I think you are right about the ageism. The company I'm moving to...I was interviewed by a group of people who are all about my age or older. They couldn't move fast enough to get the process moving, and skipped some of their hiring process to do so.

But the others, it's diabolically schizophrenic. And the problem I really have is the time wasted by all parties. Here's my specific experiences over the last year.

There was a small/med company that had an executive recruiter work very hard to recruit me. When I finally got around to meeting the leadership team, I was pretty easily the oldest among the team. By this point I had been through multiple rounds of phone and video interviews, had my background screened, references interviewed, writing samples reviewed, public speaking sample videos, compensation negotiated, everybody had already exchanged linkedin invites with me. It felt like I was basically meeting them to do a "vibe" check and set my start date. They passed, said I was "too technical" for the CTO role of this engineering company with a mandate to grow their technical business in an area I have high competency and a proven growth track record. I haven't written a line of code in anger in probably 6 years at this point.

Another one, a FAANG, specifically reached out to me to run a new office they were standing up, with a focus on growing talent. The job was almost exactly what a description of my last decade of employment has been (from that perspective). I did the personality and technical assessments and sample writing exercises followed by multiple rounds of multiple hour exhausting interviews. By the end of each of them, my interviewers were chit chatting with me about getting beers together in a couple weeks. Their go/no-go guy specifically signed off to hire me and told my recruiter to have me reach out to him when I started. Compensation was totally lined-up. Start dates were discussed. Pass, but with a strong referral to another part of the company in an area I have absolutely no competency. Easily over 100 person-hours were wasted on this exercise over two months.

I had a Googler I previously worked with specifically scout out an open position I would be good that had been open for a while, and sent my resume to their recruiter. Recruiter called me and had me take their "are you googly enough for us?" personality test. Then called back and said they were interested in talking to me for an entirely different position I have absolutely no background in. When I mentioned the referral and the specific position, the recruiter had no idea what I was talking about and said they'd get back to me. That was three months ago. I've interviewed with Google three or four times in the last ten years and to be honest, I don't think I would go there even with an offer just based on how bad the process is and honestly what they've turned into as a company.

A recruiter scouted me and put me in touch with a team at Microsoft looking for somebody like me. They didn't like me for that job, but did start me on another two openings. Did 3 or 4 rounds of interviews for both, was obviously not a good fit for one. For the other it went smashing, two of the interviewers in one of the jobs said they wished I could be their new boss. Then their boss was the final interview and passed before the call was over and was clear to let me know it. The recruiter disappeared right after the second round of interviews, and I found out they had been downsized along with one of the offices I had interviewed for. That recruiter reached out to me a month later and asked if I had any open positions for recruiters as they'd now entered into this hiring hellscape and couldn't get callbacks.

Through my network I did get an offer to start at a top-5 consulting company in my industry. They basically threw the offer at me to get me in the door. But it was very low, with no "package" in the package. So I passed.

I know it's not my resume, it's been spit polished by four recruiters, or my experience. My industry reputation is solid and even fairly well known in a couple circles. I'm almost a word for word match for some of these openings, my network is actively trying to pull me in, and these companies are reaching out to me so I know I'm good there.

For a year I've come home every night, search for open positions, and spend a couple hours applying. My only saving grace is that I'm actually in a good, very solid position right now, so there's no rush.

Only one company has ever really gotten back to me on a blind application and it's the one I'm going to.

The market is absolute hell.