Your Years of Experience Don’t Matter Anymore?

How important is experience when you’re going after a job or landing a project?

Most employers ask that you have 3, 5, 7, 10 years of experience.

What if you only have 1 or 2 years? Should you still apply for the job?

According the book Rework (I’ll be sharing some interesting tid-bits from it) once someone has 6 months on the job they should have enough “experience” to understand what needs to be done.

After the 6 months, it’s not how much or how long they’ve worked that is important, but rather how good of a job they’re doing at it.

John has 10 years experience but he’s slow at his work and takes too many breaks.

Jen has a year of experience. She’s a real go-getter and works not just hard, but smart too.

Who do you want on your team?

What will it be?

Time in or Results out?

Michele

What if you have more than 20 years experience! You’d think that would count in your favour but I’d like to see some research check if that’s actually against you. What I suspect is that young employers may be intimidated by people with lots of experience. Mature workers are not necessarily sought after and they are still are competing against the eager young things.
Jane Ellen

I am experiencing that right now, Michele. I am finding that the people who are my daughter’s age are interviewing me. I had one person actually tell me that I am too experienced and too educated for the position. I have been checking to see who gets hired in my stead and it’s people half my age. It’s frustrating because I know I can out shine some of the people they hire. It comes down to dollars & cents nowadays in my opinion. A more experienced, educated person they think expects more pay – so companies hire someone with lesser experience thinking they can mould them while paying them less.