The Painful Truth About Age Discrimination in Tech

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Is age discrimination really a big problem in the tech industry? I was always under the impression that the tech world was one of the only real industries where people care more about what you know / can do…than how old you are.

There are bold programmers but no old programmers. That fear-tinged saying echoes even more today among software developers, who fear the recession provides a handy cover for age discrimination in the high-tech world. But a closer look suggests that it's the nature of IT itself to push its elderly workers out, and in an odd twist, the recession -- at least for now -- has actually protected older workers.
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Not when most HR/middle management people in companies have absolutely no idea what it is the person, regardless of their age, actually does.

And honestly? an older, been at the company longer employee is getting paid probably a decent amount more than a wet behind the ears but willing to work for "slave" wages 20 something. Just about every company out there is going to say adios to the older, higher paid employee and go for the cheaper, younger one - whether or not they're up to snuff on the actual job.
 
Experience past 12 months is meaningless any more. Well it really is not, but the people that do the hiring seem to think so. They all want a little experience, just enough to know you have done it b4, but past that they look at it as a hindrance to paying you low wages. But on the flip side, past a certain amount of experience in one trade, is not likely to be of benefit in a occupational specialty that changes so fast like the IT field. Is 20 years of experience better than 5 when working on a modern network? Prolly not. But you would most likely have to pay the 20 year vet as much as twice the amount of the 5 year vet.
 
Having worked in IT for about 20 years before getting out.. .Yes, there is age discrimination in IT, Tech, programming... it's there. And it isn't pretty.

Bottom line: More experience + age = higher salaries. Younger tech workers are cheaper.

This is why I got back into engineering.
 
Go read the Dice.com forums.

Age discrimination is a huge problem in IT in some areas and some employers.
Who has a longer career usually, Engineering students or CS Students? Engineering students on average by far.

When you get more hits on your resume just by shaving a few years off of it, that should be a flag.

Lots of managers hire younger because they think the 25 year old CS Grad knows .Net better than the 50yr old c/c++ programmer with 25 yrs of OOP coding vet could ever know since it is a new technology. Plus, who will work for cheaper in this situation?

Hell, in my place of employment (15 people in IT - developers and infrastructure), the oldest person in IT is my co-worker @ 37 yrs old.

It exists big time, and I remind anyone fired/let go and find out a younger person (meaning you are 40+ and lost your job to a 25 yr old) to file an EEOC complaint.

Every other profession (for the most part) see age as wisdom, but in IT it is seen as outdated knowledge. Hell, its one reason Im moving into management, its the only path I have that won't face this issue.
 
A couple hints if you are "older" and looking for a tech job. You don't want your resume to peg you as "old" or have the interviewer see you as "old"

Grey Hair? Color it to eliminate most/all of the grey. Don't forget the mustache too.

Remove the older entries from your resume. The Netware 2.x, Banyan, Windows NT, and Apple II certifications are no longer relevant.

Remove the dates from your education/graduation/degree section.

Make sure you have as much "current" certifications or experience listed as possible.

Luckily, I look about 10 years younger than my real age which helps. Once you have the job and have proven yourself, you can let your hair retrun to grey as blame it on all your hard work :)
 
Ugh, the working for someone else world is a pathetic one, glad im not a part of it.
 
Age discrimination exists in nearly every industry. It's the nature of things and no law on earth can stop it, but rather just drives it underground and behind the scenes. If employers were honest about it, they would run afoul of the law and needlessly so. The whole thing is pathetic.
 
It's total bullshit. And not just tech--it's every level outside the "executive" ones.

My wife applied for a job where she would have been a perfect fit--the right experience, the right sense, everything--but, because she was over 50, they passed her over for someone less than half her age, and of course less pay.

And that's the real reason for ALL of this: the impoverishment of America. Massive profittaking at all costs... Never mind that they're destroying the nation with their greed n
 
It sounds like most people are upset not over age, but over someone willing to work for less.
 
Eseipel said:
It sounds like most people are upset not over age, but over someone willing to work for less.
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This is what the issue is really about, money not age. Older people cost more money in cash and benefits. That said you get what you pay for more often than not.
 
