Do you get to the interview and then they see your grey hair and treat you like Grandpa?
Do they just not call you for an interview at all?
Is it the leetcode and focus on the specifics of very new and flashy tech that is the problem?
And everyone I talk to complains about no experienced tech people.
Not sure how I can get calls so quickly, but they aren’t FAANG level interviews either. Small startups and desperate corporates mostly.
I had twenty years of experience at the time, and they wanted someone who was exactly like me with all my skill and knowledge, but ten years younger.
I never responded to them, but they have been the butt of many jokes since.
They can also be fairly insulting in tone. I guess us oldsters are too "thin-skinned" for today's hyper-competitive world. We make unreasonable demands, like being treated as humans. We're supposed to ignore mortal insults. Maybe it's just like a hazing ritual, where we are supposed to prove we are willing to abase ourselves for the corporation.
Work environments are also completely centered around the needs and desires of younger folks. In many cases, it's not deliberate, but these are companies that are run by people in their twenties, and staffed by people in their twenties, so the sample population is a bit...homogenous. Perks are designed to entice younger folks (like hiking and skiing offsites, no weekends, Friday night happy hours and pub crawls, free beer and food, open-plan, "hip" offices, Urban locations, T-shirts, no short-term disability, etc.).
The recruiters are just plain rude. They ghost me, almost immediately after finding out that I'm older than 35 (a lot older). Very different, from when I used to look, before my last job.
The LeetCode tests are "Young-Pass Filters." They generally cover topics that people fresh out of college would nail, and I know that many engineers spend countless hours, practicing LeetCode (maybe while they are supposed to be writing non-leet code for their employers). How do I know it? Because I keep getting notifications, when they post their results on LinkedIn and other places.
I've learned that if I see a binary tree test, I might as well look elsewhere.
I have been writing shipping code, since 1987. I seldom encounter the neat little problems that I see in whiteboard tests. Just yesterday, I was dealing with some weird threading/memory leak issues; and those are a blue-assed bitch to debug (spoiler: I fixed them). Every single day, I have big, nasty problems that need to be fixed, and every single day, I fix them; often by designing good, robust, high-quality frameworks, modules, and applications. Device I/O problems are fun, too.
The most unfathomable thing, is people directly and unapologetically, ignoring my portfolio. I have a big one. Real big. I know that it isn't that special, because I see bigger and more impressive ones, all the time. There's a lot of really talented, experienced developers, with years of work, open to perusal.
These folks are looking to hire critical-path talent, responsible for the lifeblood of their products, pay us six figures, and then they deliberately ignore resources that could tell them more about us than twenty hours of interviews. People could make the "hire or ignore" decisions, simply by reviewing the portfolio. They wouldn't even need to call me on the phone, or let me know they were interested, in any other way. Complete stealth.
But, like I said, I'm not particularly interested in rejoining the "rat race." This forced me into an early retirement, and I'm fine with that. I work harder, these days, that I ever did, and it's a joy.
What "mortal insults" are you regularly subjected to during the course of your job...?
One big one, is the assumption that applicants are supplicants. The constant attitude that the corporation is the "Dom" in the relationship, and that they are doing us a big favor, by offering us a chance to beg for the job.
Other things are obviously bored and unmotivated interviewers; implying that my being there is an imposition to them, changing interview dates without prior consultation, arriving at companies, to find that no one is expecting you, and getting passed around surprised, unprepared, and visibly angry managers, not asking probing questions, asking if I'm "up to" long project crunches, assuming that I don't know current tech, commenting on the outfit that I decided to wear (I have to assume that it is a fashion faux pas), scheduling interviews in noisy restaurants or bars, assuming I need to use the bathroom a lot (might have a point, there), that "face drop," when you walk in the conference room, and they see you, for the first time, "ghosting" me, asking about my grandchildren (I don't have any), making comments that, as an older person, I should "ask for less" compensation, assuming that I'll be retiring soon, and won't be "loyal," (which is rich, as the whole industry is based on SWEs leaving after 18 months), assuming that I'll be an overbearing, lecturing "OK Boomer," and won't be able to get along with the "culture" of the company, smartass remarks during interview tests, etc. Want me to go on? I know that this list hit a lot of folks. I'm not alone.
Many of these issues are ones that everyone has to face. I don't think that older folks are singled out. It's just that we are old enough to remember when it wasn't like that, and that interviewing people was something exciting and interesting. When we were looking at folks we desperately wanted to work with, and we showed them.
I was a hiring manager for a long time. I always treated prospective hires with the greatest respect; even after I had decided not to offer them the position.
But really, ignoring the portfolio is the biggest one. It's, quite frankly, insane. The only reason to ignore it, is that the decision has already been made, not to hire, and no one wants to waste the time.
Good way to get yourself blackballed. I wouldn't even mention it now, if I were looking for work.