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Comment by hn_ | Hacker News Reader

Are you saying you can't predict the age of someone without a phone screen and that a phone screen predicts age? I'm not sure how I would know a person's age by talking to them on the phone. Do people "sound old?" Not something I've noticed. On the other hand it is easy to know someone's age from their resume. If they graduated college in 1965 and have 20 years at two companies than you know they are pretty old.

Though now that I think about it, the other day someone on the phone asked me if I was over 21. When I said I was 32 she was like "oh, I'm sorry, you sound so young."

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No, he's agreeing with you. "it's unlikely you could even guess the age of the interviewee without one" ("one" referring to the resume).

He's saying that people complain about being turned down by Google after phone screens and say that the interviewer never even read their resume. For example maybe they applied for a sysadmin position and their resume was full of relevant experience and no college, and the phone screen leads off with a hardcore CS theory question.

So if it's the case the interviewers don't read resumes prior to phone screens, then the odds are low that they discriminated against this guy for age-related reasons.

However I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between - e.g. sometimes interviewers don't read resumes. I doubt it's an all or never situation.

Thanks! The wording wasn't clear to me even though I reread it a couple times.

Though people do talk about their experience on phone screens so that gives an indication of their age. But if the age was a problem you'd think they just wouldn't give him a phone screen (of course there is the aforementioned alleged "not reading the resume" too)

Sorry, I was kind of in a rush, looking back, i wish i had worded it a little more clearly.

For the record, Google is probably the least ageist company i've ever been at or worked for.

How have other companies you've worked at been ageist? In their hiring practices? Or job duties? I can't say I've ever personally witnessed any agism in my career (that I could identify) but my current job pretty much only hires entry level people. Not agism, its just that we promote to fill senior level positions then hire a replacement for the entry level person.

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