Eseipel said:
It sounds like most people are upset not over age, but over someone willing to work for less.
Click to expand...

In IT though, its not just money. Sure, its a part of the decision, but not all.

Many hiring managers believe that an older techie is out of date with the newest technologies. Instead of factoring in that a more senior-ed person could leverage their knowledge with the new stuff making them truly an expert, they make the mistake of hiring a younger person because that is the only "tech" they know.
 
maybe they dont want to worry about retirement.. maybe they dont want as high of medical insurance usage.. maybe they are hopeing less turn around (employees that work for longer instead of quiting after few years) also maybe they want to pay person less.. alot of factors.. depends what you are calling old.. i wonder ..
 
You act like this is something that only happens in tech jobs and not in probably damn near every business out there. Welcome to real life, people.
 
kirbyrj said:
Since when is it wrong for companies to want to make money?
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It's not, that's why companies exist.

What's wrong is the tendency for companies to start axing staff at the first signs
of trouble without even looking at other aspects like operations, market placement
etc. It's always easier to slash staff to make the books look good for the current quarter.

There's no perceived value in experience or ability in IT. Every job posting is a menu of the current skills of the day which are expensive to get and nobody wants to pay for. It doesn't matter that you could pick up the skill in a week because it's 80% of what you already know, if you don't have it right now then just move on.

Couple that with the majority of jobs being short term contract work and the pool of successful candidates thins out quite a bit. Even the "cheap" younger employees get left out because they can't afford to get this week's skill and before you know it Bill Gates is in front of congress begging for H1B visas because nobody's "smart enough" in the U.S.

IT is less of a career path and more of a meat grinder these days. Your best bet is to try to strike out on your own (Corporations love to overpay consultants even now!) or go find another career path. I've said for years that IT work is rapidly moving toward the 21st century equivalent to a grease monkey. You're there to be used up and flushed when they're done with you.
 
That's exactly why I am moving into management direction. By the time I'm in my 40's I'll be completely done with development.
 
I was interested in IT when I went to college, but I noticed this trend 10 years ago, so I stayed away.

You are definitely right about consulting. Everyone loves to overpay a consultant. I can charge $80-100/hr. to uninstall spyware for small businesses.
 
jwalk6 said:
It's not, that's why companies exist.

What's wrong is the tendency for companies to start axing staff at the first signs
of trouble without even looking at other aspects like operations, market placement
etc. It's always easier to slash staff to make the books look good for the current quarter.

There's no perceived value in experience or ability in IT. Every job posting is a menu of the current skills of the day which are expensive to get and nobody wants to pay for. It doesn't matter that you could pick up the skill in a week because it's 80% of what you already know, if you don't have it right now then just move on.

Couple that with the majority of jobs being short term contract work and the pool of successful candidates thins out quite a bit. Even the "cheap" younger employees get left out because they can't afford to get this week's skill and before you know it Bill Gates is in front of congress begging for H1B visas because nobody's "smart enough" in the U.S.

IT is less of a career path and more of a meat grinder these days. Your best bet is to try to strike out on your own (Corporations love to overpay consultants even now!) or go find another career path. I've said for years that IT work is rapidly moving toward the 21st century equivalent to a grease monkey. You're there to be used up and flushed when they're done with you.
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Grease Monkeys at a dealership or repair chain have it good compared to IT guys. They may not make triple digits, but they don't get tossed in the trash at the first sign of a gray hair.
 
GORANKAR said:
Grease Monkeys at a dealership or repair chain have it good compared to IT guys. They may not make triple digits, but they don't get tossed in the trash at the first sign of a gray hair.
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Yeah, when the gray starts showing up they make them service writers.

:D
 
ditzilla said:
Not when most HR/middle management people in companies have absolutely no idea what it is the person, regardless of their age, actually does.

