Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in age bias | Hacker News Reader

Rejecting a candidate for over-qualification results in age bias

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644 pointsKentBeck419 comments

The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

I put that in quotes because yes, I've seen it also result in an age bias and as I went from one side of the equation to the other, I spent some time evaluating what was and was not important to me as an employee.

About 15 years ago I came to the conclusion that "over qualified" was never a legitimate disqualifying disposition of a candidate. Simply put, if you are applying for a job that needs less skills than you bring and are willing to take the salary that is offered, how far 'beyond' the requirements you go is irrelevant. I asked a hiring manager at Google once if they would tell a sales guy "No I don't want the Ferrari at the same price as this Mazda Miata, its more sports car than I need to get around." Even if you never expect to challenge the top end of the sports car you probably won't turn it down. Similarly with employees, if you are up front with them about what the job entails and they are ok with it, who are you to say they will be "bored" or "twiddling their thumbs all day" ?

Answer is, you aren't. Hire them and get get a discount on skilz they are offering you. Your company will be better for it.

> who are you to say they will be "bored" or "twiddling their thumbs all day" ?

But that's not the real reason. The reason is they are afraid because the experienced person can see through bullshit better. They are harder to fool and brainwash to work for free. With stuff like "There won't be a paycheck next month, but don't worry we are turning corner, once we exit you'll all drive Ferraris!", "We are changing the world, just need to finalize this feature by next week, so let's all work a little harder (and by all I mean you all)". Someone with experience will say something "Thanks but no thanks, I've heard this before" a new college graduate will say "Yay! Let's do it, I'll impress everyone with how little sleep I can get each night".

And I am not being too hyperbolic here. I've heard from owners before confessing that hey love hiring college grads because they can drive them hard, they are full of enthusiasm and are not "tainted" by other corporations.

Another friend from another startup, confessed that they like those take-home interview problems. Stuff like "Implement a distributed database over the weekend and show us the code on Monday during the interview". The reason is because they can get the really desperate and dedicated people willing to invest that much time into projects. As when crunch time comes, they'll need those "skills".

It may be less nefarious than that. There may be legitimate concern that the employee is just looking for a short term paycheck while they look for something more senior. Most managers are probably not thrilled with the idea of investing in someone who may not even stay a year.

Obviously it is more complicated than that. Just saying there could be legitimate concerns.

> There may be legitimate concern that the employee is just looking for a short term paycheck while they look for something more senior.

So set up an employment agreement that addresses those concerns. Use a vesting schedule or clawbacks on a signing bonus.

> Most managers are probably not thrilled with the idea of investing in someone who may not even stay a year.

Most managers aren't optimizing their technology for productivity, especially when new team members are concerned. This is a solvable problem. That is, "we're concerned they might quit in nine months" can be rephrased as "we're not capable of onboarding an experienced new hire in a reasonable amount of time".

What's a reasonable amount of time? Companies are often mocked and criticized for having absurd requirements in specific technologies rather than hiring smart people and training them - but that necessarily requires a significant onboarding time. And what about companies that have many in-house tooling, frameworks, etc? In another thread, a Google employee said the manager didn't expect them to make a real contribution in the first six months. Is that unreasonable?

What do you think about companies who use a "fire fast" approach to staffing? You cannot simultaneously support that and denigrate people as short-termers.

Isn't that what contracts are for? That's how it works in sports. You stay with the team for X years, and after that you're a free agent. Why can't it work the same way in technology? The way I see it, employers are trying to have it both ways: they want you to stay, but they also want the ability to fire you as they please.

It is why i like contracting and find it so more honest on my and companies side of things. They say "work here for 6 months", I say "ok" after that they can ask me to stay and I can agree or not or they can not renew me - either is fine.

Being an employee, generally (not always but it must be 99% of places) you need to:

1. love the company you are working for. 2. be willing to receive emails constantly. 3. not be attracted to other companies. 4. accept begin laid-off as and when the company desires.

Contracting on a fixed length contract, I am almost guaranteed to have work until the end of that contract - working for a company, 0 guarantee i will have a job in 1,2,6,12,18 whatever months.

(how the hell do you get lists on multiple lines here ha ha)

Here's my thought about that. If they take your offer because they're having a hard time finding a more senior job, it won't suddenly get easier for them to find a more senior job after you hire them. So I think this risk may be overblown.

> it won't suddenly get easier for them to find a more senior job

My experience tells me otherwise. As soon as you have a job, everyone wants to hire you. If you have no job, nobody wants to touch you. It's kind of like dating, where scarcity makes you attractive.

Sure, but the 'overqualified' person is going to be job searching from day one. The alternative might say a year or two to grow and then look for something better.

Sure, there may be legitimate concerns. But ask me about them. Talk to me. If you’re willing to hire someone, then you’re presumably willing to trust them enough to believe something of what they might tell you.

Don’t tell me that I’ve got a great resume and that you’re looking for someone who is just exactly like me but five years younger, and then ask if I know anyone who is looking.

So why is that a harder to screen for that potential problem than any of the other ones? I can see why it's a concern, but it's also a concern that they are lying/deluded about their actual skills or are going to show up to work hungover and useless or slack off too much.

If you said those other ones were a legitimate concern for avoiding hiring young people I would say "... I guess, so learn to interview properly and lower your risk of that". The scale of that risk doesn't fit the scale of the issue at all.

I agree. With the exception of all but the fewest scenarios, a hiring decision is not to going to come down solely to one-dimension like this. It's also painting with a very broad stroke that all hiring managers think and/or behave this way. They don't.

Based on what?

Based on the idea the overqualified implies the job role is beneath them, and assuming the job's requirements correlates to pay, then the person in question may find better pay, and thus leave, at any time (because they are already worth more than you're giving them, and more than what you're willing to give, given the role performed)

Most managers are probably not thrilled with the idea of investing in someone who may not even stay a year.

Most managers can't see past next quarter's numbers. A year is long term planning that is well beyond them!

Interesting, as a candidate I prefer the take home project because then I don't have to cram largely irrelevant knowledge.

There is nothing wrong with that as long as you're aware of what that selection does.

Just like the topic at hand, that kind of requirement is correlated with other characteristics, think young, fresh grad, not married probably, no kids, really wants the job, maybe a bit desperate, doesn't mind expending their free time etc.

In some cases the companies are aware of what they are doing. They know it is not about the take-home test but about picking those types of candidates most of all, and they are ok not selecting the rest. This was my friend's company.

In other cases, companies are not aware of it, they just copy what others are doing or say believe that this testing method is better, so use it strictly for that reason. Which is fine too, it might work for them better. However, they'll still end up selecting certain candidates and not others, but they just don't do it explicitly.

Last interview I had contained a take home test, it was for a senior position.

The test was designed to be a 6 hours task. I spent a Saturday on it (with regular pauses to go out a bit, play games, watch tv, etc)

I got the job. I have started there very recently so I can't really speak about the amount of work / week in that place.

Again, compared to a very skilled friend who had to cram for 2 hours each evening for a couple of months (and speaking with other people I know having gone through that, it seems pretty standard), I really see my time investment as ridiculously less than an on-site whiteboard.

Have 3 kids. Take home interviews won't be happening for a while in my case.

Well apparently you have expendable weekends :)

So do you - it's just that your priorities are different. Which is totally fine, but let's not pretend there is a class of people who cannot possibly take 2-3 hours out of the next 48 to do something. With rare exception, they're just making the (completely reasonable, completely okay) choice not to.

I am obviously only referring to programmers, knowledge workers etc.

Really ?

A very competent friend had to cram for months in order to pass the whiteboard interviews at one of the tech giants.

I had to spend a Saturday on this test (it was scoped to be a 6 hours project, I spent the day on it with frequent and long pauses).

My time investment is orders of magnitude lower what it would have been for a whiteboard.

I do, too, when it's a substitute for on the spot grilling. I think the idea in the example is that is a massively over scoped project.

A distributed database is ok as long you can assume reliable network and no partitions :P

I do think that "homework" interview problems are better than pointless algo.

I think you're wrong. Sure, I won't buy the hype, and I won't pull the all-nighter, but I'll still get more stuff done than the people who do stay all night. I may tell you your schedule is unrealistic, but it was unrealistic whether I told you or not, and you won't make it realistic by sleep-depriving your new grads.

Any owner who thinks they can get more real work done by driving a college grad hard than they can by hiring me is an owner who's short-changing their bottom line.

> but I'll still get more stuff done than the people who do stay all night.

I agree you. Was just presenting someone else's perspective. Don't think such things are usually shared or discussed so I found it interesting. I personally advocated for a more diverse team - more women, more age ranges, more cultural backgrounds, rather than just young college guys.

I'm not sure of that. A senior with ~15 years of experience (typically in his late 30s) doesn't accept this kind of bullshit but is still highly employable.

Age discrimination probably starts close to 50 I think.

This says more about those hiring than those being hired.

> The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

With the current lack of bonds between employer and employee, you must consider that all your employees are in this condition.

No, theres no good reason to assume that.. I can make up stories that support the opposite view too - skilled employees are likely to be able to land many great jobs, so if they pick yours they are likely to stay.

The story is just a rationalization for whatever you want to believe. You could simply evaluate the candidates record of tenure at earlier companies, ask them about their motivations etc. to get some idea of whether they plan to jump ship just like any other candidate.

> so if they pick yours they are likely to stay.

We all know that our idea of what a job is before we pick it is much different after we work there for 3 months.

People are always looking to leave. More money is made leaving. Companies aren't willing to adequately pay to retain talent.

But chances are the person was never in this situation (applying for a job for which they're overqualified) before, so their record of tenure doesn't tell you much.

That's the point: the over qualified are more likely to find something better.

[Edit: that's the employer's logic. Right now I'm on the wrong side of that equation, but I can understand their concern. Even if it's true that you really want the job and not that "better" job that might not even exist or you may not really consider "better".]

And in the interim, that overqualified person can help upskill the rest of your team.

Assuming you are not a complete muppet and have built mechanisms into your company culture to provide for rapid knowledge transfer, of course.

Or, it could be that you offer something that a lot of other work environments don't. Kind, friendly people, a fun-yet-professional atmosphere, remote work, generous vacation, etc.

Personally, I expect that every member of my team will matriculate out at some point. What's the harm in bringing somebody in that, assuming culture fit, will bring more benefit to my organization than I'm paying for?

> Personally, I expect that every member of my team will matriculate out at some point.

That's good - if your organization (even if not your team) has a need for the people that now have souped-up skills.

But they don’t.

https://hbr.org/2010/12/the-myth-of-the-overqualified-worker

You don't see the huge selection bias in that study? They're interviewing people that were hired despite the discrimination that already exists. It's like trying to see if alcohol leads to more crashes by only interviewing people in intact cars.

It may be that overqualified workers don't in fact leave sooner - or it may be that the hiring manager correctly identified those who would and wouldn't, and only hired the latter. By studying only the people already hired, it's impossible to tell.

In jobs - as with relationships - going with someone because they don't have any other options is unlikely to be a winning strategy. Think about what it says about your organization when everybody is there because they ain't got nowhere else to be.

