On nearly every job posting you find floating around on the Internet and in print you will find "X years of experience" as a minimum requirement. Unfortunately, this could keep solid employees from being hired, or even applying in the first place. There are other factors to consider that tend to be much more important than just how long someone has been in a particular field or position.





Experience Minimums Shut Strong Candidates Out

When an experience minimum is placed on a job posting, it may deter an otherwise strong candidate from applying. Many job-search education pieces suggest not applying for a job if you don't fit all the requirements. So, if a job-seeker has every other quality that you are looking for in an employee--the right certification, educational background, and so on--but they have 4 years of experience instead of 5, they may not apply. They missed out on a great opportunity to get that fifth year of experience at an awesome agency and your business missed out on having the ability to groom that employee into a perfect staff member for your team, all because of an arbitrary number restriction.





Experience Minimums Don't Make Someone a Better Candidate

The easiest way to gain perspective on this idea is to consider the presidency of the United States. Just because someone held office for 4 to 8 years doesn't necessarily mean that you would hire them to run your company, let alone your country. But, if a job-seeker sees that you're looking for someone with 10 years of experience, they may be prompted to apply because they have 11 years of experience.

Years of experience could be gained even though one is working inefficiently, illegally, slowly, or unethically. Since the quality of that experience matters more than the quantity, you might want to rethink the number you put on your experience requirements or whether or not you include that at all on a job posting.





Experience Minimums Don't Measure Adaptability

Maybe Jackie has been working in medical records at the big city hospital across town for 20 years. Jackie could also be the reason why that hospital has had such a hard time transitioning from paper to electronic records.

Regardless of how much experience someone has, if they are not willing to adapt to new technologies, knowledge, and environments, they will be difficult to work with as an employee. Someone who is passionate about the job and willing to do hands-on learning is often much more valuable than someone who has ample experience doing things the same way they did when they first began a job.

This willingness to grow and learn helps build your business because employees who can adapt create enterprises that can do the same.









What are your thoughts?

How do you think experience minimums have affected your recruitment? What changes might you make to your job posting to get more strong candidates in the door?

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