And honestly? an older, been at the company longer employee is getting paid probably a decent amount more than a wet behind the ears but willing to work for "slave" wages 20 something. Just about every company out there is going to say adios to the older, higher paid employee and go for the cheaper, younger one - whether or not they're up to snuff on the actual job.
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I agree...I've been told personally by HR and management people that they dont really know what the hell a tech/programmer resume actually says. they just look for the phrases they know like C# or MS Cert XXXXX....and the old guys at my job make a killing, when were doing layoffs en masse last year they all were hella nervous. they know the quality of work they offer is top notch but the company can hire two people for what they pay them. or one consultant of equal skill for less sometimes
 
maademperor said:
I agree...I've been told personally by HR and management people that they dont really know what the hell a tech/programmer resume actually says. they just look for the phrases they know like C# or MS Cert XXXXX....and the old guys at my job make a killing, when were doing layoffs en masse last year they all were hella nervous. they know the quality of work they offer is top notch but the company can hire two people for what they pay them. or one consultant of equal skill for less sometimes
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no edit-

a good example was when I was interviewing once a few years ago and the HR lady saw "....NT4, windows 2000, ect, ect and asked me "what about NT5?"
 
Oh.. when will people learn that American society is designed purely to have people contribute until it is no longer efficient. Ideally, those people would die after losing their job. I'm not saying this in an effort to be mean, but I am saying it to make a point. Capitalist society is, by nature, designed so that everyone "feeds the machine" and then dies. And people have been brought up to believe this is a solid set of values. Profit above all else.

It's morally wrong to want someone that can't contribute as much as someone else to have a good life. - The capitalist way of thinking.

And... I can't help but say this to all the people saying is it wrong for a company to want to make a profit: What the fuck? I love how people manage to make companies that are making millions a year in profit into the victims, saying "Oh, they're just trying to get by, you can't blame 'em..." Fuck that.
 
jandar said:
Many hiring managers believe that an older techie is out of date with the newest technologies. Instead of factoring in that a more senior-ed person could leverage their knowledge with the new stuff making them truly an expert, they make the mistake of hiring a younger person because that is the only "tech" they know.
Click to expand...

That's true for some "old" people who don't update thier knowledge & end up stuck in the past, but many of us try to keep current. After the dot com bubble burst and I found myself looking for a job, I couldn't get past the HR filters since I didn't have current certifications. I bought some books, did a little studying, and took all the test to earn both a MCSE, and CCNA certification.

I currently support everyting from an old Windows 2000 server running a btrieve based application, to the latest windows 2008 64 bit servers running SQL and virtual servers. Throw in an ISA server, a few Cisco routers, a Cisco Firewall, an IP based Phone system, terminal server, 60 desktops/laptops, plus I'm getting ready to upgrade to Exchange 2010 once it's released and Windows 7 64bit as we start replacing systems in a few months.

I may be almost 50, but I know more about networking than the "younger" people I run into.

The biggest problem was finding a company that was a good match for my knowledge and was willing to pay for it. Too many companies think they can higher a good admin for $30K, and then expect them to be experts on everything from desktop hardware to SQL.
 
kirbyrj said:
Since when is it wrong for companies to want to make money?
Click to expand...

When they make it "profit at any cost".

They've turned the phrase "it's just business" into a catch-all excuse for any atrocity they can dream up. Glaxosmithklein and their pushing a drug known to kill people (and likely more). All those bank and insurance companies and "financial institutions" that destroyed the economy with their criminal pursuit of "profit uber alles", then lining up like maggots to a rotting corpse to sucker nearly a trillion dollars out of our pockets--again--because they fucked up.

All business schools teach those drones is how to cheat and not get caught. And their immorality has caught up, except that it's the honest people who are getting screwed.

heatlesssun said:
Eseipel said:
It sounds like most people are upset not over age, but over someone willing to work for less.
Click to expand...

This is what the issue is really about, money not age. Older people cost more money in cash and benefits. That said you get what you pay for more often than not.
Click to expand...

We're upset because, in many cases, we've put in decades working for a place, earning our keep, only to have our legs cut out from under us in a "layoff" that was specifically designed to eliminate anyone over a certain age (50), which is patently illegal, but was justfied by "profit uber alles" and "it's just business."

