Predicting “Good” Employees in Technology Companies: Hiring Advise
​[Posted on: Thursday, November 17, 2016]

What is the most productive age of an individual? Who is going to be more creative? Age-based discrimination in hiring practices is the most common reason for individuals being denied job opportunities, particularly when changing careers. Does the potential of individuals to do high-impact work depend on their age? Are younger workers more productive than older ones? In a systematic review of the careers of thousands of scientists, it was found that creative thinking is not dependent on the age of the researcher; high-impact publications could be made at any time in their career. Creative thinking and high-impact publication depended on several factors such as productivity; the time spent on scientific research; and administrative responsibilities but was independent of the stage in the career (early, mid or late) or the number of years spent at the job. This kind of study was conducted in scientists as that population has a unique metric for measuring performance, namely the number of highly cited publications. However, the principle can be applied to all kinds of workers. This study highlights a critical concept important for hiring managers for all kinds of workers. Productive employees should be identified based on qualifications, experience, and past record. Age of a candidate is an elephant in the room that is never openly discussed but is a factor for hiring workers. In technology companies, there is need for highly trained workers that may come from all kinds of background. There is also an extensive variety of non-traditional training programs tailored to help workers transition to new role and fill the increasing demand for skilled workers. The above study indicates that we should focus on increasing the skills of the workers to provide them tools to be more productive, because creativity and productivity can happen at all stage in the career of an individual.