This only makes sense if the applicant has perfect knowledge of the entire job market and all available openings, while also having applied to all pertinent openings. The idea of "I don't have any other options" can be attributed to shortsightedness on the part of the applicant. People desire to be immediately employed more than they desire to be perfectly employed over the option of being unemployed.

This was a good point. Real question for those with experience: How often do you see someone in the top decile of their professional peer group go unemployed for a long period of time? (I could see it with PhDs with lots of education but little experience—but for that reason they may be willing to cut their teeth and work up).

If they can get the job done, who cares why they took the job? You can't read other people's thoughts.

How many "don't have any other options?"

And the underqualified and overpaid...well, you're never getting rid of them.

I think the analogy is more illuminating than you meant it to be - what if you can't afford the upkeep of the Ferrari? I mean, there are a lot of originally high end cars available for low prices due to depreciation, and people do reject them for more practical cars that cost the same.

So are you saying overqualified developers have a higher maintenance cost, or are you trying to show that the original analogy isn't a complete 100% point to point analogy? If the former how so?

In general older developers have a higher 'monthly nut' (as do older folks in general). This is obviously a generalization, but things like saving for retirement and housing costs are higher the older you get.

Of course, it is up to the employee to determine if they can handle their expenses on the salary granted to them. However, just as an employer may look at something like commuting time and say to themselves "wow, they're going to commute for 2 hours, that's going to be tough", an employer can look at someone who is older and assume more expenses and say "wow, they might be digging into savings, that's going to be tough".

Now, that should be just one factor of the hiring equation. And someone may be interested in transitioning fields, doing a startup, have a trust fund, live well below the normal standard of living, etc, etc, and may be ok with the salary.

But as an employer, hiring, you aren't just looking at what the employee is saying now, but trying to figure out if/when they'll be moving on (and picking someone who will be less likely to do so is just human nature--that's why job hoppers are looked down upon by some companies).

That said, how can you combat that? (I'm in my early 40s and am terrified of this.)

* start your own company

* consult

* don't job hop, settle into a company

* keep your skills up to date

* be productive enough to justify the extra money (be a true 'senior' developer)

* move into management, again, a higher leverage area.

I don't know, maybe there are other ways.

You have no idea how much someone’s monthly expenses are based on their age. Someone 22 might be carrying 200k in student loan debt. Someone 45 might have their house fully paid off. Randomly guessing at someone’s monthly expenses is a really bad way to estimate how likely they are to stay.

For that matter, someone who keeps getting rejected for being “overqualified” might be extremely loyal once they find someone willing to give them a job.

> things like saving for retirement and housing costs are higher the older you get

I can relate to KIDS blowing up one's monthly budget. But retirement and housing?

I set aside the same percentage of my income for retirement as always (the raw number may be higher as my income climbs, but I've always approached it as a percentage). And my mortgage will be paid off free and clear in my 40's, while most of my 20-something colleagues burn obscene amounts on monthly rent for tiny apartments. Because they'd rather live in some trendy gentrified spot in the urban center, than have a house in some non-sexy and supposedly-racist suburb.

If it weren't for daycare expenses, my monthly needs would be a fraction of what they were two decades ago. And I'll be done with daycare in a couple more years.

> don't job hop, settle into a company

This is atrociously bad advice. If you are going to remain an individual contributor, rather than exit into a management track, then it becomes more important to move around and keep yourself relevant as you age. Not less.

> move into management, again, a higher leverage area.

If you genuinely want to move into management as a matter of advancement, because you are tired of coding and a completely different career intrigues you, then fine. But if you don't really want to be a manager, and are just doing it for salary reasons, then I can say from experience that you're setting yourself up for misery. I was fortunate enough to come to terms with this in time to turn back, before the detour caused long-term damage.

Huh? My expenses have never been lower. My housing costs sure as hell aren't higher because I bought my house when they were a lot cheaper than they are now. ($1900/month for a detached rambler in Redmond, WA; suck it, youngsters.) Haven't had a car payment in, what, about ten years? We've bought all the high-end stuff we're going to buy. TVs wear out, but high-dollar musical instruments don't, so no obsolescence there.

I'm sure our retirement savings is higher than yours, but it's not because retirement's coming up; we're set there. It's because I don't know what the hell else to do with the money, and I have a tax-deferred savings account? Okay, sign me up for that and max it to the Federal limit. And even that's not enough to siphon off the surplus, so we make extra principal payments on the house.

Granted, that's two incomes and no kids. But we could get by on half of what we make. I'd do it, too, but no one is offering a 20 hour/week software job, and at this point I don't have any marketable skills other than writing software.

EDIT: sorry, went off on a rant and didn't answer the question: "That said, how can you combat that?" Mmm, I don't. Maybe employers overthink it like you do, maybe they don't, hard to tell. Frankly, do I want to start an employment relationship with a company that's already second-guessing me? I just inquire about positions that interest me, and at some point some sucker hires me. I do think one would do well to avoid job-hopping. When I've been a hiring manager, my guess is going to be that one looks good on paper but is insufferable to work with (and hence gets fired), or can't be pleased. Having "my own company" on the resume, even if it's one that didn't quiiiite work out, seems to be a plus, too. Other than that, I dunno, just go look for a job like everybody else. <shrug>

Just a minor point, when you get interview training from someone who knows discrimination laws, you will learn that there are things you should not discuss with a candidate. That includes where they live, because of the discriminatory mental logic you describe about commute time.

I don't think you're wrong, I think it's just one of those things that makes people uncomfortable. The thing with ageism is that on a societal level it's counter-productive, and unethical, but for individual actors (companies, managers, etc.), there are various disincentives for wanting to hire older folks. They generally cost more, they're probably going to have more risk of long term health issues, and frankly, they're probably going to see through a lot more management BS that younger people might not have the experience to read correctly. Ageism is horrible, but it exists for a reason :-/

I hear the downvotes. I knew this would be an unpopular comment. Would love to hear some counterpoint so I can learn how I'm wrong.

Should hiring decisions be entirely divorced from context? Should employers not worry about anything but 'can the person do the job right now'?

Even if you're only paying them based on required qualifications rather than on their actual qualifications, you're paying them at below the market rate that they could command. If they ever decide they want to leave (for more money, or something annoyed them, or a friend of theirs is hiring) they can do so easily, and they're more likely to be tempted.

In this analogy, you can buy a Ferrari at the same price as a Miata but the Ferrari is much more likely to get stolen.

I don't know how much I buy (!) this explanation - if an overqualified engineer is applying for a role that is below their usual expectations, it's probably because they can't find something that is a better match for whatever reason. If they are going to up and leave to a high paying job "easily", they would have done so already.

How about: Developers might not want to work to the full extent of their capabilities all the time (especially as they get older) because it has additional costs to them (stress, burnout)?

The analogy is a bit stretched, but imo still works even when talking about the consequences (which often easily translate into cost) of owning Ferrari/working at high paying job.

I think that when one is called "overqualified" it's best to take it not as a criticism of what one is but of how one is marketing oneself. It's hard to humble oneself, but it's necessary to face the fact that you can't have it both ways - if you really want/need a job that doesn't require your education and experience, then you can't brag about your education and experience that is irrelevant. Pretending this is a matter of honesty, as people sometimes do, is a way to avoid admitting you can't control your ego.

A couple of things:

1. I don't see how that applies to the analogy of higher maintenance costs.

>if you really want/need a job that doesn't require your education and experience, then you can't brag about your education and experience that is irrelevant.

2. That is a double edge sword. If one removes expertise to pretend to be junior, then they are vulnerable to a junior who inflates their resume to appear more competent.

3. Also, putting your past experience isn't bragging, it's, as you said, honesty.

It's good business to (all other things being equal) hire the best person you can find at the price you can afford. To do anything otherwise is nonsensical. I can't think of a good business reason not to.

Having said all of that, I'm so glad I haven't had to use a recruiter in nearly 20 years. It sounds like a cluster out there.

So let's say you undersell yourself, but you're also somewhat older. That's just going to lead employers to ask "why is this guy/gal not more accomplished after all this time."

This doesn't work for everyone. Some people are just not good at being deceptive like that.

I have strong social anxiety that is at its worst in interview situations. When I try to 'edit' my answers to questions like that instead of giving a straightforward and honest answer about the stuff I've built and the experiences I've had building, my brain spins endlessly trying to model all possible 'edits', the possible responses, and possible counter-responses.

Yes, but that assumes you're not competing with anybody. If you are, then why shouldn't you put your incidental "extra-curricular" credentials up front?

How did you get to bragging about one's education/experience? Or that someone needs to control their ego?

Whenever I see analogies all I can think back to is Dijkstra saying how theyre a good sign of medieval thinking. We shouldn't resort to analogies; They obscure case specific information.. or in other cases also allow us to draw parallels that aren't very apt to the case at hand.

Analogies are important for the human aspect of decision-making. We have limited cognitive capability, so it is beneficial to describe a problem in a similar, but more-familiar context to help people build mental models to help them decide.

Dijkstra was a crazy smart guy, but I would have to disagree with this point. Analogies are useful tools for aiding understanding.

And if somebody offered me a Ferrari at a Miata price, I'd be doing a lot more due diligence on the Ferrari than the Miata. When something seems too good to be true, it often is.

I saw this coming when reading the original comment and thought a more fitting analogy would be something that gets better with age.

The first thing that came to mind was a cast iron skillet. Would you rather get a brand-spankin' new unseasoned skillet or would you rather get one that had cooked breakfast everyday for 3 generations of Appalachian homemakers for the same cost?

It seems like many employers are quite worried about hiring someone who is under qualified, even though they can legally fire them for any (for certain values of any) or no reason where I live.

Given that, it doesn't seem like the worse problem in the world to hire someone who is over qualified, and if they get real unhappy, they give a professional 2-weeks notice and then leave.

I think we're all probably ignoring the real reason this happens though, those hiring are intimidated by the over qualified candidate. "A's hire A's and B's hire C's" as they say.

My experience is a bit different. The real problem with me being overqualified is that I want to be paid for the qualifications I bring, and they don't want to pay that much. They aren't afraid that I'll move on soon. They just have sticker shock.

Now, if I take their low-ball offer, if they pay me as if I had 5 years of experience when I really have 30 and for whatever reason I have to take that job, then yes, I'm out of there as soon as I find someone who will pay me what I'm worth. I like the work, but I do this to make money, not just for entertainment.

And why am I worth more money than someone with 5 years of experience? I don't even work as hard as those people; why am I worth more? Because I get more done, and it's done better when I do it. I don't write the bugs those people write, so I (or somebody else) doesn't have to spend the time finding and fixing them. I don't design the bad architectures that they design. And so on.

Your experience might be worth that much to a company who needs it, but if they are hiring for a junior role (and I mean they truly just need someone junior, not playing games), they may not value what that role will be working on enough to justify paying for your extra experience.

Nothing wrong with that... It just likely isn't a good fit.

> ...just need someone junior...

What does this mean? It sounds like expectations around pay and responsibility. If someone says, "Yes, I'll take your marching orders for 30k per year," why not hire them and let them do that? You might have something with more responsibility open up in the next year or so and have an immediate (and usually harder to find) candidate for that job.

