it possible they are inflating their needs in the expectation that applicants are inflating their resumes?

I am 22 and see this all the time for positions needing 1-2 years experience. Plus, it is a great way for them to offer you a wage towards the lower end of the salary range while applicants feel happy getting a title they might not deserve.

That, or a downstream effect of people applying for jobs for which they do not quite meet the stated qualifications. Putting up "5 years experience" starts being a really good way to get ambitious people who have two or three years of experience, and so employers start using the job description to grab those applicants rather than actually-meeting-qualification.

On second thought, though, it's more likely due to H1B employment requiring an "attempt" to hire a qualified domestic employee. So once an employer has an H1B they want to hire, they have to put out a job description and fail to find an acceptable candidate meeting the listed qualifications.

This. My company creates fraudulent postings to hire H1Bs. The Americans we interview (1 per position to follow the law) are switching industries or otherwise have absolutely no experience.

Not "this" - @musgrove said he/she's rejected as "overqualified", so it's not a matter of being selected for interview despite lacking the experience

With you. Applied to around 1000 jobs myself in anything squarely in my wheelhouse or just next to it. 47. Get very few responses. When interviews are offered, I'm getting same feedback as you. It's difficult to speak up about it, because if someone has not yet experienced it, (or if it has not yet happened enough to them that they are sure what it is now) they assume it has something to do with you socially or technically. I think this is because it is so outrageously hard to believe: the idea that its root causes are insecurities that otherwise ambitious, intelligent people would not allow to negatively affect their company or its professional edge. - especially in a time when the industry can't stop talking about its shortage of highly qualified workers. So if someone calls it out, others assume there is something wrong with them they aren't facing. It took me a full 7 years of self critique and experimentation before I was sure it was ageism.

Response rates are just low in general for cold opportunities. Like, 5% sounds great. Either use your network or send out many more applications even to marginal opportunities.

Is it really that bad in the USA?

I've just started looking for a new job this week, and I've applied for maybe 3 jobs, and my phone has been ringing off the hook.

It depends. If you figure that a company keeps a posting online until the candidate accepts an offer, the ratio of 'accepting applications' to 'we'll keep your resume around just in case' is like 2:1 -- 33 percent success rate.

Which is where recruiters come in. Companies paying people to talk to and find candidates is a real signal that they'll consider your application, rather than trying to meet some H1-B requirement or whatever other possible reasons they have for including a job on a website. I've submitted like 26 applications, and gotten about 10 calls from humans. 3 of those calls were from recruiters who reached out to me first.

There's also a stream of LinkedIn contacts who want to send me off to remote places for 3 month contracts for random 'Fortune 500 company', but if you're looking for a w2 employee gig with health insurance, relocation, and long term employment opportunity, these warm body shops are less helpful.

Yes. Where are you applying from?

Australia. It helps that ruby developers are rare as hens teeth here.

The problem with "using your network" for an older worker, is that in a severely ageist climate, your network has to be made up of those who are 10-20 years younger than you are. These kinds of connections across generations are difficult to forge in a way Dan Lyons illustrates better than I can. I have found that "network" as a resource is better explained as "knowing someone with CEO hiring power and strong desire to hire you in particular." If you are in your early to mid 40s, you may have built strong connections of this type, but many of those who are in powerful hiring positions don't want others around who can compete at their level, because they face the same thing comming for them. And many more who have this power these days are much younger than they used to be, which makes them less likely to hire someone they see as "mentor age". It feels awkward and unnatural--they want to hire those they can come up with, just like in any other time in history. I feel that this "get a job through your network" advice tends to become very thin at around age 35 and up, especially if you are a member of another protected class.

Try making your age completely ambiguous on your resume and see what the response is. E.g. remove college graduation date, replace specific dates of employment with 5 years, over 10 years etc.

Also: discard experience from over X years ago.

It's obvious when applicants do this. There's no plausible deniability unless younger applicants start doing the same thing out of solidarity someday.

Are you getting interviews? If not, consider revisting the resume aspect.. Keep it at a max of 2 pages and when listing your skills, focus on the most recent work and technology (not the breadth of tech you've worked with over your career but the depth of tech that you are looking to get a position doing).

I've applied to about 500 jobs. I'm 46 & returning to coding after years of absence. I get better response rates outside of engineering (e.g., teaching, program management). This year, I won a teaching job and a technical writing job and was denied both due to ageism.

It slows down over 40. There aren't as many openings that need what you have, but they still exist. It takes time to find them, though.

I start contacting headhunters (I keep a file of ones I think are decent, since the day will come when I'll need them). I don't know what other things to tell you to try - I haven't needed/wanted a new job in 8 years. (I was 47 then.)

Online applications in general are rarely successful. Pardon my directness, but if you've applied to 100+ jobs then you're likely doing it wrong. You are almost always better off finding a quality set of positions (10-15) and getting human referrals/connections to them. In job hunting, quality is much more important than quantity.

I'm about to start looking for a new job. How would you go about building connections to companies you're interested in, outside attending relevant meetups and conferences?

People hate it, but there are some really good recruiters on linkedin. With some digging, you can find out what recruting firm a company is using. You also have to weed out the junior recruiters trying to connect with everyone on there. Having contacts with a few good recruiters can really go a long way. How to identify? Usually, they will message you with a specific oppurtunity, and will respond with the actually job req when quiried. Caveate is; I say this as someone with a lot of years of experience, so someone who's entry level or green may not be targets of these people.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com