The Experience Myth

Eric Wenzel
Jul 20, 2017 · 3 min read

Hiring for Competence and Potential

Some of the biggest mistakes in hiring occur when years’ experience are interpreted as assurance of competence. Years of experience can increase functional knowledge, but longer time on a job doesn’t automatically translate to better performance.

Consider professional sports. No professional baseball, football, or basketball player is hired because of his many years’ experience. Instead, professional athletes are hired because of their skill and potential. Any professional team using years’ experience to predict future success, would quickly find its way to a last place finish.

And it’s not just sports. Research on physician performance indicates that doctors with fewer years’ experience perform better than more experienced doctors on several key measures. Better training and attentiveness to perform well to advance their career may contribute to this phenomenon.

Southwest Airlines, noted for its excellence in HR practices and finance performance, focuses on competence and potential, often hiring from the ranks of teachers or police officers, rather than those with years of airline experience. As Sherry Phelps, former head of Southwest’s People Department said, “We would rather take an eager, hungry, customer-oriented mind… than try to change the habits of someone who’s come up through an organization that views life differently,”

A call center for a major media company that struggled with finding quality employees was routinely asking candidates, “How many years of call center experience do you have?” not realizing this question did not deliver high quality hires. A performance analysis revealed that more experience did not increase performance, but strong listening skills and empathy did. The best performers excelled in empathic listening, a skill that didn’t always correlate with experience.

The experience myth also applies to managers. Recruiters seeking years of supervisory experience to confirm readiness for a manager role may be missing out. Certainly, there are many managers with significant experience who perform well, but this has little to do with the years of experience, and everything to do with the manager’s deliberate attention to listen well, be accountable, and respect the employees she is leading. Performance psychologist Anders Ericsson calls it deliberate practice — paying attention to what matters and constantly seeking improvement. Yet, when recruiters review resumes and call candidates, they often reaffirm the experience myth, counting years rather than competence or the candidate’s success in deliberate practice.

The recruiter who falls prey to the experience myth might sound like this, “So, I see you have five years of experience as a manager, is that right?…. Oh, that’s great because XYZ is really looking for a manager with experience.” The recruiter who understands the experience myth instead asks, “Tell me about a time when there was a problem you took ownership of?” the recruiter then listens attentively and explores the actual solutions the candidate provided. This is a better predictor of initiative and problem solving than the number of years with a title.

Such questions take more time, but are better at predicting the candidate’s actual competence and potential. In other words, while the candidate may have had the supervisor title, probing, competency-based questions get to the heart of whether she actually has the required competence for the job, and thus provide a much better predictor of future performance.

The experience myth does not mean experience doesn’t count. Experience is helpful, but overrated. Competence and potential are far more important and should be treated as such. Changing the recruiting approach to focus on competence and potential is hard, and that’s good news, because it allows companies willing to do the hard work to differentiate themselves.

The experience myth does not mean experience doesn’t count. Experience is helpful, but overrated. Competence and potential are far more important and should be treated as such. Changing the recruiting approach to focus on competence and potential is hard, and that’s good news because it allows companies willing to do the hard work to differentiate themselves.

also published at
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/experience-myth-eric-wenzel

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talent, talent acquisition, learning and development, technology; human resources / HR, Organizational Development

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