Many fear they're losing jobs to younger or foreign techies who'll work for less. Veteran IT workers claim that even when they get the requisite training, they don't get hired. But many argue that it's a mistake to assume older workers aren't retrainable. During interviews, he was amazed that companies would only consider him if he was up to date with current versions of a specific software packages, even though he had years of experience working with that software. That's like asking someone what version of a toaster he was running in the kitchen.
Schools now specialize in training older workers.
Companies want experience training . But even those efforts have been fraught with challenges. Green Thumb, for example, says it experienced growing pains when implementing the program. Initially, only companies that partnered with the organization to create the program would hire the newly trained graduates. Other businesses passed, citing lack of experience among the graduates as the reason for their disinterest.