There is a stigma attached to middle-aged job hunters. Why hasn't he found his dream job by now--is he fickle and hard to please? Why isn't he already rich? Why does he need to work for me, the youngish owner/manager, instead of me working for him? Why can't I find any significant contribution to computer science in his background? How many sick days is this old dude going to take? Why doesn't he add /her after every him? How old IS that cell phone he's wearing in a belt holster? Is he sitting there thinking in COBOL while writing PHP for me? Will he infect my codebase with some alien thoughts from 1975? Why hasn't he affected a clipped accent so he can talk more quickly and hiply? Why is his irony hidden whereas ours is not? That's a lot of stigma to wade through on the way to finding out he's probably pretty good.