By Natasha Lomas, 21 August 2007 15:00
NEWS
Ageism has not only contributed to the UK's IT skills crisis, say readers of silicon.com, but is "rife" in the tech industry.
Responding to results from the exclusive silicon.com 2007 Skills Survey which revealed employers are finding it increasingly difficult to fill IT positions in their organisations, many readers point to discrimination against older workers as a key factor in any industry skills shortages.
An unemployed reader from Virginia, US, said: "When are companies going to wake up and see the correlation between a shortage of skilled talent and their own discrimination against hiring anyone over 45? There are many of us out here who have a wealth of experience and are looking for work but can't even get an interview due to their age."
A reader from South Wales added: "Once I was over 45 the work just dried up and I became effectively unemployable."
Another anonymous reader - hailing from Woking - echoed this sentiment: "One major problem is that there are a lot of highly experienced and competent folks out there - but they are older than 45 and so must be senile - or so it seems."
Skills Survey 2007: the results
Find out from this year's Skills Survey:
♦
Are CIOs getting less cash?
♦ How the staffing crisis is deepening
♦ How techie salaries are faring
♦ Offshoring still a hot potato
According to this reader, ageist recruitment attitudes are a result of "HR departments being staffed by 20-somethings to whom anyone over 40 is old and beyond 50 is possibly speaking from a coffin or a home for the elderly whilst imbibing a Horlicks".
The reader added: "They must wake up and realise that older people have a load of experience that can solve many of the problems of skill shortages. We need to actively stamp out ageism in both of these areas (and I do promise you it is rife)."
Consultant Chris Stevens, a silicon.com reader from London, sees the skills crisis as the combined consequence of ageism and outsourcing.
He said: "The younger generation have it clearly in their mind that IT is a dead-end and their jobs will be outsourced. At the other end of the scale once past 40 and the IT professional is unable to think or be retrained.
"Industry should actually invest in people and show that IT personnel are respected."
But for some readers, the skills crisis is due to technical skills being undervalued by businesses which are reluctance to invest properly in training and acquiring skilled staff.
Anil, a software engineer from Bangalore, wrote: "The problem is that many IT departments of businesses have people who don't really value the technical skills and feel that they can easily be acquired which we in the tech industry know is not easy or as simple as it is."
Another reader, Mark Hosey from Scotland, said: "There is no skills shortage in technical personnel. There is just a refusal to use the perfectly adequate resources presently available in the technical employment market and a reluctance to provide either formal or on-the-job training for new starts."
Hosey added: "It is symptomatic of today's business culture that requires companies to maximise their profits with the least amount of investment."
Is ageism rife in IT? Are you over 40 and finding it increasingly difficult to find work? Tell us your view by posting a Reader Comment below or emailing editorial@silicon.com.
Comments
There are 11 comments. Join the discussion
1. Anil Srikantiah
Hi,
One of the reasons for Ageism and Outsourcing is the though among non technical persons in Industry that Technical guys are not worth the money they are demanding .I think this is the crux of the problem. Some innovative persons are getting over this problem by building prototypes that showcase thier delivery capability and this is helping them in getting lucrative contracts. it is happening here in banagalore India and i am sure the same approach will help perosns who otherwise might suffer from ageism issues .
2. anonymous
After years of running my own small printing and sign company and playing around with computers virtually everyday since 1984 I would say I have skills a plenty but if my business was to fold at the age of 59 I can guarantee the only place I could get a job would be at B & Q and not in their IT department! What a waste of years of accumulated knowledge I could pass on.
3. anonymous
Ageism is everywhere in the workplace, except perhaps in very low-level jobs such as checkout assistants. It is not helped by politicians talking of their own incapacity to understand computers, references to 'silver surfers', who apparently are anyone over 50, even though the journalists and politicians who use this term are over the magic 50 themselves. IT ability is related to ability and experience generally. Perhaps everyone applying for a job should be blind-tested, with no information about the person being given to selectors.
4. I
Yes it is rife. But it may be more down to know-nothing managers (see Peter Cochran's blog) being intimidated by the thought of employing someone who would be clearly more experienced than them - which would not look good to their peers. Also I think senior managers want to mentor the young so that they feel they have given something back and you cannot do that with us old ones.
5. Stuart Fawcett
I think this is more an IT management issue - IT management is generally learnt on the job & up through the ranks along with the required technical skills. But I doubt many IT managers are comfortable hiring people who may be similarly experienced and so potentially threaten their position? A project manager approach to hiring is perhaps preferable where the most skilled available technical resource is always a prized asset. We need to remember as managers we cannot know it all ourselves, rather we need to create a team that does!
Salary is also another aspect, strangely we don’t expect older employees to take standard market rates, we consider experienced hires could just be taking the job for a fill in position until a larger salary offer arrives. But this is also true in the market where niche consulting can seem very attractive to younger employees.
6. anonymous
There has always been ageism and there always will be. If you keep technical skills up to date and apply for jobs requiring them, you're "over-qualified". Luckily I'm more interested in working because I enjoy it than because I need the money but I feel sorry for those around 50 whose experience of IT and projects is just shunted aside.
It won't stop but that doesn't mean it isn't worth highlighting.
7. Colin Milner
Ageism is very definitely rife in the UK. For years, as a manager in high tech businesses, as I advanced in my career, I recruited people older than me whenever they had what I wanted. My reasons? - Because ageism is simply stupid! I had to fight with fellow UK management to do this! However, working for US companies, I never had this problem. In the States, old and young work side by side in harmony, each knowing the others' strengths and weaknesses. I wonder if the entrenched UK management philosophy will ever grow up and displace ageism??!!
I suspect the problem is rooted in a polarised society here in the UK. There are old people and there are young people. In the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe, they don't have this extreme separation and people of all ages in society are much more mixed and integrated.
This really is a cultural thing and therefore a difficult, long term issue to crack.
8. Kenneth Henry Knight
I am 75, soon to be 76 but I find that my skills with a lifetime of experience are much greater than younger men.
I am frequently asked to help with problems that are clearer to me than younger men because we have the whole picture of how IT and Computing has evolved during our working life.
At my age I am not seeking work but work comes to me through many sources and a lifetime of contacts.
9. anonymous
Before legislation came into effect last year to combat ageism in the workplace one's age had to be put on a CV. Hence no interviews. Since removing my age from my CV I now get loads of interviews - you see the look come across a potential employer's face when he sees you are in your 50's. End result is still the same - no job.
10. Harold Houdini
It seems to me from my experience that young IT workers cannot stand criticism and that they are scared that their incompetence will be discovered. They are all click, click and go go go but when their approach to things is analysed it is often poorly thought through, but the last thing they want is some oldy saying hang on a minute lets look at this and think it through. In many cases project managers do not have specialist skills and rely on the kids to get the job done. The managers are just there to bully the job through millions of pounds are wasted from shear incompetence.
11. anonymous
Some of us youngsters would really value learning from the longer in the tooth, but our IT departments only recruit the cheapest.
The less experienced (not necessarily just younger) appear to work faster (and argue back less!), but what's delivered is often unusable and abandoned by the customer.
However, as marketing execs are the ones paid the money and "techies" are people plucked from other jobs and given MSAccess to play with, I guess that's what everyone wants.
Finally, if anyone has any concerns management will be happy to send some spam confirming that things are better like this, spending the money you don't earn any more telling you how wonderful everything is now. Pass the prozac.