A comment by Dawna Jones on Steve Roesler’s blog, All Things Workplace, brought to the forefront one of my favorite questions in talent management:

“Do you have 12 years of experience or 1 year of experience 12 times.  The difference is in the depth of understanding that was harvested from each experience.” – Dawna Jones

What Is Experience In A Job?

Is it the time spent in a job?  Someone with 10 years entering pages of numbers into an Excel spreadsheet is more ‘experienced’ than someone who has done the same tasks for five years?  With every job, even something as complex as brain surgery, years of experience with little depth fall victim to the law of diminishing returns. Years of experience increase, which really is just time in position.  With no corresponding increase in depth of experience, each year in position becomes less valuable to the company.  This doesn’t mean one should change jobs every 2-3 years.  Try getting the depths of the job.

Why Do Companies Look For And Reward More Years?

Is it easier for recruiters and hiring managers to post a position that requires “five years experience with Excel” to weed out anyone who hasn’t worked five years?  What if they wanted someone who could write/operate macros, do V-lookup tables and do complex financial modeling?  Would adding years of experience to this make it more valuable?  If so, how many years?  Three, five, fifteen? 

The Lesson

When hiring, challenge yourself to look for depth of experience, not just years.  Get below the surface, below the resume, find out what they accomplished, and how they accomplished it.  Don’t settle for someone who sat on their hands for ten years and did nothing to plumb the depths of their job.  I think this is what is really meant when I hear hiring managers say that people with experience are expensive.  They sure are!

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Want to learn more about how to get into the depths, “below the waterline”?  Check out Waterline Consulting. 

Joe Raasch :: Nov.06.2007 :: Leadership, Organizational Development, Performance Management :: No Comments »