My point is that some roles may not have much upward mobility, or they may want to bring in someone with less experience and train them up (a good thing).

Someone with a mountain of experience coming in has to work against the suspicion that they are taking the role for the wrong reasons, namely that they will bounce as soon as they find something more in line with their actual experience.

It goes beyond expectations of pay and responsibility.

If you take someone with a ton of experience who says they will do the job for $30k/year, their growth expectations are quite likely different than that of a junior person. As such, there's a greater likelihood they will leave sooner if they find something more senior.

And the hard part of this is, they might genuinely be interested in the role. But enough managers get burned by taking in someone with too much experience for a lower level role that leave in under a year, and they tend to avoid that type of candidate.

Not if the person feels demotivated by the fact that the job is not taking advantage of their skills or experience. People want to feel respected and appreciated for what they bring to the table. Without that, they may lose motivation and thus be less productive than a fresh person with a strong desire to learn and grow.

Sometimes having your mortgage paid and getting to eat trumps self actualization.

You pay me, I'll do what the job calls for and we're square. Motivation is a weasel word. I'm either meeting your (hopefully reasonable) performance requirements or I'm not.

That's right. Isn't the young energetic person who is eager to learn and grow at least as likely to leave after they've learned-and-grown as a person who is more skilled and gets bored.

I'm 36 now, with a mortgage, and have stayed in the job I am in now longer than any job I've had before.

A friend of mine pretty much only hires ex cons (ok, not for programming jobs). Because he says they're the most loyal and hard working employees he can find, and they usually don't ask for more money.

You can always use other peoples prejudice to get market rate discounts.

Yea but that is a high risk to take. Imagine you are the manager, and you have been given just one head count. Who would you choose? Would you risk your head count on an over-qualified person?

Having been a hiring manager previously, I will usually take the person with more experience.

The odds are lower that they'll leave than someone with less experience needing more time to become senior. There is no substitute for experience.

EDIT: To expound on this, as a manager, I will look out for the company, but also for you. If you have limited experience and want to climb the ladder, I will help find you a path internally and if one is unavailable (happens all the time), I will introduce you to opportunities outside the org to get you into higher roles and pay grades. Same deal if you're a senior person with "too much skill" for the role: tell me your goals, and I will help you get there. No one sticks around forever, and its unrealistic to ask people to do so.

This is, in my opinion, what a good manager is. Not someone who can code well, not someone who is a technical wizard, but someone who manages away problems outside of the team while helping individual contributors maximize their potential.

If I were a manager, and I were to optimize my bottom line, I'd discriminate by hiring young, single men.

Of course, this would be incredibly illegal and unethical.

How is it a higher risk than hiring an entry-level person who has not proven their ability?

Which is why you have to have that discussion with them and ask them to consider whether or not their work satisfaction comes from being challenged at work or not.

And while they may not be honest with you about that, in general there are many things that interviewing people are often not quite as honest with the interviewer as you might expect. A good example was a guy who said he was ok with commuting from Los Gatos to Redwood City and took the job, and then called up the Thursday before the Monday when he would have started to say he had taken a job for lower pay but was closer to home.

> than a fresh person with a strong desire to learn and grow

...who is also going to leave as soon as they get a nice offer.

If they're that good, give them a better offer (a promotion, more equity, a raise) first. There are worse things than finding someone ambitious who can back it up. Most companies spend piles of money trying to identify and recruit that kind of talent.

You're suggesting that someone should buy into a counter-offer. This is terrible advice. Accepting a counter-offer is a sure-fire way to get yourself shortlisted for the next round of layoffs. It also shows how wanting your company is that they can't even meet someone's market rate without them threatening to leave.

...just like everyone else.

> People want to feel respected and appreciated for what they bring to the table.

Yeah, because if someone wants to be respected or appreciated for what they bring to the table, that's unreasonable.

If you (royal you) buy into this thinking, the problem is you, not the employees.

Not if it takes 6 months to get a new developer up and running on the codebase, and then they leave just when they are getting productive.

In my experience, when someones applicable experience is more than what is stipulated by the job requirements, they come up to speed much faster. I hired a brilliant engineer who did the new hire on-boarding exercises we reserved a couple of weeks for in about 6 hours.

I say applicable because having a PhD in Chemistry is not being "over qualified" for entry level programming. But having 10 writing code could be interpreted as having more qualification than the job merits.

Even if it's somewhat applicable (like coding in a different language), it's still much quicker than onboarding a college grad. Someone who knows C++ and C# can probably learn Java in a week or two, to the level where he can contribute at least as well as your moderately skilled employees.

These is also the appeal of developing in a well popular langguage/framework like .net or java. The hordes of experience devs available. Sure, you may not want to use these heavy weights when your discovering your product/market, but when you've got a fit and need to hire talent, it's nothing for a 15 year java dev to come in and be productive on day one using Spring, maven, intellij, etc.

> ...if it takes 6 months to get a new developer up and running on the codebase, and then they leave just when they are getting productive.

That's something you can optimize for. An overqualified engineer shouldn't take six months to earn their keep unless the codebase is a huge mess. If the overqualified engineer is worth the salary they're really qualified for, they'll be able to describe exactly what parts of the system need to get fixed so the next engineer can be patching code in much less time.

> if it takes 6 months to get a new developer up and running on the codebase

That's the problem you have to tackle as fast as possible. An overqualified candidate would be a good fit there: first task, streamline the onboarding problem. Document, test, document.

Right, but we know there are all kinds of reasons people quit jobs quickly. The question is probably whether someone legitimately "overqualified" is any more likely than anyone else to leave in a particular timeframe.

>> The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

I'm getting to the age where I wonder about these kinds of things. And yet I've interviewed older highly qualified people and thought exactly that. I will use this discussion as a reference point and adjust my attitude. I could be in that guys position any day/year now, what will I want? I'm beyond the point of caring about certain things that seem to matter to younger people who think they're going to change the world. I just want to do solid work and get paid my rate. It makes sense that those I interview want the same.

Sounds like the interviewee's job is to convince the interviewer that it's not just a temp job. Explain your rationale for what appears to be an illogical career move.

Is not every one "trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better"

I'm a big fan of yours ChuckMcM, but your analogy is wrong, but very pertinent. You would not want to buy a Ferrari at the same price as a Miata, because if you want to change the oil, it will cost $1000, instead of $50. You get 8 mpg, instead of 30 mpg. If you don't drive the car properly, you will wear down the clutch and it will cost you $30,000 to replace.

Initially, it will seem like a great deal to get a Ferrari for the cheap price, but if you actually intend to use it, there are very practical reasons why it will cause a lot more problems simply having it, than having a Miata. If you can't afford to use the Ferrari properly, it will end up costing you more.

In the same vein, hiring an overqualified candidate WILL cost you more money and opportunity because they will leave quickly, and you could have spent the time training a more properly qualified candidate. I've been in the business 25+ years and I've seen this mistake time and time again. Maybe soon I'll be the one who is overqualified as well, who knows, but it is a legitimate reason to not hire someone.

The discussion of the analogy has been very interesting!

I'm not sure I'm convinced that overqualified candidates either higher maintenance or more likely to quit. That hasn't been been my experience and I know my experience is limited, the HBR article cited however seems to back up my personal experience for what that is worth.

The variables around why someone works somewhere and whether or not they quit has, again in my experience, been more very strongly correlated with how well they like their job. And it is the factors that they "like" or "dislike" about there job rarely relate to how experienced they are or are not, and are much more likely to be based on whether or not they feel they are respected for their work, if they like or dislike their peers, like or dislike the day to day of their job, and like or dislike their office configuration (environment). That is the basis for my belief if "over qualified" is the single factor left over then it doesn't seem to correlate how successful they will be in the job.

All that said, and specifically addressing the analogy, the things that I find make for 'high maintenance' employees are an inability to hear constructive criticism (so poor self awareness), a lack of curiosity (so unable to see the questions that need to be asked), and a lack of respect for their work (so they aren't really trying to improve at all).

Does that make them Ferraris or Jaguars ? :-) Sometimes the more expensive car (like the Model S) has a lower total cost of ownership, sometimes it doesn't. But it has been really interesting thinking about the "maintenance" cost of employees from that perspective.

One of they guys on jalopnik owned a Ferrari and found that oil changes on a 360 was $400 his fina comment was.

"Now, here's where it gets interesting: if you figure that all cars depreciate, and you drop the $8,500, I only spent $4,629.81 for the year. And if you get really crazy, and you take out "unusual" repair items — namely the tires, brakes, and battery, which will last several years without another replacement — my total cost was limited to two oil changes and a tire patch – or approximately $835.75. Not so bad for a year with a Ferrari."

For older applicants, they've probably have only had one or a couple of jobs - they're the last people anyone should worry about chasing changing jobs every 12 months for higher pay.

Most 40- or 50-somethings in tech would be happy just having medical and getting to retirement w/o having to sell their house or raid their 401K.

Huh?

Might I suggest that you might not know enough 40- to 50-somethings to sling around that word "most"?

Sure, as an old fart, I don't like the new culture of the young snots that change jobs every 18 months before they've started to add value, or even really learned anything, but that's about as much time as you'd get from an overqualified person looking to bide his time before he moved on anyway.

As someone a year off 40 doing contracting, that sounds incredibly depressing.

It also doesn't fit other software devs I know who are similarly old.

Depends on what you are stuck in.

In Toronto, I've worked with 60+ years olds getting paid six figures as 'c++ developer'.

I've also worked with 40 year olds hired as 'frontend engineers' unable to get more than $35k.

So yea, maybe your statement is true if you are only after job, but if you treat this as a career, there are no limit to opportunities.

I clicked on the comment section assuming I misunderstood something. No. Apparently "over-qualified" is a thing in Silicon Valley. Wow.

I am torn between thinking this is just bullshit to not say to someone "you are too old" or believing that people really think that additional skills are a bad thing.

Just wow.

>I clicked on the comment section assuming I misunderstood something. No. Apparently "over-qualified" is a thing in Silicon Valley. Wow.

Yes. And it isn't just Silicon Valley. I started getting "you are overqualified" in my former profession at age 35, when I was at the top of my former field. Many of my similarly experienced colleagues got the same treatment. So I switched to software hearing that qualified developers were in short supply only to find that this same lame "overqualified" argument was being used for over 35 year olds I came to know in my new profession. There doesn't seem to be a place for anyone who isn't already securely positioned at 35 in any profession these days. Career changes after 30 are becoming impossible in many fields.

>About 15 years ago I came to the conclusion that "over qualified" was never a legitimate disqualifying disposition of a candidate.

Which is about the same time I decided the opposite, having been burned a couple times. You're neglecting the amount of time and effort other people in the group put in to make a new employee productive. Where I work it takes an absolute minimum of about three months to understand how all the moving pieces of the business data flow fit together, and maybe another three before the new person is truly independent.

And during that time other people in the group are spending time on the new guy instead of doing work themselves. If I hire someone and then he quits in six months, all that effort is wasted.

> If I hire someone and then he quits in six months, all that effort is wasted.

