So, who would you hire?

[irvinehusky]

Let's say you're the president of realgeekywidgets.com.  You decided Texas wasn't all it was advertised to be.  Oh, that awful humidity, heat and the tornado that blew off your company roof was the last straw.  And, not to mention all  those guys wearing cowboy hats and boots (static electricity is not good for widgets) to work with first names of Damon.   

Well, anyway, you move your company back to a place known to be almost as nice as heaven...Irvine.  Not all those cowboys wanted to move over and become surfers so you have a few IT positions to fill.

Somehow, you only seem to get job applications from the youngs ones just recently out of UC Irvine with their shiny B.S. (appropriately named) in Computer Science degrees (read, they know kaput, so you'll be paying to train them for a few years at least) or poor old guys over 50 (I'm one of them so don't flame me) with lots of experience that seem to be the latest victims of job discrimination (no, I still have my job fortunately).

Who would you hire; the young guy or the older guy?  Why and what would it depend on?
http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/81562

Note: All characters mentioned in this thread are fictitious and all resemblance to
real persons, living or dead is purely a coincidence.

 

[qwerty]

id hire the young ones. while you are paying them to train them, you are paying them a lot less.  everyone one wants to hire experience, but if you dont hire the young ones where will they get experience?

 

[qwerty]

im planning to retire at 55, so hopefully age discrimination doesnt bite me in the ass at some point. 

 

[irvinehusky]

I hope your plans (dreams?) turn out better than mine.  I was hoping to be sipping the cold ones in my backyard all day long, every day of the week, when I hit 40 but at this point, I don't know if I'll ever be doing that. 

im planning to retire at 55, so hopefully age discrimination doesnt bite me in the ass at some point.

 

[irvinehusky]

When I started working, it was almost unheard of for someone just starting out on the job to be making anything close to the guy that was there for instance 10 years.  Of course, we're talking about comparing similar jobs within the company.

Nowadays, in some fields, especially computer and engineering related, the starting pay is very high so I'm not sure we can always say the recent grad is a good deal.  It would be a good deal if he/she were the next Bill Gates, etc.

Because of the age discrimination (yes, it's there), older employees "might" stick around longer than younger employees that could jump around and get higher pay.  Then, all that training would be wasted.

I'm not saying there's a correct answer.  It's hard to decide.  Of course, you know which age group I sympathize with. 

id hire the young ones. while you are paying them to train them, you are paying them a lot less.  everyone one wants to hire experience, but if you dont hire the young ones where will they get experience?

 

[qwerty]

I hope your plans (dreams?) turn out better than mine.  I was hoping to be sipping the cold ones in my backyard all day long, every day of the week, when I hit 40 but at this point, I don't know if I'll ever be doing that. 

im planning to retire at 55, so hopefully age discrimination doesnt bite me in the ass at some point.

definitely not a dream, even with just cost of living adjustments to my wifes and i salaries we are on a path to retire at 55. with that said, who knows what can happen that could derail the current plan.

 

[irvinehusky]

I know a lot of you that are here are very determined and goal oriented so I'm sure many of you will achieve your dreams/goals early.

Good luck.

I hope your plans (dreams?) turn out better than mine.  I was hoping to be sipping the cold ones in my backyard all day long, every day of the week, when I hit 40 but at this point, I don't know if I'll ever be doing that. 

im planning to retire at 55, so hopefully age discrimination doesnt bite me in the ass at some point.

definitely not a dream, even with just cost of living adjustments to my wifes and i salaries we are on a path to retire at 55. with that said, who knows what can happen that could derail the current plan.

 

[cubiczirconia]

Who would you hire; the young guy applicant or the older guy applicant ? 

Fixed. Gender bias- not fair
How about you find Mr. Middle, someone in 30s who has some experience, and wants to get ahead?

