“Dear Mr. Green,
Firstly, thank you for taking the time to submit your application for the role of Account Manager, unfortunately we are unable to progress your application as you do not have enough experience for this role…”
Does this sound familiar?
I can assure you, many people I have met have had the same thing either emailed to them or said to them at some point in their career. I remember when I was starting out in the world of work and I would look at job advertisements and get disheartened. I fulfilled the degree requirement, I shaped my experiences from university and the sports field to fulfil the team working and leadership sections and then the blow came – we need someone with 5+ years experience of working in [fill this gap with sector or market].
My heart would sink. At the time, fresh out of university – degree certificate in hand with ink still wet – I was looking for my first job. I came out of university eager to start my career and more importantly, earn some money and pay off my student overdraft and student loan – but it was harder than I thought – this was one thing university did not prepare me for.
Back then I often fell at the first hurdle and I wouldn’t even put my application in, as I thought they would discount me for lack of required experience.
The problem is, 8 years later, I am still seeing job advertisements requesting 5+ years experience of working in a B2B sales environment – really?? Is that still a must have prerequisite? And more to point, is there a direct correlation between experience and time?
I would like to put my hand up and challenge this thing we called experience, of which we must have a certain amount of years under the belt before we are eligible for a job – surely this is actually discriminating some of the younger work force?
What actually is experience?
The dictionary defines experience as the accumulation knowledge, through either direct or observed participation. So of course, it is safe to assume that as you get older, the more knowledge is gathered and thus, you become more experienced. However, this preconception is currently being challenged – as people are experiencing different things than they did 20 years ago.
The thought of having a Gap year and University is now common place now, whereas it was not 20 years ago. The Internet and Social Media, such as Twitter, is providing information and news to people at their fingertips – Twitter wasn’t even around 10 years ago.
Generally speaking, when people are being hired, they are being hired into a team because of stages of growth or natural attrition – so the other people in the team have experience they can share – from helping with the set up of laptop, right through to what do you do when this objection to a sale comes up – so knowledge is shared through others’ experience.
So, if experience is something that can be gathered from personal or observed involvement, how relevant is this 5 years of experience request in today’s business world? Furthermore, what about personal attributes and circumstances, such as; enthusiasm, the need to soak up learning to get better at the job, the desire to pay off your student overdraft or even a house – are these not also important things to consider when making recruitment decisions?
Accelerating the experience gathering process
There must be a trade off though – experience is important, as it helps you manage and execute problems to situations faster, thus becoming more productive. Experience of certain scenarios will also help when looking for promotion, especially if you aspire to move into management. So, how do you get these experiences under your belt?
It is all about trying to accelerate your experiences in the work place.
For me, when I started out at Cisco, I wanted to do everything – I wanted to be a Technology Champion, get involved in start ups, innovation labs, running my own Employee Resource Group (Early In Career Network), write a blog for Cisco, start new projects like the Cisco Book Club and mentor younger people in Cisco – all this has helped accelerate my experiences.
Cisco has a fantastic grass roots program, run by a colleague that is focused on accelerating experiences of people being promoted into the field.
This is part of the focus of the Early in Career Network – to help people in Cisco accelerate their experiences so they can perform in their current roles and get promoted faster. ECN have kick-started a couple of projects to help people accelerate their experiences and this momentum is continuing as we move into 2015.
The question is, what experiences do you need?
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2 Comments
Very good article Andy and I concur with many of the points you make. Speak soon
Very nice article Andy.