[ajmat]

Originally Posted by adithya.kp

Glad he found a job. How did he manage to stay positive during that period? Did you get a chance to ask it?. That will help. One of my friends was in a similar position and he gave up after a few months. For people in 40's/50's, things are ok as long as the current job is stable. But the moment they try elsewhere, (voluntary or otherwise), they will face the reality, regardless of how good they are.

I’ve been there and wrote about it. You can read about it here

[SoumenD]

Originally Posted by speedmiester

No client wants folks above 50 years. In fact, today clients want folks who are under 45 years and less said about my startup clients, the better.

Originally Posted by Samurai

... Someone with such a rich resume could be jobless for a year just highlights how bad the scene is for 50+ people looking for a job.

45?50? Have you guys seen the condition of folks with 15 years experience already? They would be sub 40 and already struggling to get a call. I know quite a few folks around that experience level struggling to secure even a call post covid restructuring, let alone getting an offer. Am not sure what's the reason for this Age-ism but can it be because we don't have too many folks in IT who actually retired yet and hence upper echelon where a 40+ person is expected to settle(by Indian standards mind you) is already kinda saturated? How many leads and managers can you have in a company?

I am past mid-30s(15years exp now) and if another recession hits and I loose my current job, I really doubt getting a new job would be as simple as it was till I was in early 30s(10-12 years exp). Just for the kicks, I floated my resume online and boy I managed to get only 1 call in last 3 months(mind you plenty of openings in my domain but all for folks upto 12 years).

Looking at this problem being faced by 40+ folks, I have realized the importance of "Financial Independence" like never before. Am sure quite a few folks here know of the 'F.I.R.E' movement. While 'R.E' is not much of a priority, 'F.I' should be the target when you hit 40s. Once you have FI cushion, you can breathe better in adverse scenarios and follow your passion. Just my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by ajmat

I’ve been there and wrote about it. You can read about it here

Very nice read sir

[m8002?]

One key reason why companies dont want senior people is because of the huge pay scale difference between a 7 and 15 years experienced guys for doing similar work. And this is more pronounced in cases of new skill sets. Consider something like an opening for MLOps. I have 2 candidates - both with 3 years experience in MLOps but 1 with overall 6 years and another with overall 15 years. The senior guy's prior experience in C, VB, or whatever is not of much use.

This is something India specific. I have teams in NA where we have Sr. Engineers with both 7 years and 20 years experience. Their salaries are not very different with maybe a 15-20% difference. That doesnt happen here. Many want the number of years of experience to dictate the designation and salary, not skillset and suitability for the job ( Ex. 10 years mean I am an architect and demand 40 lacs irrespective of what I have done or what I know ).

It is high time we move away from the govt./psu way of giving a promotion/increment based purely on number of years of experience.

[white-power]

Originally Posted by m8002?

I have 2 candidates - both with 3 years experience in MLOps but 1 with overall 6 years and another with overall 15 years. The senior guy's prior experience in C, VB, or whatever is not of much use.

This is true for most service based companies. Most of these people are billed to the customer and usually the billing rates only depend on the role name and not the YoE. So why should the service company pay more to the guy with higher YoE if he is only going to generate the same revenue as a person with half that YoE.

But, things differ in product companies and startups. People of higher YoE bring with them the thing that matters most - experience. Experience is not a substitute for skill, but skills can be acquired as needed but what you gain by experience requires you spend time on the job.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by m8002?

The senior guy's prior experience in C, VB, or whatever is not of much use.

This got me curious, so I checked the Tiobe Index, which tracks the popularity and relevance of programming languages.





According to this, C is still in the top 2, a position it has maintained for a very long time. And visual basic is in 6th position and actually growing in popularity.

Originally Posted by m8002?

This is something India specific. I have teams in NA where we have Sr. Engineers with both 7 years and 20 years experience.

Senior programmers usually have domain knowledge that takes many years to develop. If they don't have domain knowledge because they kept switching domains, then there is no reason to pay them higher than juniors. This generally happens in services industry.

[padmrajravi]

Originally Posted by m8002?

Consider something like an opening for MLOps. I have 2 candidates - both with 3 years experience in MLOps but 1 with overall 6 years and another with overall 15 years. The senior guy's prior experience in C, VB, or whatever is not of much use.

Originally Posted by Samurai

According to this, C is still in the top 2, a position it has maintained for a very long time. And visual basic is in 6th position and actually growing in popularity.

I think what he meant is about the use of C and VB in the specific domain he is hiring. C or VB is of no use for an MLOps role. I see this pattern in my line of work as well. People who have moved to new skills will usually require a salary proportional to their overall experience even though their earlier skills may not be of use for the specific role.

Now that I am closing in on 12 years of experience, I see this problem with my CV as well. I think if one is staying in the service-based industry, at some point in time, he will need to move to a sales role or team-building role. Being billable stops being an alternative once you cross about 10 years of experience because the salary will not be viable for the typical billing rates.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by Samurai

C is still in the top 2, a position it has maintained for a very long time. And visual basic is in 6th position and actually growing in popularity.

Originally Posted by padmrajravi

I think what he meant is about the use of C and VB in the specific domain he is hiring. C or VB is of no use for an MLOps role. I see this pattern in my line of work as well. People who have moved to new skills will usually require a salary proportional to their overall experience even though their earlier skills may not be of use for the specific role.
.

Padmarajravi explained it well. I never contested the use/familiarity of C, VB. Just that its not relevant to the position's requirements and the candidates experience in that is moot. I would still pay him more for his experience in handling releases, customer escalations, etc if the role demands it.

