Companies that hire experience over the "right" person

I see these notifications on LinkedIn and other social media outlets. Simon Sinek (SP) and others always spout this off, but honestly I can't say I agree with this black or white statement. I would think the truth would lie somewhere in between.

I suppose if you are talking about CSR's (no offense) or other entry level workers that makes sense. But when you are getting into more advanced disciplines such as engineers (not just IT) or the medical field or even just corporate American in a business function, I would think you would need the person to have a certain level of skills to be able to contribute right away.

In my space for instance certain data analyst functions require Python to be able to uncover insights and transform data, along with applying statistical packages to certain data sets to glean insights, (sorry for being redundant). If you brought a great guy/gal in if they didn't have those skills they would be fairly useless. BI Analyst is another big one and if they don't understand data warehousing and SQL, you basically have to give those folks testing efforts, like UAT and document creation.

I'm just curious of your thoughts in regards to this and how you feel about it from your experiences.

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DatabaseHead

The title is confusing, this is what is being posed by these "Career Coaches". From my experiences you have to hire the talent, see my examples above.

If you are hiring a database administrators for instance. They probably need to have some experience working with production systems, backing up, indexes etc.....

You wouldn't want to bring in some analyst with 3 years of experience and drop him on the backend support because he has a great personality.

Ashenwelt

Our industry is plagued with people requiring things that make no sense. I remember when windows 2000 came out, nearly every job ad I seen asked for 8 plus years of experience with... Windows 2000. In some ways it's better now but... It's not right.

People ask for experience over skills. Not a long term sustainable option.

People ask for degrees when they don't really add much in real use (or usable ones didn't exist when some of us went to school).

Focus on a key word scanner to even look at a resume.

The reality is one of my best architects has around ten years of experience... Starting as a receptionist NOT IT. He is also a better architect than more than half of them I have seen in my career. No degree. Only ten years. And if I ever left my job? I would snap him up in a heartbeat.

DatabaseHead

Ashenwelt wrote: »

Our industry is plagued with people requiring things that make no sense. I remember when windows 2000 came out, nearly every job ad I seen asked for 8 plus years of experience with... Windows 2000. In some ways it's better now but... It's not right.

People ask for experience over skills. Not a long term sustainable option.

People ask for degrees when they don't really add much in real use (or usable ones didn't exist when some of us went to school).

Focus on a key word scanner to even look at a resume.

The reality is one of my best architects has around ten years of experience... Starting as a receptionist NOT IT. He is also a better architect than more than half of them I have seen in my career. No degree. Only ten years. And if I ever left my job? I would snap him up in a heartbeat.

I've seen this as well in regards to architects.

Our best architect has a finance background, clearly a smart person but not much "experience" but unreal how fast they can envision data and how the source systems create the data and how it transforms. Person must have a 150 IQ, I'm not joking. It's weird how good they are at abstract thinking and I am pretty dang good in that space.....

networker050184

With most positions some experience is necessary in this field. Just the way it is. You don't have to have 10 years doing this exact job, but no one wants someone learning from scratch on their production systems.

Personally I'll take aptitude over experience (within reason) for engineering level positions though. I want someone that has the ability to solve problems. Someone that can quickly understand new things because tech changes quickly.

paul78

DatabaseHead wrote: »

.... Simon Sinek (SP) and others always spout this off, but honestly I can't say I agree with this black or white statement. I would think the truth would lie somewhere in between.

It's always a lot more complicated than some pundit that tries to boil down management and leadership philosophy into a sound bite. People like Sinek make interesting points but as far as I know, the guy has never managed or led any organizations of significant size or variety.

I personally look for people with passion for their craft.

Jasiono

Ashenwelt wrote: »

Our industry is plagued with people requiring things that make no sense. I remember when windows 2000 came out, nearly every job ad I seen asked for 8 plus years of experience with... Windows 2000. In some ways it's better now but... It's not right.

Oh the wonders of requiring CISSP for a helpdesk job in Philly sometimes.
Makes you wonder who the hell writes these job postings. They seem like either they take the responsibilities from one job and just change the title or just smash a bunch of acronyms into the description itself. Mind boggling.

Tekn0logy

Jasiono wrote: »

Oh the wonders of requiring CISSP for a helpdesk job in Philly sometimes...

I think some job listings are made unobtainable with the sole purpose of directing the hiring manager to the unicorn/wonder boy/teacher's pet, etc...
The degree requirements, I have heard show that the candidate can fit in society and can follow through on a lengthy task. Certs and degrees can also take some of the vetting process off of the hiring firm. However it annoys the hell out of me when the job listing asks for CS or IS majors and you know people inside that were Music, History and Political Science majors...

Ashenwelt

Tekn0logy wrote: »

I think some job listings are made unobtainable with the sole purpose of directing the hiring manager to the unicorn/wonder boy/teacher's pet, etc...
The degree requirements, I have heard show that the candidate can fit in society and can follow through on a lengthy task. Certs and degrees can also take some of the vetting process off of the hiring firm. However it annoys the hell out of me when the job listing asks for CS or IS majors and you know people inside that were Music, History and Political Science majors...

Hah! Try when you went to school when CS was a subset of a math degree with one or two classes on computers! I personally detest degree requirements... in the old days if you were into computers you got into computer jobs. Now those of us who did that are behind the eightball LOL.

Danielm7

Jasiono wrote: »

Makes you wonder who the hell writes these job postings.

HR. I've posted here before but I saw a position for a Jr security analyst, 25-30/hr contract, certs listed with MSCE, CISSP and CCIE...

jwdk19

Lol absolutely nuts