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Comment by jondubois | Hacker News Reader

If you're young, you fit in a narrow spectrum of experience with a relatively low upper bound.

If you're old, then the spectrum of possible experience is much broader. You could range from being totally inexperienced to being extremely experienced.

Also, as I get older, I realize that talent plays a significant part (which is independent of age). But there is a huge problem that almost all companies don't know how to identify technical talent; they focus on the wrong attributes like ability to perform under pressure and ability to recall details. Companies should be focusing on a candidate's ability to synthesize information, to rank problems based on their importance and to communicate simply and clearly; that is the real valuable talent.

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I agree with you as far as these general skills, but I think that the value of applicable experience should not be discounted.

For example, I work with a firmware developer in his 50’s, and he is so efficient it is scary. He’s basically seen it all by now, and he has deeply ingrained work habits which let him solve problems extremely quickly.

That’s not to say that every developer with X years of experience will automatically be great in that way, but if you can find someone who has years of experience producing exactly the type of work you need, this should be viewed as a huge advantage.

It’s like if you are looking to hire a carpenter to built a piece of custom furniture: you can and should consider general qualities like strength, manual dexterity and attention to detail. But if you can find someone with years of muscle memory building exactly that type of furniture, they are almost guaranteed to get the best result.

I think that on average, an older experienced developer will be more skilled than a younger one, even with less natural talent. Experience is really important.

>Companies should be focusing on a candidate's ability to synthesize information, to rank problems based on their importance and to communicate simply and clearly

So, from my non-tech perspective, that's just every single job at every single employer. Any position I've had that has been in charge of hiring people - I am acutely aware that I can teach the position. I can teach the technical aspects and detail knowledge of how to do a job. What I can't teach is the ability to prioritize, critically think, and communicate appropriately. Those are real talents.

I guess what I'm saying is - tech companies are garbage at evaluating for those things, because (I would argue) all/nearly all companies are garbage at evaluating for those things. It doesn't matter if it's a tech company, garbage company, or insurance company - they're all (again, my experience) equally garbage at finding those skills in people through their standard interview processes.

If you figure out how to implement a standard interview process to evaluate for the three things you list, you will be the world's first trillionaire.

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