That a crazy huge amount of ramp up time, so much so that it sounds like there might be a major problem with your project or employer. There would have to be a super uncommon, really good reason to justify a six month ramp up time for a skilled experienced developer.

I mean, it would have to be something like "I literally work at NASA on the International Space Station" levels of complexity to justify that length of time.

He said it took that time to "to understand how all the moving pieces of the business data flow fit together" which doesn't seem to me to be that long at all. Not every employer is an "Uber for X" where you can understand the product concept in a day or two. I've had jobs where I didn't feel really comfortable with my understanding of the entire scope of the business until I'd been there a couple of years.

> I've had jobs where I didn't feel really comfortable with my understanding of the entire scope of the business until I'd been there a couple of years.

I've had that problem, too, but I considered it a failure of architecture and design, not an inherent property of the space we were operating in. Often this is a sign of a lack of separation of concerns at the system level.

Yeah, I don't think so.

It's not "have something of an understanding of what we're doing here", it's "feel comfortable, and _competent_, in the interactions across the code base, why some approaches might not work or have failed in the past, etc.

I'd totally agree with three to six months before that comfort sets in.

Six months really isn't uncommon at all. Almost every company has a weird legacy codebase you have to figure out. Unfortunately it doesn't generalize very well -- figuring out why some weird COM interface has 14 inheritance dependencies or what weird JSON file is driving behavior is part of the job. It's just, uh, the part that kind of sucks.

Depends on developer I one took over a super nich system written in a new language (Pl1g) and using bleeding edge tech (Map reduce in the 80s) took me < than a month to get productive.

This "time on the new guy" ought to only happen once, document the on boarding process. Personally I've never seen a 15 or 20 year guy (yes it's always men at this tenure) take more than a couple of weeks to get productive, 6 months to mastery. That's been my experience at least.

I’d love to work on a tech stack that can be mastered in six months, with just as much understanding as someone who has been around it for five years.

An experienced developer won't need that amount of understanding to do 99% of the tasks at work, and for the remaining 1% there is documentation (right?). And if that's all your homebrewn stack, something is very wrong there.

There are very few companies that have a completely unique tech stack that couldn't have been encountered anywhere else.

Your experience is probably atypical.

Documentation is one of those concepts that can be the answer to any problem, but seldom is.

I've yet to work at an organization where everything is documented, the documentation is up to date, and the documentation is of high quality.

There are always gaps somewhere in the documentation and in the end it does take time to ramp people up.

Now, if you work on project based work and it's always on something different, that's a different story.

Well yeah, the gp specifically said document the on boarding process. A high level architecture overview is all the system documentation required. Personally I ignore all that crap anyway, the truth is in the code and deployments. I don't know how many times I've had to tell the senior, long time employees how their system works.

Nah. The problem with overqualified people is that they will get bored very quickly and either underperform or leave.

They can also cause a lot of friction because their higher level of knowledge and experience can make them refuse to follow established processes and procedures, even when there are very good contextual and historical reasons for why those processes and procedures exist at that particular organization. This can cause a lot of resentment among their coworkers.

Personally, I have never worked with an overqualified person who didn't quickly develop what is commonly referred to as an "attitude problem". That's of course just my own experience.

"They can also cause a lot of friction because their higher level of knowledge and experience can make them refuse to follow established processes and procedures, even when there are very good contextual and historical reasons for why those processes and procedures exist at that particular organization."

Personally, I have seen that more with less qualified, younger, new cow-orkers. Particularly those who have had only one previous job. "At my last job, we did X. Therefore X is the one true way to do it."

> Nah. The problem with overqualified people is that they will get bored very quickly and either underperform or leave.

I was more prone to that when I was younger. As I am older, I understand better what I can expect from position (so I dont expect more fun then is possible), know better how to deal with more boring tasks and better understand why they are (and why process) are important.

However, as I got older I oftentime can tell much faster that the process can indeed be done better and seek companies that are willing to improve their processes as they go and are willing to learn from other companies processes. (I dont need to get it my way, but I like to see people talk about process issues openly.)

Oddly enough, it was mostly young people who were downright hostile to the idea that processes are something that can be improved, negotiated over or simplified.

Can you say a bit more, how did the "attitude" manifest itself? And was it something the manager was unable to see? I ask because I would like to understand the dynamic a bit better. How might you address an 'attitude' problem with one of your co-workers regardless of how the attitude originated?

i've also seen plenty of underqualified people that developed "attitude problems".

i think it's a bit sketchy to equate ("over")qualified with opinionated.

>The "traditional understanding" of getting an applicant to your job that is over qualified is that they are just trying to get a paycheck while they look for something better.

Is the solution here to bias the "overqualified" candidate's compensation in equity rather than salary? If the company thinks that salary x is too low and may tempt the person to leave, put the employees skin in the game to stay with more equity. This seems like a potential solution.

Overqualified candidates are probably more likely to see that in a vast, vast majority of outcomes equity is worthless and never worth trading for cold, hard cash :)

>"No I don't want the Ferrari at the same price as this Mazda Miata, its more sports car than I need to get around." Even if you never expect to challenge the top end of the sports car you probably won't turn it down.

Ferrari comes with very high maintenance costs, well beyond what regular Miata buyer can comfortably afford. (note: age/experience wise i'm probably close to the "Ferrari" myself :)

That is true with the analogy. I personally haven't seen a correlation between qualification fit and maintenance challenges for employees but it sounds like enraged_camel has had different experiences.

What I'm trying to tease apart are which are issues the manager causes and which are ones an over qualified employee would cause.

In that case, the problem is not overqualification, the problem is that the person is high maintenance.

Age discrimination is a crime in the US. We don’t tell bank robbers, its not a nice thing to rob banks, and in this industry we’re all part of the bank robbing problem. We need to look at our attitudes in calling out bank robbing as a bad thing.

Crimes have legal consequences, more than a morality lesson is needed.

If the Ferrari could any day start up and tell you that it would drive away if you could not pay the price difference down the line and leave you with no car because it found someone else who would pay market value, I think you might in fact think twice about buying it at discount.

All cars do this, not just Ferrari's. An increase in salary would be the no. 1 reason people change jobs. Instead, while you have the Ferrari, make use of it.

"No I don't want the Ferrari at the same price as this Mazda Miata, its more sports car than I need to get around."

Personally, I'd be worried that the Ferrari would still end up having a higher TCO due to the elevated maintenance and insurance costs.

With respect, when it comes to vehicles, I think I would actually refuse the Ferrari. It’s too expensive to get insurance or to have work done on it. Parking it at my house makes it an attractive nuisance and increases the likelihood that my home may be burglarized.

Most importantly, I am old enough to know that my personality is such that I would be strongly tempted to drive that vehicle too fast and in an unsafe manner.

There’s a whole host of things wrong with this analogy.

Inclined to agree. I think a resistance to hiring "overqualified" people probably reflects a lack of imagination. There may be lots of ways this person could make your team better, and you haven't even stopped to think about what those could be.

I suppose people who are at risk of being considered overqualified should learn to make exactly that kind of case for themselves.

It could be a deal, it could be a steal, or it could be too good to be true.

In either case it's a red flag that should be carefuly evaluated.

> I asked a hiring manager at Google once if they would tell a sales guy "No I don't want the Ferrari at the same price as this Mazda Miata, its more sports car than I need to get around."

A car doesn't leave after 2 months, but you would worry about it being a stolen car, wouldn't you?

Depends on your city. In my city there are plenty of high end cars parked on the street, but at the same time I couldn't afford the cost to maintain a Ferrari, and the fuel consumption isn't light either.

Minor point: a rational person who can afford only a Mazda Miata oughtn't take a Ferrari for the same price for the simple reason they can ill afford it's running costs (fuel, maintenance, etc.).

I've heard people refer to them as performance drugs, good for short term gain, but possible side effects.

They can challenge authority. They can get work done twice as fast, and you'd get a good deal if they show up only 80% of the time. The star players can also be divas, challenge bosses. Some cultures have more difficulty dealing with it and sometimes it comes with drama.

They tend to be a little stubborn. I met one senior with almost 10 years experience who refused to use source control or log into Trello. Project management for that project fell apart because the key members were not on it.

There's stubborn and stubborn.

Are they being stubborn because they've seen this before and know it leads to a bad place? (probably not when they're objecting to Git or Trello)

Or are they being stubborn because they don't want to learn new things? (which sounds more the case here)

If the second one, then that's a problem. But it's got nothing to do with their age or experience. I've seen total newbie coders unwilling to learn Git because they don't think they need it (or it scares them, or whatever). It's easier to justify the mindset with age and experience, but it's not caused by age or experience.

If, however, it's the first kind of stubborn, then that's gold. That's what you need. That's the thing that stops teams from repeating the same mistakes over again.

Instead of dismissing it all as "stubborn", it might be worth checking the rationale behind the reluctance.

When we talk about "disparate impact" in racism, this is the type of think we're referring to. Yeah, you clean-shaven policy seems fair, but but disproportionally affects a certain segment of the population.

Similarly "you over-qualified for this positions" seems fair, it may even seem like you're doing the applicant a favor, but if it disproportionally affects a particular community, perhaps it's time to reflect on it.

edit: spelling, thx icelander, and damn you autocorrect

"Disparate Impact" is not about fairness. It is about non-arbitrariness. Factors that are demonstrably job related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity are considered a suitable legal defense.

Agree - in this case I don't think it would be hard to find some study somewhere that supports the idea that experienced workers attrition at a higher rate than average when placed in junior positions.

You might question the validity of the study, but it appears there is enough information out there to make a case.

Do you mean "disparate impact?"

A policy has disparate impact if it is not intentionally or directly discriminatory, but it disproportionately harms a protected group. A random example might be to require that all employees are at least 6 feet tall. That isn't inherently discriminatory against a protected class so it might appear legal at first look. However it results in disparate impact because women are much less likely to satisfy the requirement than men. It could therefore be ruled discriminatory if the business could not prove why the height requirement was a necessity for the job.

I want to understand your reasoning better. If a policy is fair, but disproportionally affects a certain segment of the population - is it bad? Why?

The whole reasoning as to why exactly racism and ageism is bad, in my opinion, doesn't have to be based on morals, IMO (since everybody has different morals). It's sufficient to base it on self-interest: in an ideal simulation, where there would be bazillions of employers competing over bazillions of employees and vice versa, racist and ageist agents would lose, because they wouldn't make optimal decisions. (Of course, ideal simulation isn't real world, and that's why we have anti-monopoly and other laws that help to make the system run as if there were a bazillion rational agents).

But if some rational decision making merely correlates to segments of the population, and is not directly based on information such as race or age, I fail to see what is bad about it and why it should be avoided.

It is fair if it is relevant to the job. If the legitimate requirements of a job happen to negatively affect a sector of the population that's not necessarily a problem (think firefighters being able to move a certain amount of weight in a certain amount of time). If it's completely arbitrary - everyone needs to be clean-shaven every day - and disproportionately affects a certain protected class, you could have issues.

Because its indirect discrimination

After my dad's manufacturing related engineering position moved overseas he got told by an automaker that he was over-qualified for line work. However no one was interested in his engineering skills even after he tried to pivot to quality-control engineering.