 

[cubiczirconia]

I hope your plans (dreams?) turn out better than mine.  I was hoping to be sipping the cold ones in my backyard all day long, every day of the week, when I hit 40 but at this point, I don't know if I'll ever be doing that. 

im planning to retire at 55, so hopefully age discrimination doesnt bite me in the ass at some point.

definitely not a dream, even with just cost of living adjustments to my wifes and i salaries we are on a path to retire at 55. with that said, who knows what can happen that could derail the current plan.

I thought you were around 35, no kids yet. When you are 55, you will have a kid in college if you guys are pregnant now (kind of catching up with the new fashion of calling couple pregnant, rather than calling just the woman)  By retire, you mean take care of that one also?

My retirement comes a bit early. Any day mommy taxi pulls into the garage permanently, I am retired. 11 years to go

 

[nosuchreality]

Companies either need experience or they don't.  It really is that simple.
The second simple fact is the company really needs less experience and skill than they used to.  A couple highly skilled people and then an army of drones is the way much tech work is going.

 

[irvinehusky]

Sorry for the insensitivity and thank you for fixing my error.

It would be too easy if we included people in the middle.  We're assuming those people already have jobs and clinging on desperately to them right now.

Who would you hire; the young guy applicant or the older guy applicant ? 

Fixed. Gender bias- not fair
How about you find Mr. Middle, someone in 30s who has some experience, and wants to get ahead?

 

[qwerty]

I hope your plans (dreams?) turn out better than mine.  I was hoping to be sipping the cold ones in my backyard all day long, every day of the week, when I hit 40 but at this point, I don't know if I'll ever be doing that. 

im planning to retire at 55, so hopefully age discrimination doesnt bite me in the ass at some point.

definitely not a dream, even with just cost of living adjustments to my wifes and i salaries we are on a path to retire at 55. with that said, who knows what can happen that could derail the current plan.

I thought you were around 35, no kids yet. When you are 55, you will have a kid in college if you guys are pregnant now (kind of catching up with the new fashion of calling couple pregnant, rather than calling just the woman)  By retire, you mean take care of that one also?

My retirement comes a bit early. Any day mommy taxi pulls into the garage permanently, I am retired. 11 years to go

i am 35.  retiring at 55 considers having up to 2 kids in college, which is already calculated into me retiring at 55. 

 

[irvinehomeowner]

If you have more than one position open, I would hire a mix of both... maybe they can learn from each other.

The other questions here are cost, goals, type of positions etc... if you were looking for a manager, I would go with the experience, if you are looking for entry level, I would go for the college grad.

The thing is, while most "yoots" don't have "real world" work experience, many in the Computer Science field are hobbyists and know a lot of things about a wide variety of IT-related subjects. You may find someone who happens to be an excellent programmer because that's what they do in their spare time. For the older set, you may run into issues with "old dog new tricks" and while they may have the experience, they may be too set in their ways to adapt or change to present-day techniques.

Either way there can be retention baggage... like some have posted, the youngers ones tend to be transitional and will not stay... but that doesn't mean the older ones will either. You may find that the younger ones want to stay in order to move up as long as you give them a good work environment and room to grow. And while the older employee may tend to be more loyal, their time with you may be limited just by age alone.

I think a harder dilemma is how to retain that person once you put time and training into them, old or young.

 

[momopi]

First, ask yourself what kind of person you want for the job position.  Do you want someone who's good at following directions, or giving directions?

I've been working in the IT field for over 15 years and have seen numerous team management methods thrown at the workers.  Seems that every few years there's some new method.  Waterfall, spiral, kanban, agile, scrum, pair/mob, etc.  But in the end it still comes down to who can give orders/tasks and who can take them, even in so called self managing scrum teams (you still need someone to push things along).

People who like to argue or invent a better wheel all the time don't always fit in teams well.  Worse, perfectionist type who likes to refactor code all day.

 

[socal78]

i am 35.  retiring at 55 considers having up to 2 kids in college, which is already calculated into me retiring at 55. 

Does it also afford Mrs. Qwerty the option of being able to stay home and take care of her babies if she wants to and for as long as she wants to?

 

[irvinehusky]

Sounds like a Japanese company.  If so, my sympathies.  Me too. 

