Ask the Experts: Experience NOT Necessary

Question: Despite having all of the relevant qualifications, I'm may not be as experienced as other candidates, will this hold me back?

We seem to be obsessed about putting experience above ability when recruiting people. This is even crazier in the case of our current crop of graduates looking for a job. They seem to be caught in the illogical circle of looking for work experience…….only to be told they need to have work experience already! Surely this is the classic chicken and egg?

The same applies in business generally and one wonders what drives the desire to put previous experience before fresh thinking. I was told years ago by a very wise boss “ Find me sparkle and we’ll teach them the knowledge” Ever since then I’ve been more focused on what the person can bring to the business rather than the decade of baggage and pre-conceived ideas they’ll bring with them. I met a guy the other day who I recruited into my SEO business 4 years ago, he knew nothing about the world of SEO at the time. He is now booked up giving seminars to marketing executives who are keen to learn about the art of Google search. As you can guess he’s a smart guy with lots of sparkle and he’s now an “expert” in SEO.

Similarly when I joined the cable industry 15 years ago it was a leap of faith from the MD who recruited me, I knew nothing about cable. But that became my advantage, I had no truck with the cable people who told me things couldn’t be done or the dozens of reasons why 50% cable penetration couldn’t be achieved. I also recruited a team of people who knew nothing about the industry, so the blind lead the blind and we achieved amazing things. We were innocent enough to believe we could shift the paradigm the industry was stuck in at the time………….and we did.

And so it is in Carpeo, we’ve thrown away the rule book on sifting through CV’s, we want to know the people who can enhance our culture whether they have experience or not. In our business , personality, a” can do” attitude and people who want to be part of a vibrant team are the the attributes we’re looking for. If we have those qualities in our people we can teach them the skills to do the job.

Maybe more employers should take the Mourinho test. The highest paid football manager in the world was given his first role in management without any experience. He’s an interpreter, has never played football and knew nothing about the game until he was employed by Bobby Robson at Barcelona. But nobody refers to his lack of pedigree anymore, he’s now a “football” guy rather than an outsider. Can you imagine the headline “ Porto interpreter wins Champions League” . An amazing example of someone who had sparkle and managed to acquire the necessary knowledge to become a world beater.

So let’s go on a mission to bring new thinking into business, seek out the talent and energy as personal qualities over past experience. This applies in particular to any business that’s in the doldrums. The definition of insanity is to continue to do the same thing and expect a different result, so stop the insanity , drop the line from the recruitment ad that reads “ Previous experience essential “ and replace it with “ Character and personality essential – we’ll teach the rest”