BC (Before COVID), I was having trouble finding a qualified person for a role on my team (Operations, not Engineering). I was getting a lot of candidates apply that looked the same on paper but weren't good fits (they claimed to be technical but weren't that technical, poor communication skills, etc.).

So I went in the tool and looked through the discard pile and found more diverse candidates that hadn't been presented to me. One looked amazing—over a decade of directly relevant experience, Oxford grad, etc. I asked the recruiter why she hadn't given me that resume and she said "She's overqualified, she's got 15-20 years experience."

I was livid and said "I don't care if they have 20 years experience, I want someone who is qualified!" We ended up hiring her and she's been absolutely wonderful, and is still on the team ~5 years later.

I don't think the recruiter was consciously discriminating against the candidate, but there were definite implicit biases that she wasn't aware of.

Implicit bias training is now required. I personally found it to be very helpful, and try and be aware of my own biases. I always hire the candidate that I think will be best for the job, but try and always find a diverse group of candidates to talk to. It's a better process, and makes for a better (and more diverse) team.

You do realize, right, that "implicit bias tests" are poppycock (and hence very likely implicit bias trainings as well).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_stereotype#Criticism

Eh, having known some recruiters over the years? A lot of it is definitely not implicit.

Sure. This was a late 30’s white woman being biased against a late 30’s white woman. It didn’t feel intentional.

I’m somewhat sympathetic toward your POV, but the average tenure in this industry is like 1.5 years or something like that. It’s not like young people stick around for a long time, and I would wager that older people are more likely to stick with a company (the older people I know are more likely to talk about “company loyalty” than my age cohort).

I don’t think it is loyalty. By your 40’s your pay is high enough that new offers to get another 20% come much rarer. The effort to find a new job has less upside.

And they may make enough and have enough savings that they care less about a salary bump. They probably own a house and don't want to move for any number of reasons--which still matters a lot of the time even in this more WFH friendly world. And, at some point, they know that a job search is probably going to be harder. And there's always risk with a new job.

I've certainly known people who would entertain a move if a new position fell in their lap but wouldn't likely seek one out.

I meant I've heard older people talk about loyalty explicitly.

I had interviews with people that were overqualified; I told them it is their choice if to take the position or not. I learned that overqualified people tend to leave after a few months to something more interesting.

Also "I want too much money" is a thing if all you need is a low level tech and the applicant is an expert in the field. It is not worth paying for expertise that you will not need. For example I hired a guy to do some very boring, routine cleanup in some databases; if I would hire a real DBA and pay double, what for? In this case I pay for the work and result, not for the expertise.

But to be fair I always tell the applicants what is the situation and give them the choice. I know it is a very rare case in the industry.

More than just wanting too much money, they think you are going to be bored going back to gruntwork and if you are bored you'll be looking to switch jobs again in a year.

The sad thing is someone like that would probably produce a better product thanks to their years of experience, and even possibly become a mentor to the rest of the team, but that's not the kind of thing recruiters think about.

>>Either you have a use for that - enough of a use that you're willing to pay for it - or you don't.

I think this is the crux of a lot of it. You only need one lead/rockstar/ninja/10x* for every 10-20 'developers'. And, as you said, there is always the fear they will leave tomorrow for 2x the money...

*) I wanna see 'evil genius' next! :-)

> I think this is the crux of a lot of it. You only need one lead/rockstar/ninja/10x* for every 10-20 'developers'

I really disagree, ideally you'd have at least one in every team.

oh - I agree it would be nice... but very few places seem to do that. I've seen a lot of 'senior' people leading 3+ teams of junior/average developers.

edit: point being, if you can muddle thru - mgmt generally doesn't see it as a 'need' just an 'expense'

> If you hire them, you have to worry about how long they'll stick.

That needs to become outdated thinking, since most people but particularly the younger ones, don't stick around any job for more than a year or two max regardless.