[ted_bunny]

I wonder how much the culture of standardized testing has contributed to this pattern. The idea that it's somehow unfair to test relevant skills and knowledge because previous exposure comes down to simple chance. That for a test to be "objective" it should only ask about abstract matters no one would ever reasonably encounter. It strikes me as sort of essentialist.

It also seems sort of contradictory... if experience in the field is one of the most important criteria, why are they implicitly avoiding testing for that?

[ChrisMarshallNY]

> if experience in the field is one of the most important criteria, why are they implicitly avoiding testing for that?

That's easy. No one wants to hire "olds."

Since companies are now run by twenty-something CEOs, no one wants to hire people that make the CEO uncomfortable.

It really is that simple. Basic bigotry. In my experience, many companies don't even try to hide it. Recruiters are awful.

I just learned that if I see a binary tree problem, the company is just yanking my chain. It's not worth trying.

[gepardi]

This never occurred to me but it makes sense.

I’m in my late 30s. Not too far from being older than many tech CEOs and I have seen plenty of BS I could call out.

I have a family, mortgage, and am not “wowed” by some slick CEO.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

Many of these young CEOs are really brilliant folks. They deserve to be given a fairly free rein.

However, there's a big difference between brilliance, and good judgment.

Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

When a CEO makes a mistake, there's usually only one strike, and you're out (we won't talk about Steve Jobs, though -that SOB had nine lives). When lower-level managers make mistakes, it's often recoverable.

Until recently, it was fairly common for corporations to be run by folks (usually men, but that's another issue) in their fifties.

These folks had no problems considering older folks on their merits (which often included price). If they discriminated against older folks, it was usually because they didn't want to pay for something. It wasn't really personal (but that doesn't make it any less reprehensible). Younger folks, on the other hand, bring in the younger generation's resentment against their elders, so it is personal.

Many folks think that only younger folks are creative. I'd not argue that youth doesn't have a great deal of creative energy; mostly because they haven't encountered limitations, imposed by things like the laws of physics.

Creativity, however, does not equal results. What SpaceX has done with reusable boosters, is awesome. I do not know the details, but I'll bet the team that developed it was not just a bunch of enthusiastic kids. I'll lay odds there's a lot of well-coiffed grey pompadours in that team.

IBM is in hot water, because they adopted a "cargo cult" mentality, that, if they hired enough younger folks (and got rid of their "olds"), they'd magically transform into a startup unicorn.

I don't think that strategy has actually worked out too well.

[airbreather]

Maybe solo dev of niche product is a better alley for some?

[ChrisMarshallNY]

It's the one I chose.

Works for me, but I have different ambitions from most folks in the industry.

I've never really wanted to be rich. It would be nice, but it's never been a need.

I do, however, have skills that could make other people rich. They have been so fixated on my gray hair, though, that they never even realized that.