Meanwhile, the company takes a dive because their operations go to he'll and the product turns to shit; the "execs" behind the short-term profittaking make their obscene bonuses and skate off to non-extradiction countries while the company collapses and takes the economy and unemployment rate with them; and the new "execs" sell out to Chna or India, and take the rest of the jobs out of the country, leaving us to scramble for all these menial retail jobs while they take their China- or India-sponsored bribes to non-extradiction countries to enjoy yet again the spoils of their rapage.

Yeah, tell me again how great our nation is, that's been sold to the highert bidder, right along with our so-called "elected officials". :tard:
 
really depends on the business' requirements.

put it this way. You need to hire someone for supporting some apps, programing, support etc...

you have...

candidate A: 20 years old, 1 year experience, no marriage, no mortgage, willing to do anything (long hours, multiple projects). This candidate will cost you 70K / yr

candidate B: 45 years old, 15 years experience, married, 2 kids, has mortgage, not much free times after work, reluctant do work longer than required. This candidate will cost you 100K /yr

the benefits of hiring the younger candidate go beyond actual work experience, you should also ask yourself, why isnt the older candidate higher on the corporate ladder when you have younger resources available?
 
Tex Arcana said:
When they make it "profit at any cost".

They've turned the phrase "it's just business" into a catch-all excuse for any atrocity they can dream up. Glaxosmithklein and their pushing a drug known to kill people (and likely more). All those bank and insurance companies and "financial institutions" that destroyed the economy with their criminal pursuit of "profit uber alles", then lining up like maggots to a rotting corpse to sucker nearly a trillion dollars out of our pockets--again--because they fucked up.

All business schools teach those drones is how to cheat and not get caught. And their immorality has caught up, except that it's the honest people who are getting screwed.
Click to expand...

Since you bring up the financial institutions, it seems to me that the government forced financial institutions to extend credit/mortgages to people who had no business borrowing the kinds of money they were allowed to borrow to chase after the "American dream." I'm not a big G. Bush fan, but he was shut down everytime he tried to do something about the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae lending practices.

In reality, there shouldn't have been any bailouts. Nothing is too big to fail. It is just a business. The companies that adapt and change will survive and those that don't won't (look at Ford vs. GM/Chrysler as an example).

But judging from the tone of your comments, you don't really want to look at the root causes. You're just looking to complain (and there's nothing wrong with that).
 
kirbyrj said:
Since you bring up the financial institutions, it seems to me that the government forced financial institutions to extend credit/mortgages to people who had no business borrowing the kinds of money they were allowed to borrow to chase after the "American dream." I'm not a big G. Bush fan, but he was shut down everytime he tried to do something about the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae lending practices.
Click to expand...

This is kind of a red hearing. The thing is that private companies were getting in on these low bar mortgage deals and those notes just became too much of the business for Fannie and Freddie to just ignore. Sure they should have been wiser about the loans they bought but they weren't the ones underwriting this stuff for the end consumer. That was for the likes companies like Countrywide.

But that is another issue for another thread.
 
^^^ Either way, that was a 20 year in the making problem. It didn't just happen overnight.
 
Powerage said:
Oh.. when will people learn that American society is designed purely to have people contribute until it is no longer efficient. Ideally, those people would die after losing their job. I'm not saying this in an effort to be mean, but I am saying it to make a point. Capitalist society is, by nature, designed so that everyone "feeds the machine" and then dies. And people have been brought up to believe this is a solid set of values. Profit above all else.

It's morally wrong to want someone that can't contribute as much as someone else to have a good life. - The capitalist way of thinking.
Click to expand...

Lovely... Soviet Russian Totalitarianism, except replaced with money.

So... American Democracy = bullshit?
 
hardc0re said:
really depends on the business' requirements.

put it this way. You need to hire someone for supporting some apps, programing, support etc...

you have...

candidate A: 20 years old, 1 year experience, no marriage, no mortgage, willing to do anything (long hours, multiple projects). This candidate will cost you 70K / yr

candidate B: 45 years old, 15 years experience, married, 2 kids, has mortgage, not much free times after work, reluctant do work longer than required. This candidate will cost you 100K /yr

the benefits of hiring the younger candidate go beyond actual work experience, you should also ask yourself, why isnt the older candidate higher on the corporate ladder when you have younger resources available?
Click to expand...

because that's the fallacy in the whole "corporate/religious ladder" concept (because, in reality, what is a corporation but a religion with the almighty dollar as it's god?): there's not enought room on the upper rungs to accomodate everyone, no matter how much you say it and try to believe it.

