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I have often wondered how it is that so many managers have actually found the capacity to be such blithering idiots as to think that people older than 45 should not be hired. Energy? We're used to working hard. But, we're balanced. We know how to conserve our energy and persevere for the long haul. We have the experience to get things done fast, right, safely, and without screwing up everything else in the company in the process. We know how to negotiate toward a win-win rather than attempting to bully someone into a win-lose. If you're looking for ethics, your younger person may be fiery but misdirected while your older person may be keenly focused, provided that the people in question actually have any ethics. And if they don't, you shouldn't be hiring them anyway, or if you have hired them, the sooner you dismiss them the better. But, make sure you're seeing things correctly before you do and do it right. Whoever said you can't teach an old dog new tricks was an idiot or a person making excuses. Old dogs have a foundation to build on. We may not be able to answer all the technical interview questions regarding functions and parameters that are almost never used but are generally encapsulated into a compatibility library and accessed from a higher level in a more consistent and maintainable and reliable manner. So, the fact that we don't know something may be good thing. If your programs are chuck full of system calls, watch out because the system may change and so will ALL of your programs or modules. You may find that an older candidate may experience a little confusion because he or she has extensive experience working with dozens of computer languages, applications, and operating systems and tends to remember the foundations of commonality and the deltas from those foundations most recently in use. But give them a program in a language they have worked on in the past, and they'll understand it, analyze it, and improve on it making it faster, more reliable, more maintainable, and more scalable.

When you see a company full of nothing but young people and a manager stretching his suspender straps out and boasting about his superior intelligence for it, you have a manager on your hands who has no clue just how stupid and incompetent he is. Companies need a balance. Diversity is key. Differing opinions bring more perspectives, more potential solutions, and better solutions. You need the energy and focus of the youth and you need the experience of the older employee. Without both, your company simply sucks big time. Not only are you open to law suits when the older employees get sick of being discriminated against, but you're in for protests, boycotts, or perhaps the older employees will simply forget about taking that approach altogether because it won't be necessary. The companies with IQ's over 30 will come along and see an opportunity, grab it, and have an advantage the arrogant jackasses crying out for youth only will never have, and that is balance. In those companies, you will have experience training the youth and the youth training the older employee in newer technologies. You'll have a synergy that cannot be defeated. You'll have complete solutions rather than pathetic broken ones that spring from a hope that companies only struggle ineffectively to achieve.

But, don't go overboard and hire only old people unless you have a good reason to focus on getting them back to work. And if you do, consider filling in with younger folks or your company and your technology will die off as your older employees retire.

The key is balance. If you hire your employees based on their competence rather than being a coward and a closet bigot against the older and unemployed, you'll end up with better employees and more committed employees, too.