The pay and work at the automaker would have been great for him. Instead he ended up carrying mail until retirement.

I constantly think about him and remind myself to not get to comfortable in an industry.

> I constantly think about him and remind myself to not get to comfortable in an industry.

What are the practical outcomes of this? Side projects?

Save enough to retire early, or at least enough to be able to survive on a lower salary later in life.

If you work in an industry in which jobs are likely to be outsourced, or where ageism is a significant factor, you should not assume that you will be able to work until the normal retirement age. It's just not realistic.

Unsorted list of things you could do: Grow your network, read books and learn new stuff, get jobs with great sounding titles, get jobs, where you are exposed to key stakeholders in your industry, give talks, setup a „coffee date“ every other week (meet people for 30min, don’t ask for a job, just mention you’re always interested in oppurtunities to grow, they will reach out to you when something opens up).

Keep learning new things. If you can't think of something substantial you've learned in the last year, switch something up. Start a company, give some talks, or switch jobs and industries if you have to.

When I hear about getting too cosy in an automotive industry my brain screams "modern day Germany".

Why is that? Automotive in Germany is generally a high pressure high turnaround job. If you're not at one of the big car manufacturers themseves chances are your employer has closed in 10 years, or fired 50% of their employees or something ridiculous like hat.

Additionally, nowadays you don't get hired by car manufacturers but by third party companies that loan their workers to them. In the lower levels (factory work) there is some pushback against that, but in the higher levels its generally accepted

I think the use of the term "over qualified" is often used to mask the real reasons for rejection.

I was rejected for a job when I was aged 39 for supposedly being over qualified. When I applied for the job in question I was upfront about my experience, qualifications and desired salary which was market rate for my experience. I didn't sell myself short. The product I would be working on was unified message distribution system not too dissimilar to Twilio.

After a code test, a whiteboard exam and two rounds of interviews I was told "Yeah, we really like you and you undoubtedly have the skills. But we were really looking for someone a little less qualified". I pushed a bit to find out what that meant and the HR person claimed it was my salary expectations, but I had my doubts.

During both interviews I was asked if I had children. I said I had two. I was then asked their ages and where they went to school. This led on to questions about how they got to school and what happens if one or both of them are sick etc. The questioning style was casual, but they were definitely probing me. In Ireland this line of questioning is illegal, but it happens a lot. At the time I answered the questions with a feeling of reluctance. I do believe that having young children lost me the job. I was asked what would happen if my children were sick off school, I answered that either me or my wife would have to stay home. I was asked why my wife wouldn't take on that responsibility exclusively. I responded because we share our responsibilities to our family. I could see the interviewers brow furrow when I said that.

I have a strong suspicion that the reason why age affects IT recruitment so much is not because of "over qualification". It's because the older you are the more likely you are to have family that you want to spend time with. Or if you don't have children you might have other interests that take priority over work. I've had managers who have straight up admitted that the older you are the less likely you are to put up with overtime and more likely to challenge over bearing bosses.

Put simply younger people have fewer adult life distractions, will work longer hours and put up with more crap.

Absolutely spot on.

That's the reason I am ( or got ) into freelancing. No one asks about this details.

I always wondered, could one simply lie? I mean, I never had to face the situation in an interview, but I would like to be prepared for it.

If my interviewer asks for my marital status/family size, could I simply refuse to answer? Or, if not, could I just lie about having children or not? Can a contract be invalidated by the fact that I lied about something during my interview?

I would guess that providing an excuse for firing someone would be harder than providing it for not hiring him, and you cannot simply fire someone for "having children and not having declared it".

I wish there was a way to prevent interviewers from asking these kind of questions, but until then this seems to me like a viable alternative.

"If my interviewer asks for my marital status/family size, could I simply refuse to answer?"

I would _think_ if you so chose, you could sue the shit out of them for discriminatory practices. This is so illegal it makes my head hurt.

I've been tempted to bring claims. The problem is it's your word against theirs

Plus, once your name gets out as a potential trouble maker then it's even harder to get a job.

You are so right about all of this! Here are my notes from "the resistance" (distant, muted chuckle) This year, after my fourth experience with ageism in the hiring phase as a candidate, I was disgusted, frustrated, and fed-up. When I contacted an attorney about the outrageous level of age discrimination I recently experienced at an interview, he was skeptical, at first, saying that these cases are very difficult to prove. He asked me for the key facts-- When I told him exactly what happened and some other facts about the job description as it was posted online versus what was told to me about why I was not hired versus who they ended up hiring (a 20-something year old with none of the posted experience supposedly "required" at the job). He asked me if I had written proof of this. I said that sadly, I did. I also had a recording. (Yes, they are that irresponsible about their hiring practices)He said that it was one of the most clear-cut cases of age discrimination that he had heard of in hiring, particularly because I offered every single experience and skill requirement listed in the job posting while the job winner offered none of these.(no, the online posting/position was never changed) He wanted to take it on contingency without hesitation. He did warn me that going after discrimination in any form is best as a last resort (i.e. If I know I'm too old for anyone to ever hire me in tech), because I will be marked as someone who stands up for themselves and no company wants to hire that person. He pointed out that since they were a well-known company in tech I'd face significant blowback and shunning, even if I won, which he felt I would. He also pointed out that the compensation I can get from it is not what it should be. I told him that changing this in our industry is important to me. If more people filed EEOC complaints it might help, but I'm not sure. (FYI, I just turned 47)

I guess next time I will check with my lawyer before going to an interview

I guess the answer depends a lot on your jurisdiction. Here in Germany if they ask you illegal questions you can just lie to them (and you cannot be terminated in retaliation obviously).

It sounds like you had expectations up front that you would be permitted to stay home from work if your kids were sick. If that's the case, it seems reasonable that your employer know about that before hiring you.

They're likely asking because they've already hired people who expect to be able to come in late after taking their kids to school, work from home without notice if their kids are sick, etc.

I know this is an unpopular opinion, but: To me that's reasonable employer's discretion. If they're expecting you to work after hours and probing if you have kids to gauge that, that's one thing. But I've seen coworkers get allowances for kids for all kinds of things. Both parties (employee and employer) should be aware of what the expectations are ahead of time.

And if that means that I (as someone who doesn't have children, or lives near additional family who can handle those contingencies) come out as a better candidate, then that's not unreasonable.

Except discriminating against familial status is illegal (in the US and apparently Ireland, at the least). And sick leave is sick leave, if I have to take off because I am sick, or my kid is sick there is no difference. Emergencies happen, and should be expected from anyone. Discriminating against someone because maybe their kid gets sick doesn't make sense to me. Hire qualified candidates and make reasonable schedules, and an employee's sick kid won't interfere with the business at all.

It's not discriminating against familial status--it's acknowledging someone's expectations about being allowed to miss work. Someone with the same familial status who arranges for other accommodations for getting their kids to and from school would not be affected.

Sick leave policy is up to the company. You cannot assume you are entitled to more sick days simply because you have children. If you will be taking off additional time due to having to care for sick children, that should be discussed ahead of time.

Emergencies do happen, but that doesn't excuse poor planning. A child becoming sick is not unforeseeable, and it's not unreasonable for both parties to acknowledge what the expectations are.

Many (most?) companies absolutely do make for allowances for employees with children, but that doesn't mean employers should be on the hook for whatever expectations the employee has. This is absolutely reasonably in-scope for an interview.

No one said anything about additional days of leave. If the company gives 5-10 days sick leave (or whatever their policy is) then it is perfectly fine to take said leave to take care of a sick child. If you don't want people taking it, don't give it. And if that is the policy, then it is up to the employee to decide. But purely amusing someone is going to ask for extra time off because they have a child is wrong.

And I do agree that a perspective employee should not make assumptions about their schedule, if there are morning meetings you will never be able to make during the school year, then that needs to be discussed. But discuss the concerns and don't hide behind another excuse about why you didn't hire someone. Be honest and say their schedule does not fit the company needs.

> Sick leave policy is up to the company

I am really astonished that this is considered normal. Sick leave should not be up to the company, at least not for normal employee contracts. In many countries it isn't up to the company and they work just fine.

EDIT: to further elaborate, I'm not saying that companies should not be able to hire only single white males in their twenties, what I'm saying is that if you want employees that don't have a normal life, you should be expecting to put on the table more than the average salary for the role.

I've been interviewing quite a few people for roles and more recently there have been far more who have PhD's in Machine Learning. I point out that role won't use these skills/expert knowledge, and ask what they think. No one ever says that the role is not for them but you know that if there were a machine learning role open they'd jump at it, thereby costing the company money in rehiring. It is a tough decision.

The news that there are apparently people with PhDs in Machine Learning who are finding the job market difficult enough they're applying for unrelated technical positions seems like it runs counter to the conventional narrative about high demand and trouble finding truly qualified scientists...

To me it seems that the explanations in both cases are that humans are really illiquid. When I'm job-hunting, I want a job; I don't want to wait two months for a better one. (Part of this is my own desire; part of this is the social convention that companies who do manage to give me offers want answers quickly, and won't be interested in re-interviewing me two months later if I decline them.) When I have a job, it will take a significantly better job for me to risk the steadiness of my current job, the accretion of social capital and seniority/tenure, etc., and also to risk the unknown of whether management will be good at my new job, which is rather hard to determine even if you know people at the company. And I'm certainly not going to jump ship within about a year of starting a mildly acceptable job, and within much more than a year if I recently jumped ship after about a year.

So people are probably badly in need of for PhDs who are on the job market, but those PhDs are meanwhile badly in need of positions fairly quickly once they graduate, and if the market isn't big enough, both sides are going to reach theoretically-suboptimal outcomes because of lack of liquidity.

(Consequently, GP should not be afraid to hire those people. If they say "No, I want this job," chances are the majority of them will stay around for quite a while even if better opportunities open up.)

Or it means that supply is starting to meet demand. People interested in tech hear that an intellectually stimulating field like machine learning is highly lucrative and short in supply, what happends? People start entering PhD programs and out they come a few years later. That narrative is years old at this point. That original NY Times article on deep learning is now five years old, plenty of time for people to be finishing their degrees. Clearly it seems like the tides are shifting. And I don't think the supply is on the downturn at all, but demand definitely seems to have peaked since companies are starting to realize that none of the stuff that drove the hype (deep learning) is actually applicable to them personally.

Certainly true from what I've seen. The last company I was at was desperate to find a remotely qualified ML guy in the area (we were out of town), and three different startups I have talked to in the last two weeks have multiple openings for ML and asked me (who has no formal ML qual) whether I was interested.

So who knows. Maybe they don't want to move or it isn't sexy enough ML work for them.

>conventional narrative

That shit's been broke for employees since Agile was successfully marketed and they figured out how to reproduce it (blogs, news, and conventions lead to consultants). Same for Big Data, ML, AI, coding bootcamps, and DevOps.

Why? Apart from the big guys, who is actually doing deep research or highly technical work in Machine Learning? It is a niche industry.

I think there's some pretty high variance in the quality of machine learning PhDs - some professors are pretty upfront that they have a team of graduate students throwing algorithms at datasets and seeing what sticks. I can't imagine that approach trains great researchers.

