My last job search (in Seattle) took me months longer than I was expecting. This could be ageism at work (I'm 48), but I'm still inclined to think that there's a more mundane explanation: The recruitment and hiring process for software engineers has gone from crappy to damn near broken. If ageism is a significant problem right now, it's possible that it is primarily a completely unintended side-effect of how were doing hiring in the industry.
I don't know for sure, but we need to be careful about looking at obvious problems and then simply assuming that we know the explanation.
Out of curiosity, why does your LinkedIn not list months for all of the 1 year jobs you have? It seems really suspicious to me, and as a hiring manager it would almost certainly have been a red flag.
My LinkedIn profile is not my authoritative job history -- my resume is. Your first job as a recruiter or potential hiring manager is to find my resume. It's not hard.
I should also mention that when I'm looking for a job, I'm usually contacting you. If I email you I will include a direct link to my resume. If I'm applying through a portal it will ask me to upload my resume. Either way there's no excuse for people in the recruiting/hiring pipeline to consult my LinkedIn profile rather than my resume.
(Sorry if there's a little bit of attitude leaking through here, but this is a personal soapbox of mine.)
Most recruiters are going to look at your LinkedIn profile, and they won't do the digging to find your resume unless they like your LinkedIn profile. That's just the way it is, whether you think there is an excuse for it or not. You're only hurting yourself by refusing to spruce up your LinkedIn profile.
> and they won't do the digging to find your resume unless they like your LinkedIn profile
Yes, and that's a big part of my point. This is an actual problem, and we (the software development industry) should try to fix it. Or at least make it suck less.
When I switched to applying through AngelList I had much better luck, and that's how I got my current job. Part of that is that early mode startups are picky about other things than later mode startups or big companies. But mostly I think it was because actual engineering hiring managers were looking at the applications without requiring them to go through an HR/sourcer/recruiter filter first.
I would love you to look at my profile to get your opinion on whether I have any red flags, is there a way I can contact you? Just a quick glance would be great.
I don't know for sure, but we need to be careful about looking at obvious problems and then simply assuming that we know the explanation.