Is Experience an important criterion for hire?

In an article entitled “An Overrated Value” (Today Online, 27 Nov 2006), John Bittleston argued that experience is not the most important criterion in hiring. However, we also present a different line of reasoning which can make experience an important criterion for hire and also present the cultural barriers in Singapore as a possible problem for hirers not to use such a metric for employing new staff. This is important for entrepreneurs who have to find the correct people to join them.

So, is experience really an important criterion for hiring new staff? There is no right or wrong answer to this question. Inherently in Asian societies, where hierarchy and seniority are attached with importance, there is a tendency that employers prefer to hire people with experience. The other reason is that the threshold for the people to be trained up to speed for the job is lower, as compared to someone with no background. One important issue which I did not agree with what John said, is that the experience issue can be crucial to an entrepreneur particularly in setting his enterprise towards the mainstream markets.

In essence, I believe that there are two schools of thought and most employers should look at both sides to make a conscious decision on who they want to hire:

• Experience matters: You need to have a few years of work experience. In professional jobs, for example, accountants, lawyers, scientists or doctors, you need the professional qualification together with in-house training. However, suppose it is a job description which requires a bit of creativity and innovation like marketing, does experience really matters?In the case of startups, this might look different. For example, most of the successful companies started off with a few inexperienced people. Subsequently, as the company grows, they pulled in experienced people with the correct network and industrial background so that they can grow the company to the next stage. If that is the case, it now seems that it is important to hire someone with experience. The experienced person can align your startup towards the mainstream market as a whole. As an entrepreneur, you must be clear why you are hiring for. You may be hiring for experience rather than looking for someone to train from scratch given the kind of speed that you need to fend off competition.
• Experience does not matter: In this school of thought, Bittleston provided very interesting arguments that it is overrated. In fairness, he based it on the reasoning that some managers are covering their own tracks so that when hiring fails, they can blame it on the individual and not on themselves. He also advocated that if you want to hire inexperienced people, you have to provide training for them and not throw them to the lions when they start work. The following passages showed his reasoning clearly on why we should not hire experienced people.
  

  First, having simply done something is no proof that you have done it well. I knew a manager who made a career out of being fired. Nice chap. He had had so many jobs that the next sucker was always ready to take him on.
  Lots of experience, you see. I think he brought more companies to the brink of bankruptcy than anyone else I’ve ever known.
  Second, how can you get experience if managers hire only experienced people? If the only way you can get a job is to have had a similar one, we are into a zero-sum game.

  The most important reason for hiring inexperienced people is that they come without the baggage of the culture, the beliefs and the dogma of the existing lot. They see with a fresh eye. They can be creative. They get the business onto a new track.

  That’s only one of the reasons why existing managements often don’t hire them.

So, at the end of the day, it is up to the employer to decide. Of course, you can share with us what you think of the issue.

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