As a user group leader, I meet programmers with a wide variety of experience and in a wide variety of age groups. One thing I have noticed over the years is that developers who are older who don't have hard core experience with current tools, seem to have a hard time finding a job. When I say older, I guess I'm thinking about 50+ (and boy, am I closing in on that myself!) Since they don't have the deep experience, a Jr. level programming position seems to be the right fit for them. Yet the story I hear repeatedly is that they are met with an unspoken reaction that they are too old and not taken seriously for othe position.
But too old for what? To be called “Junior”? To “learn new tricks”? To fit in to a “young“ environment? I don't quite get it.
When I went to South Africa for TechEd two falls ago, it seemed that us “old folks“ were lookd up to. Because of the relatively young economy, there does not seem to be a whole lot of programmers who have been around for a while and have a lot of experience, history and wisdom to share.
So, what's the equation here?
I know so many companies that are having a hard time finding programmers to hire. So why would people with experience (and nice personalities) have a hard time finding jobs? Why is it that the common denominator of these people is that they are all over 50? This is not from some wide-based research, but just from my experience of talking to people and wondering about it myself and wishing that I had some advice to give them.
Let's think of some specific scenarios:
1) Imagine a person with 20 years of programming experience that has been learning .NET for a year (maybe taking classes or doing some self-paced online learning) but has not had a specific .NET job yet.
- What type of .NET job would this person qualify for?
- How does this person compare to a college grad with a CompSci degree but no work experience?
2) Imagine a person that has been outsourced from another industry where they had many years of experience and has been taking programming classes for a year.
- What type of .NET job would you hire this person for?