Although the object of the mentoring program is to educate executives about IT, the learning goes both ways. While Nelson has been at P&G for 17 years, he's been working in R&D for only 2-1/2 years. Being a mentor to Mitchell has helped him learn about R&D. "It's about 25% to 75%," he says, with the IT mentor doing a quarter of the learning about the business and the executive doing the bulk of the learning about IT.

But even the best mentoring programs can't erase older staffers' wariness, even resentment, of the dot-com generation. "Everyone is complaining that they're the group getting discriminated against," says Lynne Lancaster, co-author of When Generations Collide (HarperCollins, 2002). "Those in the late 50s are pushed into early retirement, baby boomers say they're getting the ax because they're so expensive, and X-ers are saying they're more disposable because their tenure hasn't been that long. It's hitting everyone a different way."

Many companies that are hiring are looking for "experienced people who understand the business, who have the battle scars and can say, 'Been there, done that,'" says Paul Daversa, president and CEO at Resource Systems Group, an IT headhunter firm. When the economy was hot, companies went after the "up-and-comers, trading maturity for the young, hungry guys who were as smart as a whip" but less experienced, Daversa says. Now, "more companies are concentrating on growing the top line and cutting the bottom line, so they're seeking folks who have the proven experience in helping to do that."

Yet many older people looking for jobs because they were laid off have had to compromise, taking lower positions and lower pay. The result: resentment between the younger workers who can't get hired and the older workers who can but at a cost.

Aggravating things is the speed of technology development and the struggle to get and stay certified in hot areas. More-established workers are likely to have experience in mainframe systems and Cobol. Now security skills, .Net, and other Web services are in strong demand. That can lead to trouble.

Younger employees often don't hesitate to question established processes, management decisions, and the reliability of their co-workers. A 26-year old Web developer at a major telecommunications firm describes her 60-year old co-worker's expertise in Web apps this way: "I just can't take him seriously, because I don't know if he knows what he's talking about."

That has some older workers worried. "There's the concern of 'What am I going to do?' among older workers," says Hieger at Northern California Presbyterian Homes. "It makes me nervous as well. But how can I stay with this job if I can't keep up with the needed skills?"

The flip side is also true: Many companies use older systems that recent college grads don't know. In health care, there's a shortage of people trained on legacy applications. People with that knowledge are in high demand, and they can be the most difficult to find, says Lewis Redd, national health-practice leader for IT consulting and services firm CGE&Y.

Meanwhile, the slow economy has affected the dynamics of teamwork, says Howard Adamsky, an independent recruiting consultant and author of Hiring And Retaining Top IT Professionals (Osborne/McGraw-Hill, 2001). "It's every person for himself. New people are reticent about sharing what they know with others because that knowledge makes them more valuable. It's twisted logic."