I've been told that to be taken seriously as a job applicant, I should drop years of relevant experience off my résumé, remove the year I got my degree, or both. Or not even bother applying, because no one wants to hire programmers older than them.1
Or that I should found a company, not because I want to, or because I have a product I care about, but because that way I can get a job if/when my company is acquired.
Or that I should focus more on management jobs (which I've successfully done in the past) because… well, they couldn't really explain this one, except the implication was that over a certain age you're a loser if you're still writing code. But I like writing code.
Have you seen this? Is this only a local (Northern California) issue?
If you've ever hired programmers:2
Of the résumés you've received, how old was the eldest applicant?
What was the age of the oldest person you've interviewed?
How old (when hired) was the oldest person you hired?
How old is "too old" to employed as a programmer?
1 I'm assuming all applicants have equivalent applicable experience. This isn't about someone with three decades of COBOL applying for a Java guru job.
2 Yes, I know that (at least in the US) you aren't supposed to ask how old an applicant is. In my experience, though, you can get a general idea from a résumé.
