The perils of ageism in high-tech

Have you ever gone through a job inter­view on the phone that seems to have gone well and then it falls flat when the hir­ing team meets you in person?

What hap­pened? Per­haps you did­n’t sell your­self well? Were your salary expec­ta­tions too high? Or was the team most­ly in their twen­ties and did­n’t think you’d be a “good fit” because of your age?

I haven’t expe­ri­enced ageism first-hand but Sil­i­con Val­ley is infa­mous for its dis­crim­i­na­tion of old­er work­ers. In a New Repub­lic arti­cle called “The Bru­tal Ageism of Tech,” author Noam Scheiber writes: “Sil­i­con Val­ley has become one of the most ageist places in Amer­i­ca. Tech lumi­nar­ies who oth­er­wise pride them­selves on their ded­i­ca­tion to mer­i­toc­ra­cy don’t think twice about derid­ing the not-actu­al­ly-old. ‘Young peo­ple are just smarter,’ Face­book CEO Mark Zucker­berg told an audi­ence at Stan­ford back in 2007.”

Andrew Davis, a recruiter of tech­ni­cal writ­ers and train­ers, sees age-relat­ed dis­crim­i­na­tion first-hand and helps job can­di­dates resolve these issues. In a recent webi­nar, he said that hir­ing teams and man­agers may be con­cerned about hir­ing work­ers for the fol­low­ing reasons:

• Cul­tur­al fit: Man­agers and teams want work­ers to share the same work styles.  “They (the hir­ing team) works long hours. They don’t have lives or bal­anced lives. And they often want you to drink the Kool-Aid,” said Davis, who runs Syn­er­gis­tech Com­mu­ni­ca­tions in California.
• Health: Orga­ni­za­tions in the U.S. may wor­ry about the health costs for insur­ing an old­er work­er. In Cana­da, hir­ing man­agers and teams may be sim­i­lar­ly con­cerned about the health and the ener­gy lev­el of an old­er candidate.
• Tol­er­ance for chaos: Some teams love the adren­a­line rush of not decid­ing on a giv­en path, whether it’s the name of a prod­uct, a tech­nol­o­gy to use, or a user inter­face to select. In con­trast, old­er tech­ni­cal writ­ers may not enjoy the pro­longed ambi­gu­i­ty. Some­times jus­ti­fi­ably, expe­ri­enced writ­ers may feel that the inde­ci­sion ham­pers their abil­i­ty to meet deadlines.
• Flex­i­bil­i­ty: Mem­bers of start-ups enter­tain the cheap­er tools such as wikis and open source con­tent man­age­ment sys­tems. Old­er work­ers may bris­tle at the idea of using these tools when, in their view, there are supe­ri­or and well-estab­lished (but more expen­sive) tools avail­able.  In addi­tion, teams at start-ups may want a new hire to wear many hats, such as tech­ni­cal writer, mar­ket­ing writer, and e‑learner spe­cial­ist. Old­er work­ers may not embrace being a gen­er­al­ist. In my expe­ri­ence, find­ing a niche is a bet­ter career strategy.
• Open seat­ing par­a­digm: If the orga­ni­za­tion uses an open-con­cept seat­ing mod­el, the team may see this as a way to increase spon­tane­ity and fos­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion. For the old­er can­di­date, all this spon­tane­ity feels like end­less inter­rup­tions that thwarts one’s abil­i­ty to write.

Also, I would add to Davis’s list “com­pla­cen­cy.” I have known col­leagues who chal­lenge them­selves in their careers and nab a desir­able job with a sought-after title. Maybe the job is a Tech­ni­cal Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ager role. Per­haps it’s a Senior Tech­ni­cal Writer posi­tion. After they set­tle into the new role and demon­strate suc­cess for some peri­od of time, they appear to stop learn­ing. It’s as if they’ve reached their goal and don’t want to push them­selves any­more. I wrote a blog entry about com­pla­cen­cy.

Techniques to land the job

Despite some of the per­ceived short­com­ings of being old­er, an expe­ri­enced work­er adds val­ue to an orga­ni­za­tion in a myr­i­ad of ways. Here are some qual­i­ties that Davis mentioned:

• Effi­cien­cy and focus: Expe­ri­enced work­ers know what method­olo­gies and tech­niques work and when to apply them.
• Pac­ing: Sea­soned work­ers know how to pace them­selves with­out burn­ing out.
• Self-aware­ness: Vet­er­ans under­stand their strengths and weak­ness­es and when to seek help.
• Clar­i­ty: Expe­ri­enced work­ers know when and how to set clear expectations.

If you are an old­er work­er and feel that ageism may be a fac­tor in the hir­ing deci­sion, Davis rec­om­mends that you put the needs of the hir­ing teams first, don’t lec­ture or bul­ly with expe­ri­ence, earn trust, make the hir­ing teams look good, and find ways to become indis­pens­able. A few years ago, I read mar­ket­ing guru Seth God­in’s book Linch­pin: Are You Indis­pens­able? Well worth the read.

Have you expe­ri­enced ageism? Were you able to over­come the hir­ing team’s objections?