[perlgeek]

> However, I pretty strongly disagree. When evaluating a resume, there's no legitimate reason to consider the name, age, address, or gender of a candidate.

I mostly agreed, except with age. When I have two candidates who have roughly the same amount of experience or achievement, but one of them is far younger than the other, that tends to be more impressive.

[mbrumlow]

Why?

Maybe the older candidate only recently started to do the work. And this just the first thing the young person did?

I always get weird when people make a big deal about things people do at some young age. Most of the time the age is not important for the things we praise young people for doing. Most of the time it was just something their parents pushed them into to doing that any of many kids could have done had they just had the right parents.

[laurentl]

I don’t really see how you can hide (a rough idea of) age in an anonymous cv though. I’m guessing you still have the dates in front of the diplomas and previous jobs, or at the very least how long was spent at each previous job. It stands to reason that someone boasting 10+ years of experience is at least 30, and probably around 35.

[barbecue_sauce]

That's pretty blatant age discrimination.

[perlgeek]

How so?

To the best of my understanding, not hiring somebody because of age would be age discrimination.

Inferences about learning speed or motivation based on achievements per years don't sound like age discrimination to me.

[bg4]

Because you're essentially saying: All other things equal, I'll choose the candidate based on their age.

[kodablah]

No, GP is essentially saying: It's clear one accomplishes more in a smaller amount of time. That's far different from all else being equal. Granted, using age has less value than using time-in-field, but they are often proportional. Also, granted, you could argue that amount accomplished is a poor metric to use, especially when joined with speed.

[barbecue_sauce]

That's exactly what age discrimination is.

[CobrastanJorji]

What can you infer about learning speed based on age that you can't infer based on years of experience?

[CobrastanJorji]

What if you replace age with "experience?" A candidate who has been working for 10 years as a software engineer but is worse at it than a candidate who has been working for 2 years is a worse candidate, if you're looking to hire someone who can grow. However, I don't think it should matter at what age those candidates' years of experience started.

Is it impressive that a 22 year old has 6 years of professional experience? Yes, certainly. Does it mean that they'll be better than a 40 year old with 6 years of equivalent experience? It's possible, but I suspect it'd be a weak signal at best.