Calling all hiring managers. You are sleeping on senior-level talent.

So this post popped up in my feed the other day and I've gotta talk about it...

Agree?

Not really, no.

I'm coming at this from a place as somebody who has for much of his career worked extensively with entry level talent and who has been a huge proponent of hiring and training up.

I'll start with what I do agree with here.

"Don't add the obligatory 3 years of required experience."

"Embrace inexperience."

"If you're in the people business, you're in the training business."

Where I feel Tom's post misses the mark (and is a problem with the short form posts that end up getting so much attention on LinkedIn) is that it wholeheartedly discounts the value of experience, and the importance of mixing in those experienced people in order to be able to effectively identify, train up, and manage the inexperienced people.

Coming from somebody with over 135,000 followers I'm not a fan of the impression this kind of post could make on people who are decision makers in the hiring process.

And it does leave an impression.

Here's a few glowing comments on the post.

"Attitude beats experience." Does it though? Does it REALLY? It very much goes both ways in regards to attitude. It isn't a matter of experience or seniority.

This goes for the tried and true stereotype that senior level or more experienced people tend to be stubborn or fall back on "I've always done it this way."

Yes, it can and does happen that there are people like this who refuse to move forward or embrace change or innovation. But many of those who also are the ones driving change and progress in a given sector, industry, or company are actually highly experienced.

All true but, and there's a big but here, seasoned professionals "might" lack some of those qualities, but in my experience so might entry level talent. It very much goes both ways.

100% there's a tendency to look at the number of years in a profession and assume it means competence, drive, and motivation.

There's also a tendency to look at the number of years in a profession and assume more years equals less value because of the higher cost of hiring that person.

The rest of the 400-ish comments are more or less along the same lines as the above.

'Why bother' with experience?

After all, inexperienced entry level people are "cheap" and "hungry," right?

Here's the thing, if you don't have the talent already on the team to train up those people, to provide them with the proper leadership and guidance, you could end up doing more damage than good, unless you get lucky.

You could also end up putting so much time into training and leveling those inexperienced staff up that you don't achieve the goals you need to for the company's success.

I've worked at five different startups in my career leading many inexperienced staff, and this is so painfully true it hurts.

Working with enthusiastic entry level, inexperienced people you often hear:

But as the one in charge of them (and their success) you learn that many times they in fact, cannot handle it and have a tendency to try to take on too much, get stressed, and end up lost.

What about the value of "learning through failure?"

Learning through failure is completely viable and it will happen, but you never want to set somebody up for failure. Somebody without any experience likely won't know how to pace themselves in a new role, not through any fault of their own, but because they're new and inexperienced. And pacing yourself matters.

Another reason to "bother" with making sure you have experience on your team is that it's ready out of the box along with being transferrable to entry level "cheap" talent.

Experienced and inexperienced talent are yin and yang. "Lord of the Flies" would have been a very different story if there was just one adult on the island.

Experienced people can be, and often are, just as hungry and enthusiastic to prove themselves as their entry level colleagues. Especially when they're starting a new role or embarking on a career pivot.

So there's plenty of cases where you can get both the experience along with that experience being relatively "inexpensive."

Experienced candidates are also readily available right now in the current job market.

A job market which for many has been exceedingly rough over the last year.

How rough?

That rough.

There's a metric ton of highly qualified people out there in a variety of industries who haven't been able to find work for a year or more, and not through a lack of trying, but also partly because of the mindset and mentality that younger, more inexperienced candidates are "cheaper."

Let's say you have a set budget to hire for your department. You could either roll with four inexperienced candidates and save money and spend all the time training them up and getting them the required experience.

Or, you could hire one experienced candidate who's doing a career pivot, has all the personality attributes you're looking for, is looking to broaden their skillset and take more responsibility under their wing and put them in the mix with two entry level, inexperienced career starters.

Who wins?

Everybody. The entry level folks get more hands on partnership. The experienced hire gets more responsibility (if that's what they're after) and you get to oversee it without it taking all your time.

This is also a scaleable way of approaching hiring that builds trust for every level of employee.

Because if you're planning on hiring primarily inexperienced people, that responsibility is on you.

Finding a job is frustrating and challenging for everybody

And it is made more frustrating for those with experience when they see people talking about the benefits of hiring "cheap" inexperienced people instead of at least considering the alternative.

It is frustrating because things like "ghosting" still remain a problem.

How fun is it to make it to the final rounds of an extensive interview process only to never hear anything back, only to then find out the candidate chosen was much less qualified...and cheaper?

'They are better at tech than you'

Oh boy, this is just so not true.

"They are better at social media than you," would be a more accurate statement. And even that isn't necessarily true.

I'm sorry, but an entry level, fresh out of college grad with no internships or other experience is not going to know every system or tech needed to do a job, and just because they're younger doesn't mean they're capable of picking it up any quicker than somebody with experience using related technologies.

So many tech skills in today's workplaces are transferrable.

This is what internships and fellowships are for. You don't have to expect somebody knows how to use CRM tools, analytics, or any tech specific to the field you're in.

Give EVERYBODY a shot

Give the inexperienced a chance, definitely yes. One thousand and one percent yes. But don't do it just to do it because they're "cheap" and "hungry" and all that.

Do it with intent and purpose and always think about what the right mix of experience should be for your particular team or company, and don't overlook what the experienced out there can bring as well.

Sweeping statements like that post do a disservice (even if unintentional) to all those out there who are capable of bringing immense value to a team or company, but who might be discounted because they have too much experience, or who could be "too expensive."

Don't sleep on senior-level talent.

"Agree?"

Speaking of intent...

How do you build your case for something with senior executives through intent? I recently joined 😻 Maeva Cifuentes for the Flying Cat Podcast and talked about exactly that.

That's it for now. See you next time!