What are your thoughts?
19 replies (most recent on top)
This is not a good employer if you are g-y, especially not, if you're in finance. As soon as I came out of work. I was fired within a few weeks . After ten years of good service that sounds microsoft how microsoft Treated employee
I worked directly for amyhood. The c f o of the company and I can tell you that she left people in charge who discriminated based on s-xuality and performance.
Yes
After ten years is exactly what happened to me. One day I was useful and the very next day I wasn't.
MSFT (and probably all companies) institute policies that are explicitly or implicitly age discriminatory. Comments above re “promotion velocity “ “time in level” etc are great for discriminating based on age. All it takes is a bad manager to assign a person to a role with little chance for success. Wait a review cycle or two and, tada! A free walk out the door and an offer to hold the company harmless for anything in exchange for over 55 stock vesting rights.
16 year old trying to give very good feed back about there task bar and was not allowed to because of my age
Well yeah. Microsoft does not like older people
dbj+VQnZJ3N's, the saint who hired people in their 50's at Microsoft is definitely the exception. Were these actually FTEs or disposable temps shuffled into the blatant caste system?
Ageism is RAMPANT at Microsoft. Once had an18 month contract on the Cortana team. Younger contractors were given extensive training/growth opportunities while the over 50's were told to use the outdated tutorials. It was no secret some of the younger contractors were being groomed for FTE positions. My manager: "Some of you will work with "A" which could lead to full time" Those over 50 (with far more experience) were relegated to the repetitive grunt work. The younger contractors had opportunities to work with the wider teams, making life-long connections. My "elderly" coworker and I would ask for these same opportunities and were immediately shut down.
At least one 20-something employee a month would give notice, always to be replaced with another 20- something or someone younger, often a recent grad. The highly skilled over 50 set, often veterans in their field with 20+ years of experience were NEVER considered for FTE.
Bunch of MSFT kool-aid drinkers on this thread. The policy is to age out and cut or fire older workers that have reached principle-level. The whole thing veiled in “your performance”. Then when the seed is done ask the now-axed former employee in need of money to sign a release of claims in order to continue vesting their stock awards. I’m actively looking for a class action. And for all of you posting at how great you are at hiring and retaining older workers , your words drip and reek of unconscious bias, next time watch the whole fn training video and think to yourself, hey, this actually applies to me and my discriminatory behavior. Fu.
After the July 2017 Reorg, I was told by the outplacement firm (and they probably should not have shared this with me) that the majority of those reorg'd out (23 people in my sub) were all older workers. After learning who was reorg'd out, I realized most were not "visible minorities" meaning they lacked the company's definition of diverse. The company likes to use the phrase, "diversity of thought", but clearly that doesn't include white folks over age 50.
I work for Microsoft and age discrimination does and is happening still. If you feel you have been discriminated by Microsoft for your age it is illegal. File a complaint with the EEOC. It's a federal government entity that enforces the law. They will do an investigation once they complete their investigation their could be large fines if it is found they are in violation. Regardless if they fine or don't fine - once they complete their investigation they will give you a piece of paper giving you permission to sue. If you have counterparts who are also facing discrimination its possible it could be upgraded to a class action lawsuit similar to one Google incurred a few years ago where 200 people were awarded 11 million dollars due to age discriminating practices.
yes
the hiring manager comment is total spin from the company, it is all BS, trump-like funny.
Older People (50-60) are good to talk too - especially during meetings and discussion - alot to learn from their experiences. Issue is that they don't upgrade their technical skill set - making it difficult to work with.
@VQnZJ3N-dbj great statement!
I echo what @dbj said - a hiring manager here, I'd say about 1/3 of my hires are over 45
Blah blah blah. Just look around at lunch and see how many folks look over 45-50. The avg age at msft is below 30.
The company has lots of ways to rid itself of older people - time in level, promotion velocity being good proxies for age. Once you are over 45 it's a good idea to start hedging with other sources of income. I've even been on interview loops where people have told me the candidate 'looks old' or has 'too much experience'.
Its not even just a factor of msft, it's the entire industry that delights in hiring 'new graduates' etc.
As a hiring manager at Microsoft, I have hired many people in their 50's and 60's that are still with the firm today. Some of my best leaders are over 65 we hired in the past few years from the outside and we have no intention of letting them go if they still want to stay and keep doing great work. The Men M's love them as they provide excellent mentoring experience give a lot of themselves, and show every day that they want to be here. It's all a matter of attitude and capability. Don't age yourself out before others do and if you expect that you will be aged out, then there you go, you will possibly mentally create actions, attitude, and results to match - sabotaging yourself w/out even trying. Out of any company I have worked, Microsoft has the most Grays spanning across the teams that I have ever experienced. We hire a lot of grays that are quite talented so I would watch the attitude, focus on doing great work and building strong relationships across the firm. No I am not from HR...no even close.