anonOver60 (u/anonOver60)

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

vertol · 7 years ago

My team would like to take a look at your resume. Shoot me an email with your resume (and linkedin profile link if you have one) at vertol.next@gmail.com.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

I'm sorry - my brain says "recruiter" when I read your message for some reason. I'm not sure what it is pattern matching on. If you can assure me that you're not a recruiter I'd be happy to send you my resume, although a little more information about what your company does would be helpful.

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

darreld · 7 years ago

I'm in the exact same boat and would love to hear some ideas.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

There should be a market for people like us. My personal network is not large enough to build a practice around. Have you had any ideas on this?

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

mojomark · 7 years ago

Your resume sounds interesting to me. If you're willing to relocate to DC (although there could be some west coast or consultant type roles), we are looking for folks with your type of background to enhance our AI capabilities. At the level you describe, we're looking for active/direct leadership.

I'm an engineer myself, not a recruiter, but if you want to post an email, I'll take your resume and share it with the right people.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

I do like the DC area but we have kids living in the Bay Area and my wife doesn't want to move away from them. If there is some way to work with you with that constraint I'd be interested.

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

techcode · 7 years ago

Reading through your comments/replies (e.g.: "knack for listening to customer", "generalist", "can setup machines"...etc) make me think I'll be in your shoes once I reach your age... Hence I have to ask - any advice you would give to younger self?

Should I focus on having some/one/few "unique selling propositions" - something I can say I'm expert in? And what would those be?

Anyway back to trying to give you (and other younger folks) some answers.

I've been interviewing candidates for a while. From technical phone interviews, over F2F, and now mostly so called Fit interviews.

And first time I interviewed someone with CS PhD that they have since around the time I was born - I was happy to be paired with another older colleague.

Not that I was scared/intimidated or felt inadequate. I was really worried about candidate getting impression we're a bunch of "teenagers" ;)

So actually on that point I've got nothing for anonOver60 - other than saying to others that instead of being intimidated, you should just be yourself and there is nothing to worry about.

If the candidate is good - being more experienced they'll know how to handle situation in a way that won't make you feel like 2nd class compared to them.

I second the idea of different/customized CV for different roles/positions. In fact each place/position you apply for should be it's own tuned/customized veraion of generic CV..

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

The advice I've given to younger generalists like me is to force yourself to become an expert on something. That's what people are used to seeing when they are hiring. Pick something long-lasting like databases or search or machine learning.

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

souprock · 7 years ago

Well, there is your problem. This is the "why you might not even do a phone interview" issue. Off to the reject pile you go.

Put yourself in our shoes, and see how similar the frustration is: Why are you rejecting us? We hire people older than you, we have interesting work, the finances probably work out better... but you reject us.

If at some point you decide to evacuate California, we'll still be around: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17912861

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

The main reason is we have 4 kids living in the Bay Area and my wife doesn't want to move away from them.

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

01100011 · 7 years ago

Look for an engineering services firm and work as a subcontractor. We're currently employing several guys who are 60 (+/-5). Also... sorry... but try the defense industry. They have insanely low standards.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

OP: Not sure why you are down-voted. The HackerNews Community seems to dislike telling the truth if it is surrounded by even a hint of negativity.

Can you be more specific about what you mean by "engineering services firm"?

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

prisionif · 7 years ago

Why aren't you running your own business, maybe as a consultant? You shouldn't be selling your services but your knowledge.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

Actually, I would appreciate some advice on this. I truly don't know what services to sell. I can set up machines, design databases, write graph algorithms, train machine learning models, design web services, etc. But I'm not a "leading expert" on any of those things. I'm a generalist and usually have an answer for any problem I run into simply because I've run into it before. How do I market myself as a general problem solver?

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

jetcata · 7 years ago

I want to say that people might feel intimidated by your resume. Maybe try excluding all but the most relevant degree and heavily tailoring the rest.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

I have run into this in the past. Usually a Technical Lead or Director of Engineering is grumpy, gives me a very perfunctory 5-minute interview, has clearly already made up their mind. It was just a waste of time for me and their company.

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

codewritinfool · 7 years ago

Interested in moving to St. Louis? I'd like to talk to you.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

OP. I'm originally from the midwest but we'd like to stay in California for now. I'll keep you in mind, though.

anonOver60 commented on Ask HN: Over 60 = no engineering jobs? · Posted by u/anonOver60

rb808 · 7 years ago

I wonder if its ethical to change some of the dates. Eg if you graduated in 1980 it makes it obvious how old you are. If you leave dates blank it kinda doesn't make much difference, but if you said you graduated in 2000 it would mean you get an interview at least.

Edit - I get it the issue will come up at some stage. But explaining why you changed the dates later in the process is better than not getting an interview.

anonOver60 · 7 years ago

Absolutely not! It's a slippery slope when one starts fudging "just a little".