Age Discrimination In the Tech Industry 370
Presto Vivace writes: Fortune has an article about increasingly overt age discrimination in the tech industry. Quoting: "It's a widely accepted reality within the technology industry that youth rules. But at least part of the extreme age imbalance can be traced back to advertisements for open positions that government regulators say may illegally discriminate against older applicants. Many tech companies post openings exclusively for new or recent college graduates, a pool of candidates that is overwhelmingly in its early twenties. ... 'In our view, it's illegal,' Raymond Peeler, senior attorney advisor at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the federal agency that enforces workplace discrimination laws said about the use of 'new grad' and 'recent grad' in job notices. 'We think it deters older applicants from applying.'" Am I the only one who thinks many of the quality control issues and failed projects in the tech industry can be attributed to age discrimination?
That is not the whole truth (Score:5, Informative)
While wages I am sure do play a factor, as former a hiring manager I can tell you the GP is 100% correct. Older and younger programmers both have their pros and cons. Younger programmers are nearly always more up to date on the latest technologies and trends and have an innate ability to "churn out" fairly good quality code at a lightning fast rate. However, they are nearly always inexperienced compared to their more seasoned peers, and make a lot of what I would call "elementary mistakes" when it comes to architecture. They also have a tendency to *always* want to use the latest and greatest tech instead of the tried and true, which is not always a good thing.
Older workers have the opposite pros and cons. They tend to take a bit longer to finish a project, but that project is usually of higher quality and better architecture because they have been around the block and know how to code for the long term. They also like to stick with the tried and true technology because they know it, and it works.
Ideal teams have a healthy mix of both young fresh employees and older seasoned ones. A good manager knows how to create this team and get them to work together to bring out the best of the young and old, and how to get the seasoned professionals to help teach the young employees about enterprise architecture, while the young employees can help keep the older employees fresh and up to date on the latest technology trends.
Re:Families come first (Score:4, Informative)
Strategies to Defeat Age Discrimination (Score:4, Informative)
When seeking employment, there are strategies that can be used to help defeat age discrimination.
Remove the gray before an interview. Clairol and Clairol for Men (and other such products) can be your friend; alternatively, visit a good barber or hair salon. Pick a natural-looking color. Men should remember to color their beards and mustaches. This should be done several days in advance so that accidental coloring of adjacent skin can be washed away. DO NOT persist in coloring hair, however; this is suspected of increasing the risk of cancer. Do not wear false hair; it is too easily detected.
When describing education, do not mention in what years your degrees were granted.
When describing employment history, only go back 10 years.
Do not mention spouse, children, and especially grand-children.
Do not mention expertise in obsolete computer languages or hardware.
If you are a victim of age discrimination, however, think very carefully about legal remedies even if you have solid proof. There is a U.S. Supreme Court justice who previously was the head of the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). While in that earlier post, he deliberately sat on over 20,000 age-discrimination complaints until the statute of limitations expired and prevented action. (Anita Hill was merely a side distraction.)