Thread regarding Intel Corp. layoffs

@HoHJUP5-2glw thank you. I will disucss with him and report back. I am sure he would be interested.

@HoHJUP5-1gjd, thanks. He will read every one of these comments. I will know more next week as to what else he will need from us.

If your buddy Rob is also interested in hearing examples of race and sex discrimination in Intel's hiring process, I can supply info on that. I'm not talking about isolated examples, I'm talking about discrimination actively promoted by Intel HR as policy.

@nhj - read this, it sounds like you need an education: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/re00225?gko=70968

to OP: I hope your friend "Rob" scrolls down to the comment made by @nhj and uses that in the article as the apparent general mindset of a typical manager and Intel, assuming that is an Intel manager who wrote that comment (why else would they be commenting here?) that statement coming from any manager is completely out of line and is the crux of age discrimination.

@nhj, you just listed the very stereotype which is at the heart of age discrimination as defined in diversity business courses under their age discrimination sections. This is exactly the mindset that management courses work to counteract, a mindset which managers should NOT have.... I'm disturbed that as a manager you have this stereotype of older workers. By law, that statement is considered discrimination. I'm disturbed that you are a manager, period.

I think HR was manipulating SSL levels for people with a long time in grade.

OP here again. BTW, Rob had already started working on this topic before this thread. He now has this link and I will be talking to him next week. It will all be off the record. You probably can make the same arrangement with him. More update later.

Team, OP here and heads up. I just sent this link to Rob who is working on this story. Thanks for all your feedback and Keep them coming.

to @HoHJUP5-1egp: Yes what you are saying is about resumes.. but if wrong-doing is happening when handing out ISP's (as seems to be the case here), then it needs to be brought to the attention of the authorities. VSP's have a voluntary component to it which removes the wrong-doing part. But ISP's are completely different. The consensus everywhere seems that there's been targeting of older workers - most seem to be agreeing as just "a fact of life". But the rules are very clear - there cannot be such a discrimination.

Hmmm, according to my simulation only 14% of workers should be older than age 45, not 33% :

#include

#include

int main(int argc, char **argv)

{

// hire 8% at age 22

// randomly remove 8% from workforce every year.

// assess average age

// print distribution of ages

const int WORKERS = 1000;

const int DEPARTURES = 80; // departures per year.

const int STARTUP_AGE = 28; // avg age of startup workers

const int HIRE_AGE = 22; // age of average hire

const int RETIRE_AGE = 67; // age of mandatory retirement

int ages[WORKERS];

int i,j;

// every one at the start is 28 - startup

for (i = 0; i = RETIRE_AGE) ages[i] = HIRE_AGE;

}

for (i = 0; i < DEPARTURES; i++) {

int gone = rand() % WORKERS;

ages[gone] = HIRE_AGE;

}

}

for(i = 0; i < WORKERS; i++) {

printf("%d\n", ages[i]);

}

}

The most skilled workers on my team are all 50 and above. Best skills, best practices, best vision, and best communicators. All were ISP, VSP, ERP.

Is there age discrimination at Intel? You bet there is!

Guys, the question isn't whether age discrimination happens or not. Let's face it, it does (and no, I'm not considered that old to be having issues with it yet, I'm at the borderline).

The question is whether you are exposing yourself unnecessarily to age discrimination that, although is illegal, cannot be proven.

The resume is a perfect example. If your resume has information suggesting your age when it is not necessary, some employers simply will toss your resume in the the trash can. How can you prove you were age discriminated? You can't.

So you especially if you don't have that impressive of a skillset or if you happen to work in a career that employers tend to think "I can hire cheaper/younger people for less" (such as technical type jobs, which we know isn't always true), you need to be very very careful in the "extra" information you convey to employers about things suggesting how old you are. That should get you through the resume screening and even phone screening, if your skills speak for themselves.

In other words, lots of people doctor up their resume to say they have experience they really don't have (which never works BTW)...What a lot of you older people need to do is doctor "down" your resume, and leave things that aren't relevant 10-15 years ago off of your resume. It's not being dishonest, or misrepresenting your credentials. It's about wanting your employers to focus on what you have done recently and what you are capable of doing recently.

