system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Discriminating based on age can be (and often is) a prudent and practical approach for hiring managers to use to optimize their organization

If I'm a hiring manager today and my goal is to have an optimized organization ageism can be a prudent approach, especially with low level jobs that benefit from tech savvy. If I have two ***equally*** qualified applicants, one is 63 the other is 31, it can be a prudent decision to select the 31 year old based on age. This is especially true when working for a large organization in which change is frequent, and the workers interact with computers frequently. Yes there are 63 year old computer wizards and 31 year old tech-morons, but the odds strongly favor the 31 year old.

When you are hiring someone there are a lot of unknowns. Often all you have to go on is their resume+interview, both of which cannot be trusted to be an authentic representation of how the person will behave over time. Nobody is going to call themselves a "**slow learner**". Hiring officials must make a judgment call based on what little information they have plus a series of educated guesses about what a given person might be like. Older people tend to be more mature but also have a less flexible personal life (kids and other attachments). Younger people tend to not-know-shit about the real world, but when the organization's ordering system gets a badly executed org-wide change, the youngster adapts quickly and the old guy is just barely catching up by the time the next badly executed change occurs and start the cycle over again. Pros and cons on both sides, but the odds favor the youngster.

It sucks that things are this way, because it's not the old guy's fault, he's probably trying his best. But the objective of the hiring official is to select people that will optimize the organization.

Edit: want to head this off early, I realize I left a glaring gap in my post (sorry). I don't mean this should apply to web development and computer programming type stuff. I'm talking about some purchasing agent over the phone, a mechanic who fixes machines, a medical tech that sterilizes surgical instruments etc which all depend heavily on working with computers. Purchasing systems, work order systems, instrument tracking systems. The computer part isn't the primary skill here, the way it is when you're creating a video game.

Edit 2: To avoid repeating myself, I want to emphasize that I think one of the big differences between ageism and racism/sexism/etc is that everyone gets old. It's not an accident of birth that I'll turn 60 one day (assuming I don't die), but it is an accident of birth that I'm a Mexican male born to an immigrant family in the midwest.
gpt
You are assuming a lot based on age.

That absolutely does not give you better chances. Your assumptions are biased. A 61 years old who's been in tech for 40 years must have crazy experience and flexibility if they have been in the industry for so long.

On top of that, most recruitment processes are broken. They are biased copy-and-paste processes that don't address objectives and needs. Nor create unbiased moments.

Get it as practical as possible. Find what are the skills and ideas you lack and need.

Then open to everyone. Passion and experience are way, way better indicators of future performance than age.