Ya, something smells fishy here. On the other hand, I hear my PL PhD is great for working on ads at google.

What do they tell you they think? Do you reject them? I don't know many people who'd jump out of a good job for one that's more closely related to their school work.

Agreed - that last bit's the key:

if you have a good workplace, and people like being there, then it's a lot less likely that they'll jump ship. If you have a poor workplace, then it doesn't matter if you have overqualified staff or not, they'll all go.

My own response would honestly be "That's fine, I like learning new things and want to be broad too.". I don't have a PhD, just a BS in CE, but even if I had a Masters or higher I'm not going to jump at a job to do hardware development, or radar applications, just because of my academic experience. What I work on is much less important than who I'm working with and how we're working.

If you have a Ph.D. in machine learning and can't find a machine learning "job" and want one, then go to Wall Street and become a quant. Bear in mind that it could also be that these folks don't want a machine learning job, maybe they need to level up their programming skills or are interested in other software engineering related skill sets. There are many programmers who majored in business or physics or even history.. yet they became programmers and some are quite successful! Should they have not been hired because they would eventually leave to go teach history or smash an atom?

This doesn't happen just because of age. While I was living in Canada, I met plenty of highly-qualified immigrants desperately looking for jobs, and would routinely get this response even though they weren't old or anything; its just that they would literally be applying for low-skill jobs because the appropriate jobs would not take them for lack of "Canadian Experience".

This is a thing in Australia as well, and it's quite baffling. As far as I can tell, it's not even racism or genuine comms concerns etc, it's just that any work experience outside Australia gets discounted as "not real work".

>>it's not even racism

>>work experience outside Australia gets discounted as "not real work".

I mean, that might not be the strict definition of racism, but it essentially is.

One reason I can think of, which can cause this, is that it's going to consume greater resources to background check internationally than just within the country.

I do know at least two people who have lied in their CV and got jobs based on those and was wondering how they could get away with it so far.

When I moved to Australia I encountered exactly what you described, luckily I was still junior so I presented myself as fresh out school to find an entry-level job. A few years later I moved to the valley and finding a job was easier in many ways.

What about work experience in popular western countries in Europe? I've been living (and working) abroad for the last 10 years but might come home sooner or later.

That’s exactly what happened to my wife. She’s highly qualified and had a lot of international experience in large, well-known companies (HP, Intel, HSBC). Here in Canada, she’s rarely been able to even get to an interview these past couple of years, and when she did, she was “over qualified.”

She now makes sandwiches at a local supermarket for minimal wage and all but lost all hope. Breaks my heart.

I was lucky to get a job pretty quickly though so there’s that.

Interesting, what race is your wife?

Oh man, that sounds pretty bad. Why didn't she try consulting/remote work in the U.S.?

> I met plenty of highly-qualified immigrants desperately looking for jobs

They maybe highly qualified but what about their communication skills?

There is a lot of competition as well too many immigrants chasing few jobs.

I'm seeing this now. I'm 48 and have applied to over 100 jobs. I have an MBA and have been well-qualified for every one of the jobs I've applied to, or else I wouldn't have wasted my time. I've had about 5 legitimate responses. I know it's not my resume, or much else. Age is just about the only answer, or not being able to afford me because I'm "over-qualified" which makes me wonder why they're advertising for the position, if they don't expect to hire a qualified candidate.

Is it possible they are inflating their needs in the expectation that applicants are inflating their resumes?

I am 22 and see this all the time for positions needing 1-2 years experience. Plus, it is a great way for them to offer you a wage towards the lower end of the salary range while applicants feel happy getting a title they might not deserve.

That, or a downstream effect of people applying for jobs for which they do not quite meet the stated qualifications. Putting up "5 years experience" starts being a really good way to get ambitious people who have two or three years of experience, and so employers start using the job description to grab those applicants rather than actually-meeting-qualification.

On second thought, though, it's more likely due to H1B employment requiring an "attempt" to hire a qualified domestic employee. So once an employer has an H1B they want to hire, they have to put out a job description and fail to find an acceptable candidate meeting the listed qualifications.

With you. Applied to around 1000 jobs myself in anything squarely in my wheelhouse or just next to it. 47. Get very few responses. When interviews are offered, I'm getting same feedback as you. It's difficult to speak up about it, because if someone has not yet experienced it, (or if it has not yet happened enough to them that they are sure what it is now) they assume it has something to do with you socially or technically. I think this is because it is so outrageously hard to believe: the idea that its root causes are insecurities that otherwise ambitious, intelligent people would not allow to negatively affect their company or its professional edge. - especially in a time when the industry can't stop talking about its shortage of highly qualified workers. So if someone calls it out, others assume there is something wrong with them they aren't facing. It took me a full 7 years of self critique and experimentation before I was sure it was ageism.

Response rates are just low in general for cold opportunities. Like, 5% sounds great. Either use your network or send out many more applications even to marginal opportunities.

The problem with "using your network" for an older worker, is that in a severely ageist climate, your network has to be made up of those who are 10-20 years younger than you are. These kinds of connections across generations are difficult to forge in a way Dan Lyons illustrates better than I can. I have found that "network" as a resource is better explained as "knowing someone with CEO hiring power and strong desire to hire you in particular." If you are in your early to mid 40s, you may have built strong connections of this type, but many of those who are in powerful hiring positions don't want others around who can compete at their level, because they face the same thing comming for them. And many more who have this power these days are much younger than they used to be, which makes them less likely to hire someone they see as "mentor age". It feels awkward and unnatural--they want to hire those they can come up with, just like in any other time in history. I feel that this "get a job through your network" advice tends to become very thin at around age 35 and up, especially if you are a member of another protected class.

Is it really that bad in the USA?

I've just started looking for a new job this week, and I've applied for maybe 3 jobs, and my phone has been ringing off the hook.

Try making your age completely ambiguous on your resume and see what the response is. E.g. remove college graduation date, replace specific dates of employment with 5 years, over 10 years etc.

It's obvious when applicants do this. There's no plausible deniability unless younger applicants start doing the same thing out of solidarity someday.

Also: discard experience from over X years ago.

Are you getting interviews? If not, consider revisting the resume aspect.. Keep it at a max of 2 pages and when listing your skills, focus on the most recent work and technology (not the breadth of tech you've worked with over your career but the depth of tech that you are looking to get a position doing).

I've applied to about 500 jobs. I'm 46 & returning to coding after years of absence. I get better response rates outside of engineering (e.g., teaching, program management). This year, I won a teaching job and a technical writing job and was denied both due to ageism.

It slows down over 40. There aren't as many openings that need what you have, but they still exist. It takes time to find them, though.

I start contacting headhunters (I keep a file of ones I think are decent, since the day will come when I'll need them). I don't know what other things to tell you to try - I haven't needed/wanted a new job in 8 years. (I was 47 then.)

Online applications in general are rarely successful. Pardon my directness, but if you've applied to 100+ jobs then you're likely doing it wrong. You are almost always better off finding a quality set of positions (10-15) and getting human referrals/connections to them. In job hunting, quality is much more important than quantity.

I'm about to start looking for a new job. How would you go about building connections to companies you're interested in, outside attending relevant meetups and conferences?

I don't think you can fight this with laws: We live in an age and society that prefers young over old, smart over wise, quick profits over steady growth - I could go on with the contrasts but you get the idea. This might change over time but don't hold your breath.

If some of the young developers reading this realize that the same might happen to them then my suggestion would be not to wait around hoping that new employment laws will save you in a few decades (which will pass faster than you think), but to start taking care of things now. This means, make sure that by the time you get to the age when someone won't hire you, you won't need or want to be hired. You can do this by either saving enough money by that age to do whatever you want (which could be a new venture doing what you love, whether it is developing software or not) or by slowly creating a business (maybe starting as a side project) which will end up with you on the hiring side (even if you only want to hire yourself).

When your date dumps you after the first date, the reason they give is never the truth. It's the same when they reject you for the job. There's not much of a percentage in stewing or arguing about it.

Agreed. I've heard candidates rejected as "overqualified" when they meant "not qualified or otherwise not interesting, but they seem to think a lot of themselves".

Exactly. Saying "You are overqualified and would be bored to work here" is the same as saying: "You are really nice, but let's just be friends". Nobody today is going to tell you straight: "You are too old, sorry, we probably won't be able to push and exploit you and we are afraid you will find a better job".

Employers constantly tell me "Your resume looks great, you have a lot of skills, so why is there a gap in those years? What were you doing? Don't you have any experience in technology X or Y? You might get bored here". I never get hired.

Next time this happens, I recommend trying to find the root cause. "I appreciate your concern - may I ask what experience has led you to believe someone with my qualifications would appear bored? From my perspective, I've only applied and kept in the hiring process to this point because I am interested in the long term."

It's very likely they've got some other reason, and you can then clarify when they give you the "real reason" or adjust your process/resume/story for future applications with that information.

You'd be surprised - depending on the type of employer, many will not indulge any questions about any hiring decisions.

Granted, if they are providing reasoning already up front (we think you may be bored), it's fair game to ask, but I don't think I've ever seen someone get a response when asking these types of questions.

there are resume tactics you can use to obscure that missed time, and frankly, the older you are, the better it is to use them. not just because of age bias, but also because even a resume reader who has zero age bias is likely to skim the resume, and/or regard your most _recent_ accomplishment as your most _characteristic_ accomplishment as well. so you have to completely disregard chronological order if you want to present a summary of who you are and what you can do, unless you are the one person in the world whose career history has only ever had ups, and never downs.

my most recent job search went really slow until I scuttled my comprehensive, chronological resume and replaced it with something which is basically just a list of sales-y bullet points: lots of languages! did this! did that!

likewise, don’t bother listing everything you’re good at. list the stuff you’re best at, and list the newest, flashiest stuff, and summarize the rest. “skilled in numerous languages, including Hot New Shit A and Old Thing That I Happen To Be Great At B” is great.

if my resume showed every language that I’ve ever used, I’d be including a ton of languages that don’t even exist any more. people don’t see that and think, “wow, how diligent to include such a comprehensive list.” they think, “does this person expect to use that here? why are they wasting my time?”

Your resume shouldn't have gaps, even if your actual career do. Prospective employers are afraid, and they rely on you to demonstrate a spotless record. You need to asses what they want to hear, then say it. Unless you can afford to be picky yourself, honesty doesn't pay.

An employer once told me to my face he was glad my resume didn't have any gap. The real reason my resume doesn't have gaps is because I only write the years during which I've done each gig. You can hide up to 23 months of hiatus that way.

You can also stretch out 2 months of experience to be 2 years!

You could just lie about the gap.

And to do it without lying you can remain perpetually employed at the random consulting firm you coincidentally founded.

MANY OF YOUR EMPLOYED PEERS HAVE DONE THIS

If I find out later, you will be immediately dismissed. No exceptions.

I was honest with the employee and I demand the same in return. If you will lie to me about that, you will lie to me about other things or, worse, lie to coworkers or clients.

Dishonesty means your value to me is nothing and there is no reason to continue our relationship. Some forgiveness is fine for my personal relationships, but my business is staked on trust and dishonesty violates that.