If I get a resume more than 2 pages, I only read the first 1 1/2 page anyway. If it's in tiny print and hard to read, I end up putting in a "review after I interview these first set of candidates with a readable resume" pile. Sorry, that's how it works. I dont' have time when I have stack of 100+ to go through, because the recruiters usually don't do a good enough job pre-screening, so I end up going through every single resume I get.

But to give you some inside, me personally, I don't care how old people really are, as long as they are good. So we will put our candidates through the same grueling on site technical screening interview in which they solve a bunch of technical problems....Which brings me to my next point...

We reject a lot of candidates not because of their age, but what ends up being their attitude. Here's usually what happens. We give them a technical problem to solve, and some guy will end up saying something like "I have 20+ years experience in this field, why are you asking me if I can solve this question? It's almost not worth my time"...

Ok, that to us is a big red flag. It's not that his age is his problem. The impression he left us is he's too good to do this, even if he can...IE Does this mean that when we hire him and give him an assignment, he'll say something like " I have 20+ years of experience, and it's insulting to ask me to do this trivial assignment?" Yeah, I know it sounds like a bonehead thing to say, but you would be surprised how many people in an interview says something like this.

Younger people don't really care about the age of someone else. It's usually that the older people have a problem working for/working with someone that is younger. Be honest to yourself and ask if that is the case for you, and if so, do something to mitigate that attitude when you are looking for your next job.

The employees also need to file complaints to their state's bureau of labor and/or to the fed EEOC. The more complains, the more it will be looked into.

The statistics will not lie. If there are say 3500 people given ISPs and say 2500+ of them are aged 45 or more, then that means 2/3rds of the laid off employees were 45+. Based on what I have heard so far, this seems to be about right. Thats a clear sign of targetting older employees. If they were to pick low performing employees equally from all grades, then we would see equal number of younger employees getting ISP-ed. Since that is not happening, clearly they are targetting older employees. This should be brought out in the journalistic literature so government can analyze the data. Data should be investigated for wrong doing. There's strong evidence of wrong doing.

Good thread with good info - Thank you! everyone.

Your resume should definitely not be longer than 2 pages. (1 1/2 at best). Most of the people won't care about what you did something 20 years ago.

And frankly, all you need to put down is that your college degrees and where you got them. You don't need to put down graduation years.

AFTER they hire you, they will ask for detailed information for background screening anyway when you graduated. At that point, if they don't give you an offer, you have a justification to know why. And no employer that is going through the pain of background screening you is going to all of the sudden not give you a job just because you are a certain age, provided you didn't lie on your resume...

My employer did cancel some offers from people that totally misrepresented their college credentials, even though it was something that happened 20+ years ago. The people typically said they had a degree in something when they really didn't finish it. (The applicants were idiots for lying about it, because we even told them we would be checking. And the sad part is, when someone has that many years of experience, no one really cares what diploma even got, if the person is good.)

I don't think a lot of your older folks would have a problem getting hired if it meant paying you and younger folk's salary. That's the issue. It's not age that is your problem. I think the company just doesn't want to pay you that much, considering some of you might have 20+ years on the odometer. And ,right or wrong, the company probably things the extra benefit for having you with many more years of experience doesn't outweigh the significantly extra cost of paying you versus the young guy....Especially if your skill isn't requiring something like R&D which can't be easily replaced.

If you can't convince an employer while your many more years of experience justifies the current salary you have, then it's a big problem. That, or you take a pay cut so the company feels like they are getting a good deal...

The other angle is people are more concerned about older people being in less good health. On a large company, probably not as big of a deal. On a smaller company, it's a big deal when it comes to company group insurance.

Hey, I know it's not fair, but I'm just telling it from how the company sees it, so that you can think about how to get around these issues.

See this hashtag: #agediscrimination

Putting date of your degrees on your resume and listing all your employment background was the norm. After I sent my resume to LHH for review they asked me to remove dates for my degrees and not to list employment over 15 years, which now I know, for the same exact reason mentioned below.

@Old or not, yes, if you delete data from your resume older than 10 years you can trick a company into asking you for an interview. But once they meet you in person, its impossible to hid your age.

Its just a fact that companies discriminate against older people. Its hard to prove. But Intel using time in grade as a criteria to fire us is about as close to a smoking gun as one could get, I'll bet someone in HR was stupid enough to put the plan to fire old employees into an email.

