Why does doing 27 years at one company make someone unhireable? It's one thing if he used the same old tech for 27 years, but without that assumption, seems like ageism to say 27 years at one company is an obvious ground for disqualification.
After a thousand threads on why tech hiring is hard, I don't think I need to re-hash that getting signal from noise is complex and imperfect. Out of the two signals, "this person was successful at 8 different companies" versus "this person stuck in one place for almost three decades", which do you imagine is going to get hired?
It isn't ageism, again go read the rest of this thread. It's the nature of making yourself an attractive candidate. If you don't care to play the game, you can't pout and cry "ageism" when you lose the game.
> Out of the two signals, "this person was successful at 8 different companies" versus "this person stuck in one place for almost three decades", which do you imagine is going to get hired?
Why is the assumption not the opposite?
"This person failed at 8 companies" vs "This person was success at one for almost three decades"?
Why is it a sign of success if you are at a company for a short stay before going to the next? If anything, I'd imagine that a short stay would be more likely related to getting PIPd or unable to get promoted/grow there.
Your counterpoint is valid only if reviewers are looking at the number of companies.
Resumes usually include the list of major achievements at that role.
It's the combination of the two that people look for.
Looking at just quantitative things like number of companies is terrible. Looking at the combination of qualitative and quantitative aspects of a CV/Resume are what make for an attractive candidate.
> After a thousand threads on why tech hiring is hard, I don't think I need to re-hash that getting signal from noise is complex and imperfect. Out of the two signals, "this person was successful at 8 different companies" versus "this person stuck in one place for almost three decades", which do you imagine is going to get hired?
One can also take this as: "this person jumps jobs often, everything I invest in them will probably have not a good/long ROI" vs. "this person was a loyal employee that was so good he was kept for decades"
A few jumps surely do not hurt, are even good to get some different POVs and such, but if we get people that were barely one or two years at a company at max it always rings a few alarm bells.
But, either way its generalization, the reasons for why either situation happened are relevant to make a sensible decision.
I.e., the answer to "why switch so often?" or "why stuck for so long and why now?" are key.
> I.e., the answer to "why switch so often?" or "why stuck for so long and why now?" are key.
This is really the key.
As another anecdotal datapoint to add to this thread, I've held three SWE positions over the past four years and will be starting my fourth, at Google, next month. Naturally the recruiters and hiring managers asked about the short stints at each company, but given that my reasons for each departure were reasonable (company acquisition, COVID, and location), they didn't have any objections.