Then again, I don't really care if there is a gap in your employment history. What you did is none of my concern. I care if you can do the job and if you're the most qualified I can reasonably find.

Unless the gap was very recent, it would be weird for that to affect someone in software development. As a research scientist, sure (for better or worse), but if you have spent the past 5 years doing X then you are quite well qualified to do X somewhere else.

The only reason I've heard is that companies are worried that a gap may be due to time in prison.

In the end if don't want to hire you, they won't. Now, rather than being brutally honest, they invent ways around it.

They do it because of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88–352, 78 Stat. 241, enacted July 2, 1964) is a landmark civil rights and US labor law in the United States[5] that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

And also the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (29 U.S.C. § 621 to 29 U.S.C. § 634) is a US labor law that forbids employment discrimination against anyone at least 40 years of age in the United States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_Discrimination_in_Employme...

You see, they aren't passing on you based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or age; it's because you are overqualified, or not a cultural fit. It's like the "IT'S COMING RIGHT FOR US!" loophole in South Park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3RJUMm-hd0

Discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or age is very difficult to prove in a court of law.

I'm not sure that's true. If they don't want to hire you, they're less likely to, but at some point it might not be worth the effort to come up with an excuse. And, importantly for an organization, "they" might be a subset of people. If I have a biased coworker (where "biased" can be anything, but let's go with age for now) who doesn't want to hire someone, but can't communicate their dislike in email without putting animus towards a protected class in writing, and the rest of the team is mildly positive, the fact that they couldn't be brutally honest is probably enough to go from a no-hire (via the coworker's veto) to a hire.

It is, in my experience, absolutely correct.

About a decade back, I applied for a job in Dunedin. The manager of it met me, read my resume and loved it - I had plenty of experience where the other applicant he was interviewing didn't have any, he said, and queried what I knew about this and that, so on. He couldn't have been more positive.

Then he asked if I had any medical problems, I told him I have a disability.

The red started at his collar and worked his way up to his face. He made a point of going back to my resume, and loudly shouted at me for not having any relevant experience, how I'd fking wasted his time and he was going to bill me for it, that he was going to lay a formal complaint with the employment agency I had gone through. He lied through is teeth about their work for the city council, that he "ran the computer systems for them, all the servers," and that he didn't have time to teach me how computers worked, that I only had an academic qualification with no real world experience. (I knew a guy who was loosely involved with ITS for the DCC at the time, and he told me the interviewer is a liar, most of their IT support was in-house or specialist software support.)

The interviewer also told me that I should get "real world experience running a corporate network," and he told me I could do that by stealing old computers and pirating Windows ("Well, there are ways to get Windows.")

A few years later, I ran into a friend of mine from university who, it turned out, had got the job I missed out on. He was just out of university when they hired him, and actually had no experience in any roles of any sort.

tl;dr: The interviewer lied to my face. It hindsight, it was obvious that he did, but at the time I didn't get it. (Part of the disability, I'm very easily lied to.) He made up every excuse under the sun to not hire me, or even continue with the interview. It would have been much less obvious (to an outsider) if he'd just concluded the interview normally, without any further comments on the disability and I wouldn't have been any the wiser, but he was too stupid and self-righteous for that.

(Further thought, when I found out about it, I mentioned it to a friend of mine who immediately told me that the employer had every right to discriminate against me on the basis of my disability, and nothing could convince him otherwise - not even the government, who stated that had I found out sooner and been able to prove it, I would have likely received a large cash settlement.)

well, the reality is being honest can get you sued. that's very expensive. to me it's understandable from a risk aversion angle.

Majority of managers do not want people that see through their bs. After all they need to manage. Someone who sees through their bs is not as pliable as an inexperienced hire. They want the naivety because it is exploitable just like ignorance. Remember most managers are trying to move up and if you pose a risk, they won’t have that. This is also part of the reason why there exist so many collaboration tools. If we placed collaboration above competition just maybe the company would be a better place to work. Instead of this competitive minefield where everyone is just looking for the next opportunity to step up at the expense of others and at the expense of collaboration.

These types are the easiest to game though. Just tell them what they want to hear, and deliver something occasionally. Then you're considered to be a star. Rinse, repeat.

It's ironic seeing this hosted at Facebook, the land of "young people are just smarter".*

*The infamous quote from Zuckerberg

Well, Zuckerberg employs Beck, so he must have seen a sliver of the light at some point!

I misread that as "silver light" and thought it was quite a clever pun on silver haired programmers... :)

I received some advice to omit the first 5-ish years positions from my resume and “reword” the line referring to my 20 years of industry experience. I'm older than my boss and it's definitely a bit scary. YMMV

I did this recently. I removed the details of older experience and replaced them with a section “Other projects” where I quickly listed interesting and relevant things I did before but with no dates. I also removed the dates of my degrees.

Coincidence or not, I started receiving more contacts from recruiters and recently got a great new job.

As someone who does a lot of resume screening and interviewing, I will say I don't really care when you got your degree, so that's fine with me.

Though I can only really speak for myself.

I recently created a custom resume for a recruiter who wanted me to remove my pre-2006 experience from my resume before he would submit me for a contract. Boasting wide and deep experience in this industry is a liability for an employee, not an asset.

This is funny to me because it means 10 years of experience is the maximum any candidate should have.

Yep, I did some “filtering” as well

What was the relationship between you and the person who gave that advice?

I was laid off and one of the severance benefits was a job placement / interview coaching service

This person has wonderful skills and experience. They must have an extensive network of people they've worked with and for. Yet here they are in front of me not making any use of that network. Why?

Meet that head on because one possibility that goes through the mind of those making the hiring decision is "Is it because this person is horrible?"

"I'm here and not using my own network to get hired because (they've all retired rich the lucky bastards|the network went a bit cold while I did 15 years in xyz co.|I'm not comfortable using a network because I've always been able to get hired on my talent, skills and work ethic and that's really important to me|whatever the reason is).

Also when mentioning previous stuff you've done. "Did that with Jill and Amesh, great people, would work with them again in a heartbeat." "This one I did with Kar-Wai, talented guy, I liked working with him."

Hiring is an investment decision you have to live with every day. Fear and greed the same as any other, allay the fears, stoke the greed.

Note this is not "The Answer" my best to all doing it a bit tough in the job market. It's just one thing to consider if you haven't already, get the box next to it ticked.

Over-qualified people are seen as a threat. The managers who hire, unless they are the owners, do not want to deal with the office politics of someone who truly knows more than they do.

If you are over-qualified for a position there is nothing wrong with playing down your resume. Writing code is a new career for me and I don't mention my previous management positions at all because I'm applying for subordinate positions framing my resume accordingly.

I had a suggestion from a friend that I should just cut off everything from my résumé that happened before 7 years ago. I have not yet tried this, but my friend just started getting calls for interviews having done this. Do you have any more advice?

I only put on my resume things that provide value to the potential employer. I was a chef in restaurants and on a yacht for 17 years before coding but on my resume, which is only one page, all that experience is included in 2 lines at the bottom because it doesn't show anything of value beyond my coding experience for the type of positions I was applying for. If I apply for a management position, my executive chef experience will take up a second page.

This is what I was told as well. I'm 52, I have huge resume of experience at some great companies (even my own company I built), the reality is, you get 10 years in, the person thinks you're his or her "Dad"... it's a little shitty, but the advice I got was to do exactly this and I started getting more responses.

Thank you for confirming this. I'll start using this tactic immediately. I do think if we are forced to retire at 40 or even before, the younger folks in the industry should get hip now, and demand much much higher salaries like the athletes in professional sports do. And if it is collectively decided that no one wants to start a union, engineers (and even those in other professions now) should get agents just like the pro athletes do, because those negotiations will require some seriously professional legal and negotiation skill. People don't have time to become both Grace Hopper AND Jerry Maguire. Imagine if sportsers had to negotiate their own contracts... those folks would be abused and dumped.

How old are you?

"you're overqualified" and "we only hire the best" is a bit of a contradiction, isn't it?

It's true that if you always do the same kind of programming work, you might get bored and this can negatively affect productivity (in terms of raw speed)... But on the plus side; your code will likely be of very high quality and will almost definitely save the company a ton of money in the medium and long term.

So yeah I think that calling someone 'overqualified' is a poor excuse.

Startups love code monkeys that can churn out features quickly; they're often willing to sacrifice huge medium-term benefits for small short-term benefits but that's idiotic. From my experience, it only takes about 3 to 6 months for technical debt to become a major problem so unless you expect your startup to have an exit in the next 3 months then you really should not accept any short term solutions at all.

Appearance matters so much in this discussion.

There are 40 year-olds who are obviously 40 year-olds, complete with greying beards, burgeoning bellies, and a wardrobe consisting of nothing but polo shirts acquired from years of conference attendance.

And then there are 40 year-olds who could pass for 30.

My intuition is that the likelihood of ageism being subconsciously or otherwise invoked in the former case is vastly larger.

In this sense, it is a lot like racism or sexism in the case of "culture" fitting. The desire to appear young and nimble, as a company, is a significant part of whatever demographic they are shooting for, outwardly.

Lol I am in my hem hem 50's some of my colleges though I was in my 30's recently :-)

Part of the issue is that programming is largely seen today as a process of problem solving using an "agile" hack it 'till it works approach. Quick thinking to put out a fire or implement a quick feature using some new technology easily learned is most valued, along with the ability to be "flexible" when it comes to quality of work and workplace demands.

Given this, one might as well look to recruit some smart, cheap and enthusiastic graduate. Sadly industry experience and lessons learned don't seem so important.

Now that I'm in a position of hiring technical people, this seems crazier than ever to me. It's hard to hire talented software engineers because they're so in demand. I would be glad to consider eager and talented prospective employees who I don't have to compete hard for.

i was unemployed for a while, and got a number of 'overqualified' rejections. eventually i ran out of money to pay the bills, and was a few weeks from being kicked out onto the streets... when i finally managed to land something. it was a fucking brutal roller coaster. sure is nice to have a roof over my head.

I've never liked being an employee. And I liked it less and less, as I got older. I also started getting rejected for being overqualified (plus having a bad attitude).

My solution was consulting. And eventually, consulting as a testimonial expert. Being older and overqualified helps in intimidating opposing counsel, and impressing judges and juries.

I like this route, too, so far, though it's new for me.

I did meet a 60-year-old programmer the other night who said he can't find consulting work anymore. I do sort of worry about one day not being able to keep up with contemporary techniques, but it seems like that day is far off, for now.

I worked with a testimonial expert in his 80s, and he was getting ~1000 USD/hr.

So there could be a few more possibilities why an overqualified person is willing to accept the job. Maybe a burnout if very high pace high pressure work, could nsulting including. Perhaps chilling at the slower paced company is perfect for him or her. If so why would he leave? I have known plenty of folks who a really really want to mentor and contribute their experience from decades of consulting, but not necessarily go back to doing it. Why not take advantage of the fact. Also, from the employer's perspective give him or her opportunity to do something else when the jobbia done and there's time to spare. Opensource contribution on the clock, presales tasks maybe,speaking at conferences, mentorship. Who cares as long as his job is done, he feels needed and can find other things to do to not be bored. Does not take a lot to manage a self starter.

