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Comment by tokyodude | Hacker News Reader

I think it really depends on lots of factors. My father joined a startup in the late 90s, after 5-6 yrs the company failed. At 60 he was unable to get a new job. I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time.

I also know from running my own company with partners back in the mid 90s, we were all early 30s except one partner who was 52ish. When getting health insurance for the company his insurance was much more expensive than anyone else's. Maybe that only happens in places like the USA but it registered as yet another reason a company might not want to hire an older person.

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What's funny is that many young people in the industry now would never think of staying at one place for 3-5 years cause they don't want to invest the time.

A neighbor of mine is in his 60s and lost his job the same way. He can run rings around anyone I know but he can't find a job or even get an interview.

Bjarne Stroustrup, the C++ creator, wrote a blog post about going for a job interview and being told he "didn't fit the culture" and he knew what that meant.

Not being able to have an interview is a red flag. Companies can't tell the age from a resume.

If they can, take off the date of birth, remove the year on your degrees and don't list experiences beyond 20 years.

I've done this on mine, and I'm pretty sure when companies see this, it's a signal for an older person.

I've been given this advice and I'm skeptical. You can only mask things to a certain degree, it can make you look like you're hiding something (which you are), and the hiring manager will figure it out soon enough in any case. If they really want to age discriminate you're probably better off finding out sooner than later anyway. In any case, later career jobs tend to come from personal networks anyway. My resume was just a formality for any interview I've had in the last 20 years.

It's not hiding anything. A resume is a two pages flyer to advertise your services. It doesn't pretend to accurately represent you as a person or 40 years of accumulated experience.

It's really bad if a resume never pass the first screening, it literally can't get a job. It's not reasonable to blame age for that, interviewers cannot guess the age from just a resume (and if they can they shouldn't let be).

Yes, it’s a flyer but it’s a flyer that many expect to include specific information in a specific format. You are free to ignore those expectations of course but employers are also free to draw various conclusions about apparent employment gaps, incomplete work history, etc. even if those conclusions aren’t warranted.

can and do. your premise is faulty

Then you show up for the interview and people still can't tell your age? Isn't that a waste of time?

>Companies can't tell the age from a resume.

Companies can't add 18 + length of schooling + length of career ?

18 + 4 + 10 = 32

You actually have 18 years of experience, making you 40 years of age, and you're listing only the most recent ~10 years. They have no practical means to accurately figure out your age from that resume. The best it can do is slightly help you avoid the first layer of age-based screening.

You shouldn’t list your entire career on your resume, just the past 10-15 years. Also, assuming “18 + length of schooling” is bad too. You’d be way off on my age then too (I graduated HS several years early).

> Also, assuming “18 + length of schooling” is bad too.

That does not mean that it doesn't happen. I mean, we already established that we're dealing with short-sighted people here.

> That does not mean that it doesn't happen.

Never said it doesn’t happen, I know it does. I simply stated it’s a very flawed approach and gave one example of why.

> Bjarne Stroustrup

I actually spoke to him at a tech event, he was super nice and I totally don't doubt the 'culture fit'

Wow, do you have a link to the blog post? Bjarne, if you read his C++ books, is a great technical communicator and author, and his contribution to computer science speaks for itself.

Any links to the Bjarne story? I can't find it.

> I'm guessing companies assumed he'd leave in 3-5 years and didn't want to invest the time.

3-5 years is a pretty long stretch in this industry. The longest I’ve ever held a job is just barely 5 years. Most tech employers— at least the smart ones— know the average bounce rate in the industry is high. Older employees tend to value stability, for various reasons. So I don’t buy your argument.

If there’s a reluctance to hire older devs, I suspect it’s because they have higher salaries and maybe because they are (inaccurately) perceived as being unlikely to know or want to learn new tech.

>3-5 years is a pretty long stretch in this industry.

That's a rather SV-centric view. Otherwise 5-10 years (or longer) is quite normal, including in tech. At many companies, a bunch of 3 year stints for a job candidate is something of a red flag.

I’ve never worked in SV. Only small enterprises, Microsoft, a handful of local startups, and one SV company. The SV company had above average retention compared to most of the non SV places I’ve worked. The 3 year range has been pretty much the norm in my experience (20 years or so). 5 years has been on the high end in every company I’ve worked for. It is anecdotal, but it is what I’ve seen consistently across markets both large and small.

> That's a rather SV-centric view.

Trust me, it isn't. It's valid for every organization I've ever been in or consulted for (15+). I am in Eastern Europe and spent 9-10 years in offices, and the other 7 after that it has been all remote. I've seen a lot of companies for both consulting and normal 5-to-9 work.

While the reasons why most people don't stick around above 2-3 years are many and varied (and some are frankly quite stupid) to me it does seem to be the norm.

But I'll readily admit we all live in our own bubbles and confirmation biases. So I'm just sharing an additional anecdote here.

Fair enough. I’ve worked mostly in the US Northeast and while I’ve worked in companies across a wide range of sizes my observations are probably flavored by a lot of big firms who have been partners and clients. I would have said 5-10 years was more the norm among people I work with but then I probably tend to disproportionately work with people who are more senior in their organizations.

The neighbor I mention in my other post told me he'd work for $30K if they offered insurance and he'd stay for at least five years. As a software engineer, I know he can run code rings around anyone.

Yes, the salary requirements thing isn't very convincing to me. At the end of the day a low salary is better than no salary. Also people approaching their sixties will have most likely paid off their mortgage and their children will have left home.

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