And the second fallacy: the more experienced person can do more work in less time nd do it more reliably; he'll take less time off because he's reliable, and won't need to work longer hours because he gets it done during working hours. He's got a family and a mortgage, which means he's less likely to take a hike if he gets pissed off, and more likely to be happy with piddly raises, as long as his benefits and days off aren't too adversely affected.

Third fallacy: what cost to 1) eliminate the higher wage; 2) hire a new body; 3) train new body; 4) lost productivity during that period of time, which can take months, sometimes years to recover; 5) lost business due to the fuckups associated with the changeover? When it's all said and done, keepig the older dude earning a bit more saved more money IN THE LONG RUN than it seemed to when the company ditched him for a nooblet.

Short term greed, instead of long term stability and profitabilty, albeit at a slightly lower rate.

Maybe it is time for a revolution... There's alot more of us old farts than young shits; and it's well known that "age and treachery will always overcome youth and agility".
 
kirbyrj said:
Since you bring up the financial institutions, it seems to me that the government forced financial institutions to extend credit/mortgages to people who had no business borrowing the kinds of money they were allowed to borrow to chase after the "American dream." I'm not a big G. Bush fan, but he was shut down everytime he tried to do something about the Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae lending practices.

In reality, there shouldn't have been any bailouts. Nothing is too big to fail. It is just a business. The companies that adapt and change will survive and those that don't won't (look at Ford vs. GM/Chrysler as an example).

But judging from the tone of your comments, you don't really want to look at the root causes. You're just looking to complain (and there's nothing wrong with that).
Click to expand...

Nah, GW did exactly what his owners wanted him to do: deregulate the fuck putnover everything possible, including the financial sectors, which let them rape the shit outnof the economy with risky lending practices, and a systematic "sales at any cost" attitude which "encouraged" sales sluts to lie, cheat, and steal to get the rubes to buy into a loan or mortgage they couldn't afford, and then watch them drown while the sales sluts waltzed away with a fat comission.

Oh, the bailouts were nothing more than politicians paying their bills to their owners--I mean, "biggest contributors"--ie, legalized theft. And yes, I am bitching, because our entire system of belief is a big lie, both politically and morally.

Welcome to the "Corporate States of AmeriKKKa", where there is but one god, and it's name is "Dollar".
 
Tex Arcana said:
Nah, GW did exactly what his owners wanted him to do: deregulate the fuck putnover everything possible, including the financial sectors, which let them rape the shit outnof the economy with risky lending practices, and a systematic "sales at any cost" attitude which "encouraged" sales sluts to lie, cheat, and steal to get the rubes to buy into a loan or mortgage they couldn't afford, and then watch them drown while the sales sluts waltzed away with a fat comission.

Oh, the bailouts were nothing more than politicians paying their bills to their owners--I mean, "biggest contributors"--ie, legalized theft. And yes, I am bitching, because our entire system of belief is a big lie, both politically and morally.

Welcome to the "Corporate States of AmeriKKKa", where there is but one god, and it's name is "Dollar".
Click to expand...

amendment... that Dollar is also being made to have the same value as the peso...

i agree with you btw. I have already bitched time and time again about how hard i got screwed in IT when it comes to wages/insurance/etc. I probably make one of the lowest wages on the site vs the quantity and quality of the work i put out....yet it's hard as hell for me to move around jobs because...even though i'm in my 20s, no one wants to touch a guy with more experience than some of the older guys (started IT when I was 15) because I have the two thorns, youth AND experience and am now cynical enough to tell them they aren't paying me enough.
 
I find this article personally hard to believe when I find that at the software company where I work, twenty-somethings are by far in the minority, and we are only hiring senior developers. I guess we're weird.
 