This is fascinating to see.

I'm pushing 28, so every day I worry if the development job I have now will be my last. I'm a hard, dedicated, loyal worker who has never left a company, only swapping jobs when my old employers laid me off or themselves collapsed. Unfortunately, I suffer from strong social anxiety so management certainly isn't an option.

When I was 22, finding a job was easy. But once you have the portfolio they say they were looking for in the first place, no one wants you anymore because they're too afraid you'll jump to the next job paying $1k a year more or whatever. Its dumb.

I've never seen anyone reject a 28 year old as "overqualified". There's probably something else going on here, though I can't really help you with what it is. I suggest taking some of your technical friends out for some beverages of their choice and asking for some constructive criticism.

Most of the people I know in tech feel like they're aging out of the market. Small web/marketing agencies--the only development jobs available around here--want fresh grads for junior positions. Most of the time those are the only ones available, as there is rarely more than 1 or 2 lead/senior developers within the company.

I've never heard "you're overqualified" specifically, but I lost count of how many times I heard "we can't pay what someone with your skillset is worth and don't think you'll stick around because of it" when I was unemployed between jobs #3 and my current one for 5 months, desperately applying to any and all positions that got posted, like 'website maintenance assistant', 'adwords manager', 'forms developer' and 'frontend developer'.

Eventually two weeks before my unemployment would have run out, a senior java ecommerce developer position opened up, to which I currently cling with dear life. :)

This might just be regional/bad job market thing, I don't know. Never lived anywhere else but Maine.

Sorry to hear all that.

Unfortunately, ability to relocate might be essential in some circumstances. At least until employers are more willing to hire remote workers, assuming that happens eventually.

As an overqualified employee, I think you should simply delete parts of your resume to appear less skilled. A job is better than no job. I wonder why more people don't do that.

Let me reframe this for you: Your resume should effectively communicate why you are qualified for this job. If you are essentially talking about being qualified to be in charge of the person with this job, you aren't really effectively communicating why they should hire you to fill this role.

Both framings may result in the resume being edited down some, but the end result and positioning will likely be somewhat different. You aren't trying to downplay or hide anything. You just are trying to effectively communicate the information they need about you, no more and no less.

Gaps in your employment record probably look even worse, so that means carefully underselling yourself in each position. That seems tricky, at the very least.

Also, selection bias might keep those stories from being told.

Not necessarily delete jobs you had. You can simplify the actual responsibilities and achievements you had. You trade potential higher salary for a higher chance of becoming employed. Later, you can ask for a rise.

Disclaimer: I'm currently unemployed.

And people wonder why everyone goes for the startup lottery ticket

Not sure why you were down voted here, but this is my EXACT rationale at the moment. I am a 50 year old programmer who sold his software consulting business a couple of years back. I figure the ONLY way I can stay actively programming these days is to buy a ticket in the good old "startup lottery".

I've created 5 SaaS apps and around 10 mobile apps in the 3 years since I sold my business. Almost all the early ones struggled or failed completely. My current SaaS seems to be doing well, and I expect that it will see me through retirement. I guess I finally got lucky on a winning ticket :) I would expect a lot more players in this game as people age out of the software development world over the next few years.

I generally get voted down for anything I say negative. Hackernews just knows to vote down the surly.

it's not 6 figure, but you can go from 5 figure to 5 figure jobs with no hassle.

I had several interviews where the chief interviewer said I worry you won't want to keep doing just frontend, and I was like but if there are tickets on other parts of the stack I can do why wouldn't I - and anyway if I know parts of the backend and the data layer that means I know where a ticket should be fixed - most things can be fixed in the frontend but not everything should be.

I didn't get those jobs though.

What is results in is an organization without a focus on hiring the best people. Do this for long enough and your company will die.

I'm currently working at a startup where we have a few developer in their 40's or maybe 50's (not sure how old some of them are really), but what I see is that the market and investors are rewarding us for "moving fast with broken things". For example, we have no plan for handling unicode, and when things break people just try random mixes of encoding, decoding, dropping characters, etc, until the thing works this one time. Subtle issues like this go deep in our system, and yet it apparently looks good to our investors and customers. We get out the features they need quickly, but people will be cursing our names for decades because of the technical debt we create.

Maybe this is just because of my current situation, but it seems like the market rewards energetic programmers who can hack something together and constantly monitor and fix little bugs by hand any hour day or night. If this is what the market is rewarding then it seems legitimate to hire a bunch of cheap, young, energetic developers instead of more experienced developers.

Don't you think the amount of time spent fixing it properly is less than the sum of the time spent making a hacky solution and then playing whack-a-mole repeatedly with the bugs?

The population mostly is what it is, so there ought to be companies and jobs designed for people who aren't elite. McDonald's doesn't focus on hiring the best possible worker, they focus on hiring conscientious workers who are at the appropriate point in their career/life that it's a good fit.

The problem is that many interviewers don't know how to suss out a good engineer. So they just ask questions that Google and Amazon ask. And that's why you spend half of your interview pre-optimizing contrived algorithms down to O(n) when the probability of the startup ever running code at scale is very small.

McDonald's grade tech is going to impact our brains the same as MsDonald's food is impacting our physical health.

If you are interested in an alternative perspective, you should go read the "E-Myth" by Michael Gerber. It is ostensibly about entrepreneurship, but all his points apply equally to those in all types of leadership roles.

An organization shouldnt hire the "best" people because they are the most expensive and can easily lead to situations where your organisation is relying on an individual too much (e.g. they are the only person who understands a particular code base). The organization should focus instead on creating processes that take mediocre people and turn them into great at their job. That will be the most profitable solution long term.

Two things come to mind:

1) Roman Hruska's comment about "there are a lot of mediocre judges and people ... They are entitled to a little representation, aren't they, and a little chance?"

2) Robert Jordan sued and lost because his approximately 125 IQ was considered too high by the police department he applied to, and this was ruled legal and "rational" discrimination.

I want to buy a bag, just to hold my stuff, my budget is $100 for it, now the store has a few luxury bags for sale, but they are all above $200 price tag, what should I do? do I have to buy them? or I can decide to keep looking for better performance/price ratio?

isn't over-qualify the same as too-inexperienced, that many companies are reluctant to hire? bias is part of the real world, while I'm not young anymore, I firmly support that the company has the right to hire who they want to hire, after all, it's its private money, its decision and we're not reaching communism just yet. It's the competition made USA USA.

I'm 52, I recently got a "pass" on a job that matched that I was told in person that I would get an offer in writing while at my 4th and final interview with the COO/HR person (not the hiring manager). I walked out of that place thinking I had the job only to get an email from the hiring manager (CTO) telling me that "if the job was a Venn Diagram, you fit 80% of the role, I just think the other 20%, you wouldn't be happy and probably not challenged enough." I was stunned. Venn Diagram?? come on man... Seriously? And email, call and talk to me. Be an adult.

At first I was like "ok, not a fit." Then I had to realize I was probably 25 years older than he was and what he was really saying was "you're too old to be working here." The tone of his email was exactly as this blog. "You're just too experienced" -- in so many words.

Sucks being old... But I replied in email that he was probably right, that the role itself was a little below my level (truth) and that it was probably something I would have had to work with him on. I also identified that this guy (great guy, I liked him), was immature on the management side and every co-worker that interviewed with me confirmed it by telling me how much "he needed someone under him to do be the leader, be the buffer -- keep him focused on vision", so they needed me -- or the younger me. So I felt confident this was going to work. But he clearly felt I was too old...

It's a bummer. Had they offered me the job, I would have taken it and worked through the issues and grown with them. The reality is, I was perfect for the job and they actually needed my experience and my level of software domain knowledge in this space -- they were young, struggling with execution and accountability. I came to the realization that my age was both a benefit (to the company), but a threat to the CTO (founder) as being too experienced under you which would give him a lot of insecurity, but also having a guy that was old enough to be your Dad work under you -- he couldn't handle that (probably). Personally, for me, I would have had a blast. I love working with younger people and I love the energy and I'm someone who can relate to people half my age in many ways. Not to mention, I have all the modern stack experience they needed and I'm a pretty fucking great guy for their culture.

So as a 52 year old developer, I never thought I'd say this, but I'm a dinosaur and I might have to end up being a consultant or building another company (again) -- which I did when I was in my 30's and young.

When thinking about reasons for ageism you should account for consulting, which do not have this problem (or at least it is less pronounced). The cause is hidden in the overhead of full-time employment.

My previous company was rejecting 95% of overqualified applications, sometimes because of their age, sometime because of number of their certifications in their CVs. There was once a time, the company was offering totally average daily wage for a contractor job, and we got a CV from a guy with almost every possible Java certification from last 15 years. We knew we can't hire him, he would be bored here and soon ask for more money, which the company didn't have.

> We knew we can't hire him, he would be bored here and soon ask for more money, which the company didn't have.

I recommend giving anyone who appears minimally qualified the benefit of the doubt & see what they have to say before denying them a shot at meaningful employment.

I used to run a recruiting company, and I couldn't afford to pay very much. For example, I hired my first assistant as $15/hour USD when I was paying myself $12/hour USD. This was in San Francisco, CA where a that kind of money doesn't go very far.

Almost everyone I hired was overqualified, but that never seemed to matter. Before I hired anyone, I said something like...

"Look, I can only afford to pay you $X, and you'll duties will be A, B, & C. You look like someone who could get a job that's half as hard & pays twice as much. Why do you really want THIS job?"

If they gave what sounded like a sincere answer, I'd hire them. It was as simple as that.

One of my applicants had an MBA from a fancy school and had worked in sales at a prestigious investment bank. When asked why the heck someone with that kind of background would want to do entry level office work that doesn't pay very well, the applicant plainly said, "My partner is starting a hedge fund, I help my partner with in bootstrapping the fund, I'm looking for a little extra money at a job with flexible hours, and I enjoy this kind of work." That "overqualified" applicant was hired, and turned out to be one of my best workers.

When you pre-judge an applicant based on the appearance of too much experience & too many certifications, you are denying that applicant & yourself the opportunity to explore what could be an amazing employment relationship for both sides.

I've been rejected from jobs because I was over-qualified. Then I got accepted to one, which turned out later that I was over-qualified for that one too. I did get bored, I felt like the job wasn't a good match for my skills, and I went looking for a new job.

So the concern is indeed very real and can cause unneeded churn for a company.

Reminds me somewhat of the Gervais principle. https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

At my last interview, they reject me because "I'll not proper integrate with the team"

Maybe you should look in places that management is based in evidences: https://hbr.org/2010/12/the-myth-of-the-overqualified-worker

This is fascinating to see.

I'm only two years away from the cliff (30), so every day I worry if the development job I have now will be my last. I'm a hard, dedicated, loyal worker who has never left a company, only swapping jobs when my old employers laid me off or themselves collapsed. Unfortunately, I suffer from strong social anxiety so management certainly isn't an option.

Can someone share a non-Facebook link please?

ageism was the first ism I had to deal with personally, said the old white guy. It is bad in every industry and job sector.

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