In a message dated 9/17/2005 7:37:01 A.M. Central Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>the programmer who >laments the fact that headhunters aren't phoning him. At the same time he >said he plans to retire in one year. Wild guess: maybe prospective >employers don't want to hire someone who won't be willing to work for them >for more than a year? Certainly a valid point. Just as employers prefer to hire men over women for biologically-caused gender discrimination - they take off a lot more often to have babies than men do. I can think of a few more possible reasons why I, as a hypothetical headhunter, would not phone him. (1) Too old (yes, Virginia, there IS age discrimination); (2) too costly (people with 30+ years' experience usually expect a higher salary than much younger dudes); (3) too set in his ways (more age discrimination; younger people really do learn new things faster, in general, and are more willing to learn; shame on me - my age discrimination is showing; I prefer to call it reality); (4) older people have more health problems, so hiring him will be a bigger drain on whatever group medical insurance a prospective employer might have; (5) older people are more likely to die, so hiring him will be a bigger drain on whatever group life insurance... etc. All of these reasons are based on group averages. There are always exceptions. Headhunters do not have time to ferret out exceptions. Bill Fairchild ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