How many of them are claiming age discrimination but really just haven't kept their skills up-to-date? I've seen plenty of cases personally where older applicants that had long moved past doing hands on work in their previous position to mostly project management work were applying for technical positions but hadn't worked directly on systems since the NT 4.0 days. They didn't have any direct experience with any newer operating systems or modern security requirements.

I don't know why someone would even get into the tech field without a drive to keep current on as much as possible? My current position doesn't involve any network admin duties, but I still study new OS releases and play around with them on my own time.
 
Tex Arcana said:
because that's the fallacy in the whole "corporate/religious ladder" concept (because, in reality, what is a corporation but a religion with the almighty dollar as it's god?): there's not enought room on the upper rungs to accomodate everyone, no matter how much you say it and try to believe it.

And the second fallacy: the more experienced person can do more work in less time nd do it more reliably; he'll take less time off because he's reliable, and won't need to work longer hours because he gets it done during working hours. He's got a family and a mortgage, which means he's less likely to take a hike if he gets pissed off, and more likely to be happy with piddly raises, as long as his benefits and days off aren't too adversely affected.

Third fallacy: what cost to 1) eliminate the higher wage; 2) hire a new body; 3) train new body; 4) lost productivity during that period of time, which can take months, sometimes years to recover; 5) lost business due to the fuckups associated with the changeover? When it's all said and done, keepig the older dude earning a bit more saved more money IN THE LONG RUN than it seemed to when the company ditched him for a nooblet.

Short term greed, instead of long term stability and profitabilty, albeit at a slightly lower rate.
.
Click to expand...

These are all good points. It's always dirt cheap + newbie + training vs. hella expensive professional.

In the end, while counting traning, lost productivity, QA nightmare, the pro will win cost wise. Although there are examples of "rockstar" youngins right from university who learn the process in matter of couple of months and perform at the same level as the pros. Now those are golden. Pro productivity + dirty pay = great. They are locked into position for at least a year...
 
Age discrimination is HUGE in IT, when I started at my job as tech support at the age of 22 everyone in the IT department looked at me like I knew absolutely nothing and talked down to me like I was their child, or an ex-con. It was absurd to say the least, because older people in my office who took a week (sometimes more!!!) to fix a problem that should of only taken an hour would get treated like pure gold. I thought it was me since I was the youngest people at my company in any department. But most recently we had two people in IT start, one woman in her 50's and one guy in his late 20's. They got rid of the younger guy who made less money and was still learning the job, but kept the woman who lied during the interview, and did not know how to do her job!!!!
 
jandar said:
In IT though, its not just money. Sure, its a part of the decision, but not all.

Many hiring managers believe that an older techie is out of date with the newest technologies. Instead of factoring in that a more senior-ed person could leverage their knowledge with the new stuff making them truly an expert, they make the mistake of hiring a younger person because that is the only "tech" they know.
Click to expand...

This is how i see it, but i have also seen it in person! One person in a company we are related to. They have a system some of our support people need access to. We have a vpn connection to their office in ours, they are in the building beside us.

The computers that need access to this system go into their VPN switch directly to their network, my solution, instead of 5 people have 2 computers on their desk was to simply put VM's in their systems, and then run the VM to their VPn switch, but they are dead set against it....

Why does it matter if it is a VM or a real machine! access is still controlled by them on that system.

For me most old IT guys i have met, and i am 30 myself, are stuck on the old ways cause that it how it worked back then and they may know about new tech, but insist their old ways are better....
 
Tex Arcana said:
Lovely... Soviet Russian Totalitarianism, except replaced with money.

So... American Democracy = bullshit?
Click to expand...

Democracy is great, it's captitalism that = bullshit, if money and the bottom line are all that a company worries about. If you read those articles about the best companies to work for, most of them have the same thing in common, they take care of their employees. These companies understand the most valuable resource a company has are it's employees and how they treat them makes a big difference. My wife and I both, at over 40, have been laid off of positions due to corporate greed. Funny thing is, in the long run, both companies lost more then they gained by laying us off.
 
Democracy is great, if it ran that way, U.S land of the free, as long as you do what your told!
 
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