@nhj. Maybe true about younger people. But also, for the same reasons they tend to be less responsible. If they lose their job, it is easy for them to pack and go. Also, a plus having worked for all these hi tech companies; will look good on their resume. Every time, i pass the row of young engineers/RCGs, their phone is in their hands, head is down, a smile is on their face, and their fingers are typing on their phone.

The dishonesty of Intel under BK makes me sick.

I'm a technician in my 50's and have been at Intel for a long time. I got an offer for enhanced retirement, but also got one for VSP because I have been in my current grade a long time. Its nearly impossible to get promoted past my grade level, Intel knows this. Its a perfect method to target older employees for termination. If this isn't age discrimination, what is it?

We hired hundreds of people in TMG in the months before the layoff announcement, and its clear this was part of a plan to fire older workers. I'm the trainer of a new hire right out of school, I thought I was helping add to my team's headcount, but instead I was tricked into training my replacement.

I hope you younger employees are paying attention to what BK is doing to us. One day it will be your turn to look for work in your 50's. But its hard to get hired in your 40's, and nearly impossible in your 50's.

Think about it mathematically: If they randomly select employees and push out 5-10% a year, and backfill in the US largely with college students, even if there isn't a direct age discrimination approach, the end result, prima facie, is that it drives towards a younger population. By analogy if you are running a marathon, and each mile 10% of the entrants are pulled out, there will be many less people at mile 20 then there will be at mile 2.

I was told to strip my degree graduation, remove anything older than a decade of experience. Don't appear long in too and an old dog that can't learn new tricks. Whether anyone admits it or not there is a bias in hiring to the young.

What managers should realize that older folks can be very motivated too. Empty nester, spouse got their own gig, or better divorced.. or in many times older folks can't stand their spouse and thus with no kids or other responsibilities can work day and night and weekends....

Younger folks got to nurture the relationships, start family, take the kids to soccer practice or have to tuck the kids into bed before starting to work again.

Me no problem I can work 80 hours to 100 hours a week as got no baggage.

"20 something young people are eager to learn, don't bring in too much baggage with them, are flexible, moldable, and willing to work long hrs since they aren't grounded by family and similar responsibilities."

LMFAO! Eager to learn with no baggage, work long hours...BWHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!

Lol. If you think employers practice age discrimination, and if you think that was the reason why you were let go, then why would you want to be interviewed so that everyone else knows who you are, hold old you are, and now have a perception issue of being a whiner (even if you aren't)?

Employers can't ask you how old you are as part of deciding employment. But if you are a bonehead and tell people that and also tell people,'hey look at me. I am in this article that I spoke about age discrimination', I wonder what that does for your employment prospects? It certainly isn't doing you any favors....

And of course everyone else wants you to do it. Because they want you to take it for the team so they don't need too. Because as much as they talk about wanting to speak up about it, they aren't going to do it themselves because they don't want the possibility of doing anything to affect their future employment prospects.

So people commenting here thinking you should do it are just full of sh--. Because I don't see them lining up to do it.

Good way to never get an interview and hired by another employer if they publish your name and age.

I have moved on to much greener pasture but to be fair to those still working there its important to get the story out and avoid similar situation.

What would you like to know? I can comment that I think it is a good idea for the journalist o write this story and expose the true nature of the layoffs. This corporate edict has nothing whatsoever to do with those employees current performance. Remember that the mgr him or herself is really responsible to ensure the employee is doing the necessary projects and tasks assigned. They themselves are failures if not providing the correct assignments. The mgmt can put down whatever stock level they want at the end of the year for each employee. He will never take the blame for lower rating but will blame on his managerial peers as a "consensus". So far the layoff data suggests older males of medium to high grades who are more costly to the company. They are being targeted.

There is nothing such as age discrimination. If you are good you will stay. If you don't keep yourself updated and are outdated you are out. Simple. 30 years ago you were on the other side of things. It's life. Move on. The lesson here is to save wisely when you are young so that when you get old all this doesn't affect you..

As a manager, it's really hard to employ someone with outdated skill set. 20 something young people are eager to learn, don't bring in too much baggage with them, are flexible, moldable, and willing to work long hrs since they aren't grounded by family and similar responsibilities.