So you're saying that older workers being in the position of looking for a job are signaling that they're a scratched off lottery ticket for which the expected value of a jackpot is zero?
I’ve not found age to be a good proxy for capacity or capability; I know exceptionally good (and many poor) coders at every age range I’ve seen in our field.
As for “looking for a job”, that’s a normal thing. Most experienced candidates will have a network to help, but moving to a new area or new field is also normal and hurts networking effectiveness.