I have been working with talented people for 40 years and that is why I do not understand why recruiters and hiring managers insist on only selecting new employees with direct experience for the position they are hiring for, says John Sullivan in his new article on ERE.net. He adds that there is clear evidence that employees without direct experience can excel in their new jobs. "It happens every day," says Sullivan and names Google, Facebook or Ritz-Carlton as typical examples of companies that benefit from recruiting candidates with not-so-perfect educations and work experience. They choose new employees according to the principle "hire for attitude, train for skills."
Advantages of hiring employees without direct experience
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Lack of experience itself may be an advantage, bringing in new perspectives.
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Experience may become quickly obsolete, especially in rapidly growing sectors.
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Team diversity has demonstrable benefits for product development and business results.
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If you hire a person who is not well-known, you can get a real superstar. When you hire people whose experience is well-known, you will not find many superstars.
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Employees without direct experience can be found more easily, they are cheaper and stay longer.
How to test job applicants without direct experience
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Give them a technical problem to solve which relates to the job on offer. You may, for example, hold a contest.
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Use some of the many available online tools for the evaluation of technical skills.
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Accept them initially for a fixed term or for one project.
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Pay attention to their achievements in their previous jobs in the areas with which they had direct previous experience.
John Sullivan recommends testing your current employees and determining whether previous experience means real success at work. You may be surprised what you find out. He also notes that there are fields in which it is simply necessary to start without experience, because even the knowledge gained through education will not help in practice. Experience and knowledge may become obsolete very quickly today and the same is true for education. There is not a direct correlation between employee performance and work experience. Many people can be doing something for a long time and are still not good at it.
Do you agree that experience is often overestimated in recruitment? Do you hire employees without experience and can you see any benefits?
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