First, ask yourself what kind of person you want for the job position.  Do you want someone who's good at following directions, or giving directions?

I've been working in the IT field for over 15 years and have seen numerous team management methods thrown at the workers.  Seems that every few years there's some new method.  Waterfall, spiral, kanban, agile, scrum, pair/mob, etc.  But in the end it still comes down to who can give orders/tasks and who can take them, even in so called self managing scrum teams (you still need someone to push things along).

People who like to argue or invent a better wheel all the time don't always fit in teams well.  Worse, perfectionist type who likes to refactor code all day.

 

[irvinehomeowner]

I like people who like to invent a better wheel... it means they are always trying to improve things.

There isn't a catch-all management method... the best manager is one who knows how to cater to each employee: micro-manage one, let the other be self-sufficient, give tasks/goals to another... etc etc. Additionally, a good manager knows how to not only manage down... but also manage up.

 

[qwerty]

i am 35.  retiring at 55 considers having up to 2 kids in college, which is already calculated into me retiring at 55. 

Does it also afford Mrs. Qwerty the option of being able to stay home and take care of her babies if she wants to and for as long as she wants to?

the retirement plan allows her not to work for up to a year with each of the two kids we are planning to have.  my wife is not the stay at home mom type, she could probably do it for a short period of time but would get bored sooner rather than later.  Also, her deciding to stay home permanently would leave a lot of money on the table, and that would push the retirement plan back (assuming i only get cost of living adjustments).  if she was not a professional and made a much lower amount where her net salary wasnt that much more than daycare/nanny then financially it would make sense for her to stay at home.

 

[Liar Loan]

I think older IT workers tend to be more dedicated and harder working than new graduates.  A lot of the Gen Y crowd have had everything handed to them on a silver platter their whole lives and don't know the meaning of hard work.  They might be cockier about their coding skills than an older established worker and believe they don't have to work hard because of it. 

The problem with hiring older is they sometimes have a hard time fitting in with an IT department that skews younger in age.  You don't want to disrupt the team chemistry by hiring somebody that doesn't fit in well.  This is the main source of age discrimination that I've witnessed by IT hiring managers. 

In the end, you have to consider the total package, what you are paying out and what you are getting in return.  There is no right answer based on age alone, but I'm more partial to the older IT worker that works hard and doesn't have an ego.

 

[momopi]

Sounds like a Japanese company.  If so, my sympathies.  Me too. 

No...  I used to work for a company that had strict delivery deadlines with penalties.  The deliverables are scheduled on daily basis and the customer's QA team will inspect the previous day's work starting at 8AM.  If there's any delays, bugs, or missed deadlines we pay a penalty on daily basis.  I had to quit that job due to high blood pressure (158, near level 2 hypertension).  I had teams working until 5 AM and girls complaining to me that they haven't seen their babies for 2 days.

I did used to consult for subsidiaries of Honda, and have to say that the Japanese are quite strict on quality even for beta.  From their point of view beta means it's as good as production.

I like people who like to invent a better wheel... it means they are always trying to improve things.
There isn't a catch-all management method... the best manager is one who knows how to cater to each employee: micro-manage one, let the other be self-sufficient, give tasks/goals to another... etc etc. Additionally, a good manager knows how to not only manage down... but also manage up.

The kind of team member that I want is very simple, someone who can do the work and be On Target, On Time, and On Budget.

The order indicates importance.  On Target is the first and most important, to deliver what the customer needs, which often differs from what customers want.  You need to do your due diligence and speak to the customer to collect user stories and find out exact what they need, and not what they think they need.  Delivering an off-target product on-time would mean having to spend more time to fix it afterwards.

On Time is the second most important, followed by On Budget.  Between the two it's better to pay OT and have your guys finish the project on-time.  A happy customer is a customer that will return.  Trying to save a buck now and lose out on future opportunities is bad business.  On Time is also where you want to avoid perfectionists who want to refactor code all day or try to reinvent a better wheel.  Yes optimizing code is great, but it's something that you do when there's down time, not when you're facing a deadline.