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It’s no secret that employers always want the most experience with the least amount of years of age. How would this transcribe into the real world? Well, I might be the one who can relate this experience to you.
As some of the readers of my first stories might know, I got a Software Engineering Job last year, whilst being 18. I can say it was quite an achievement for me, especially after putting in thousands of hours of effort working as a Freelancer and learning more and more stuff.
Disclaimer: I haven’t previously worked in any company, so all of my experiences are relative to what I’ve heard & read about other companies and how people are generally treated.
Job Searching / Interview Experience
For this aspect I will let the numbers speak for themselves; after handing out my CV to over 50 companies on the territory of my country (Romania), I have received only 5 invitations to an interview, so I would say it’s a low/low-average percentage.
All of the companies I’ve interviewed with came back with a response and an offer, which I would say is above average by a long shot.
The experience with all of these interviews was pretty standard in contrast with what I’ve researched and read about job interviews, until a certain point.
However, the most intriguing part was when the interviewers wanted to know about my freelancing experience, and more importantly, my age, as my CV said I was in my first year of uni, which was something that intrigued them into finding out whether I joined university later on, or I was just fresh out of high school. Afterward, their attitude would switch out for the better, which means that age really is a green card when it’s packed with experience as well.
With that said, I could say without any regret that age really is an advantageous factor when it comes to job interviews and quite possibly, it improves the chances of receiving an offer, and possibly a better one than someone else might otherwise receive.
Disclaimer: The interviews really were tough, so I really don’t believe that not knowing what I knew about Web Development would’ve had the same impact on the offers I have received.
Job Experience
Well, among the first things I’ve been asked while going to the office was: “How’s the internship going?”, which was quite funny, and at the same time understandable considering the fact that I was even younger than the interns & juniors at my company.
I always liked the surprised face people are making when I tell them I’m a Software Engineer and not an intern. It might sound cocky, but after working almost 2 years as a Freelancing prior to this job, you can understand my content with that reaction and the pride behind that.
It has also been always a great conversation starter in the office and outside of it whenever a discussion came to careers. But with that said, during work, it hasn’t really made any difference, which is something I appreciate because no one will disconsider my professional experience, advice, and guidance due to my age.
In terms of getting along with people, it was rather easy, as they would sympathize with me due to my age, which I can say would be a great advantage when needing to talk with different people and requesting support or needing a mentor.
Another aspect I would like to talk about was that I was oftentimes regarded as a genius, which wouldn’t really be appropriate, as my results were mostly the result of 2 years of hard work rather than the innate capabilities of an individual who is actually a genius.
I have been working on developing my ability to learn, that’s true, but that doesn’t make me a genius. I knew that learning how to learn new things would be an invaluable perk later on. This is a topic I plan to discuss in a future article, and it is also something I’ve briefly mentioned in my article on 3 abilities I consider highly important to master; an article that you can read here: The 3 most important things that you can learn.
I would like to think that everyone would be treated the same way I have been so far, but due to some psychological concepts they are not, as there are always some traits people consider and disconsider accordingly, and I believe my age would be one of those traits that make me more considerable no matter the inquiry.
I would’ve liked to discuss more advantages, disadvantages, and aspects of the impact of my young age in this company, but I don’t believe that there would be any other considerable differences;
Conclusion
This article addresses the apparently true appeal towards younger employees who also happen to have quite a bit of experience in their field.
The truth is that the treatment might be better, but from the point of view of someone who is directly affected by this, I would say that it’s completely justified, as I’ve sacrificed part of my younger years (instead of partying, going out, enjoying stuff that others at my age enjoy) in order to up my career.
Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed reading this article and maybe gained some insight into the corporate life of a fresh 19 years old developer.
Some of my other stories:
My previous stories:
Front to Back. Is it worth it?
What do I think about all of these new JS Frameworks?
If you want to learn more about my journey as a Freelancing Web Developer who started working at 17 be sure to check this story:
My Roadmap of becoming a Web Developer at 17
As well as other articles related to this subject:
- What is a RESTful API?
- What is the MVC Architecture?
- Websites that helped me as a Web Developer
- Why is software testing so important?
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