Originally Posted by Samurai

Senior programmers usually have domain knowledge that takes many years to develop. If they don't have domain knowledge because they kept switching domains, then there is no reason to pay them higher than juniors. This generally happens in services industry.

True that. But I have seen this in product companies as well.

[kvsriki]

Originally Posted by Samurai

According to this, C is still in the top 2, a position it has maintained for a very long time. And visual basic is in 6th position and actually growing in popularity.

Most of the following we use today are written in C:

• Linux kernel
• Most of the UNIX utilities
• Windows kernel, written in C and C++
• iOS and OSX, written in C and Objective-C
• Android, with its interface written in Java
• Java Runtime Engine (JRE) and Java VM
• Compilers and Interpreters
• Databases, like MySql, Postgres, Oracle DB, Redis

And the list goes on!

Not surprised that it is still up there in the ranks

[motorpsycho]

Originally Posted by ajmat

I’ve been there and wrote about it. You can read about it here

It is amazing how people think that older people are out of sync with current happenings. My US counterparts who are much more senior to me in exp and age, with who I work with closely, are aware on the on-goings, we discuss the latest Video Games, new cars and TV series, most of them are on reddit too.

I have also observed, they make excellent mentors, help youngsters navigate through their professional lives.

[ampere]

With experience it is the vision, breadth of understanding and maturity that some one would like to hire for and not just the depth of technical skill alone.

Usually depth part will get saturated at some point in time (give 10-15 years) or can be complemented with a younger blood (under the guidance of a visionary). Hence its the experience, the amount of vision and leadership is what one looks for at higher levels of hiring.

[anand.shankar82]

My 2 cents on this is that the issue is not pay-related or skill-related that 40+ folks are unable to find new jobs

I think the mindset of recruiters is that older folks also have aging families (aging parents, in-laws, wife) and growing kids (probably in crucial school years). This makes HR think that older folks will need more days off every year and company loses billing from them for those days. I also think somehow the median age of the workforce of a company may affect the price at which it procures the group mediclaim and life insurance policies from insurance cos. and the higher the median age, the higher the cost (they consider this as loss to company maybe)

I cannot say that above are 100% true but somehow I get that feeling.

I say this because a friend of mine with 20+ years experience has been trying to switch from his current company but gets no calls ever. AND, recently a junior (7 yrs experience) was added to his very team with the same skills and does the same job and even earns more than my friend does. Logic? Could not understand really

[nitin_knw]

Originally Posted by am1m

Some jobs have been so rigid that we've had to reject candidates who are obviously much more intelligent and better suited for the role in favor of a candidate who just happened to have the required experience on a particular tool...but was totally incompetent otherwise!

I literally hate that 'Keyword' approach of selecting candidates. Did a human evolve in the womb? It was his desire to learn and the right platform in the real world that helped him evolve. There is a first time for everyone. I agree that a candidate has to be judged by his qualities and skill that he possesses rather than just by keywords in his resume.

I remember when I was new to IT industry, domain and IT skill, I handled a time driven & complex project in my early days and did it well.

I feel terrible when I see HRs of so called esteemed organizations do not posses the right skill to hire a deserving candidate. They seem to be just part of the hierarchy rather than each one standing out, which should be a crucial part of organization success.

BTW, go and watch the series Cubicle season 2. The character 'RDX' exactly depicts life of a senior resource in the IT industry.

Originally Posted by speedmiester

This is one of the reason why I insist on working with the Hiring Managers. The business folks understand the importance of the role and candidate, they will never base their decisions on trivial factors like age, compensation etc.

I appreciate your out of the box thinking and hope that others follow the same.

[BhayanaV]

Majority of MNC's will not allow jobs beyond certain level/hierarchy to be shifted to India, these jobs will in all probability stay at the corporate headquarters. Very few bigger organizations have higher level jobs in India.

Private jobs started coming to India not very long ago (typically the jobs we see today in MNC's). I think when the first set of people in these jobs will turn 50+ years old, new avenues will open gradually (which I can follow in 10 years).

[JReacher13]

Over the last 12 years of my career in Quality assurance, Operations, R&D and Management consulting, I was interacting with HR on a continuous basis. I feel I met most capable and empathetic HR professionals in my early career (during 2008) and what I feel is that the quality of manpower in HR and out look of businesses on HR was on a diminishing trend.

Earlier HR managers and leaders I interacted used to have a strong functional understanding of the role which is now at a superficial level. I seriously hope this only an outlier experience limited to my interactions and not a general trend.

[nitin_knw]

Originally Posted by anand.shankar82

My 2 cents on this is that the issue is not pay-related or skill-related that 40+ folks are unable to find new jobs

I think the mindset of recruiters is that older folks also have aging families (aging parents, in-laws, wife) and growing kids (probably in crucial school years). This makes HR think that older folks will need more days off every year and company loses billing from them for those days. I also think somehow the median age of the workforce of a company may affect the price at which it procures the group mediclaim and life insurance policies from insurance cos. and the higher the median age, the higher the cost (they consider this as loss to company maybe)

I cannot say that above are 100% true but somehow I get that feeling.

I say this because a friend of mine with 20+ years experience has been trying to switch from his current company but gets no calls ever. AND, recently a junior (7 yrs experience) was added to his very team with the same skills and does the same job and even earns more than my friend does. Logic? Could not understand really

The only Logic I see here is just to 'save cost' no matter what absurd decision they make, regarding medical issue's I see people in 50's to be more healthier than in 30's and lot of this is due to lifestyle change.

I do not have any hope of any deviation in hiring process in Indian IT industry for experienced folk's, I find US,UK & Canada exactly opposite and having a liberalized approach for experienced folk I see many retiring and haven't see 1 here so disgusting