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JJ题目
V1. Issue是关于在快速发展的当今社会，younger workers can benefit company more than experienced olderones 高频的
V2. in the fast-pacing today ,employers benefit morefrom the energy from the younger employees than from the experience and wisdomof older employees
下面是网上的一篇文章：
SiliconValley’s Dark Secret: It’s All About Age
VivekWadhwa
Saturday, August 28th, 2010
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An interesting paradox in the technologyworld is that there is both a shortage and a surplus of engineers in the UnitedStates. Talk to those working at any Silicon Valley company, and they will tellyou how hard it is to find qualified talent. But listen to the heart-wrenchingstories of unemployed engineers, and you will realize that there are tens ofthousands who can’t get jobs. What gives?
The harsh reality is that in the tech world,companies prefer to hire young, inexperienced, engineers.
And engineering is an “up or out” profession:you either move up the ladder or face unemployment. This is not something thattech executives publicly admit, because they fear being sued for agediscrimination, but everyone knows that this is the way things are. Why wouldany company hire a computer programmer with the wrong skills for a salary of$150,000, when it can hire a fresh graduate—with no skills—for around $60,000? Even if it spends a month training the younger worker, the company isstill far ahead. The young understand new technologies better than the old do,and are like a clean slate: they will rapidly learn the latest coding methodsand techniques, and they don’t carry any “technology baggage”. As well,the older worker likely has a family and needs to leave by 6 pm, whereas theyoung can pull all-nighters.
At least, that’s how the thinking goes in thetech industry.
Intheir book Chips and Change,Professors Clair Brown and Greg Linden, of the University of California, Berkeley,analyzedBureau of Labor Statistics and census data for the semiconductor industry andfound that salaries increased dramatically for engineers during their 30s butthat these increases slowed after the age of 40. At greater ages still,salaries started dropping, dependent on the level of education. After 50, themean salary of engineers was lower—by 17% for those with bachelors degrees, andby 14% for those with masters degrees and PhDs—than the salary of those youngerthan 50. Curiously, Brown and Linden also found that salary increases forholders of postgraduate degrees were always lower than increases for thosewith bachelor’s degrees (in other words, even PhD degrees didn’t providelong-term job protection). It’s not much different in the software/internetindustry. If anything, things in these fast-moving industries are much worsefor older workers.
Fortech startups, it usually boils down to cost: most can’t even afford to pay$60K salaries, so they look for motivated, young software developers who willaccept minimum wage in return for equity ownership and the opportunity to buildtheir careers. Companies like Zoho can afford to pay market salaries, but can’tfind the experienced workers they need. In 2006, Zoho’s CEO, Sridhar Vembu,initiated an experiment to hire 17-year-olds directly out of highschool. He found that within two years, the work performance of these recruitswas indistinguishable from that of their college-educated peers. Some ended upbecoming superstar software developers.
Companiessuch as Microsoft say that they try to maintain a balance but that it isn’teasy. An old friend, David Vaskevitch, who was Senior Vice-President and ChiefTechnical Officer at Microsoft, told me in 2008 that he believes that youngerworkers have more energy and are sometimes more creative. But there is a lotthey don’t know and can’t know until they gain experience. So Microsoftaggressively recruits for fresh talent on university campuses and for highlyexperienced engineers from within the industry, one not at the expense of theother. David acknowledged that the vast majority of new Microsoft employees areyoung, but said that this is so because older workers tend to go into moresenior jobs and there are fewer of those positions to begin with. It was all abouthiring the best and brightest, he said; age and nationality are not important.
So whether we like it or not, it’s a toughindustry. I know that some techies will take offense at what I have to say, buthere is my advice to those whose hair is beginning to grey:
- Move up the ladder into management, architecture, or design; switch to sales or product management; or jump ship and become an entrepreneur (old guys have a huge advantage in the startup world). Build skills that are more valuable to your company, and take positions that can’t be filled by entry-level workers.
If you’re going to stay in programming, realize that the deck is stacked against you. Even though you may be highly experienced and wise, employers aren’t willing or able to pay an experienced worker twice or thrice what an entry-level worker earns. Save as much as you can when you’re in your 30s and 40s and be prepared to earn less as you gain experience.
Keep your skills current. This means keeping up-to-date with the latest trends in computing, programming techniques, and languages, and adapting to change. To be writing code for a living when you’re 50, you will need to be a rock-star developer and be able to out-code the new kids on the block.
Myadvice to managers is to consider the value of the experience that the techiesbring. With age frequently come wisdom and abilities to follow direction, mentor,and lead. Older workers also tend to be more pragmatic and loyal, and to knowthe importance of being team players. And ego and arrogance usually fade withage. During my tech days, I hired several programmers who were over 50. Theywere the steadiest performers and stayed with me through the most difficulttimes.
Finally,I don’t know of any university, including the ones I teach at, that tells itsengineering students what to expect in the long term or how to manage theirtechnical careers. Perhaps it is time to let students know what lies ahead.
Editor’snote: Guest writer VivekWadhwa  is an entrepreneur turned academic. He is a Visiting Scholar at the School ofInformation at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School andDirector of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and ResearchCommercialization at Duke University. You can follow him on Twitter at @vwadhwaandfind his research at www.wadhwa.com. |
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发表于 2012-3-7 22:04:43
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