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Two people who are equal in all regards except age come looking for a job: I would hire the younger one. I would do so based on my ability to intercept habits before they form...and install my own workstyle/ethic into the individual to the extent its profitable for me...Is that discrimination?

I dont think so.

Everybody who has ever worked for me, came to work each day knowing that they had to earn their right to come back the next day...and as a team...they would have it no other way...believe me you...If you might think I am tough...their co-workers were ruthless...and the last thing I would ever do is let the team down, by hiring somone who thought they were entitled to a job...

Nearly 60% of the people I hired over the years, went on to form their own business, or partnerships with other former employees of mine...I used to tell my people: "If I am not bidding against you in 5 years, I will fire you anyway...so you have two choices...be the best...or take a hike..."

You know I would bet this fellow who went to the interviews mentioned how "unfair" the job market was....Instant door pass when you hear that kind of crap...

I especially like the guys that would offer to work for two weeks without agreement...so confident were they, they would take a risk like this...I liked risk takers...these guys would come in an kick butt...and end up negotiating from strength...not weakness for their contract...born leaders too most of them...

Two people who are equal in all regards except age come looking for a job: I would hire the younger one.
Oddly, if I were hiring for a high tech company I would do the opposite, but not for the reason of experience. I would do it as they would be a steady hire that wouldn't jump at the next hot startup (if those will ever come around again).
I can see this being true in the government IT jobs that tend to pay less. The talent gap between them and private companies is shrinking as there aren't that many jobs out there. Who are they going to hire? The person that's going to stick around.

Speaking of resume black holes, Washington Mutual is the worst. Its a joke at the local Java Users Group meeting that they're just collecting resumes. And they keep on advertising more jobs. What's up with that company?

Two people who are equal in all regards except age come looking for a job: I would hire the younger one.

Yes - except that is a theoretical situation. It is unlikely that 2 people would be "equal in all regards" except age -- unless you are looking for a very low-skill job.

Reality is that the older workers generally have more experience. Experience is important. Some fields respect it, some don't.

I have made the point on other threads that in civil engineering they far prefer some guy with 10 years actual experience building bridges to some guy straight out of school or with only a couple years of experience. The reason is liability. You build a bridge that falls down, you are going to jail.

However, in IT the HR department is given a list of buzzwords, and the hiring managers are usually hiring based on budget, not experience. They change jobs every 6 to 12 months anyway - so if they hire people in for a job, and the hired person isn't so great -- well mostly no one will know until quite a while later. So the managers have no downside. Plus, it is "expected" that most software projects fail - so they are never punished.

Amazingly, companies don't generally fire executives and managers for failed software projects. I don't know why. But they don't. So the managers hire based on price, the "cheapest" folks are hired (and you get what you pay for), and so the projects which are increasing in complexity continue to fail. Oh well, write it off. No bonus for the CIO this year. Musical chairs for the executives and managers. And the shareholders are the ones to get hurt, and the multi-million dollars a year are wasted and "written off." But who cares about the shareholders anyway?