Has this question ever posed itself in front of you giving you sleepless nights? Have you ever been in a situation where you just can't seem to comprehend why experience matters more than competence, especially for entry-level positions? Most of whom I have talked to are faced with this really questionable attitude that many employers adopt today.
Why is it that for an entry-level position does someone need experience? Shouldn't they be looking for competence and the potential to do great things for the company? Shouldn't they determine whether someone has the ability to learn and grow? Should experience be the primary criteria while selecting candidates to interview?
I would be quite an ignorant imbecile to apply this logic to positions higher up, where rich managerial experience is required; where a position requires you to be able to not just handle that responsibility but also surpass your goals. But, it really boggles my mind to think why many companies stress on the experience part when I have seen several cases where people with a lot of experience have not even an ounce of managerial ability nor enough knowledge about their job. Their only skill was probably in impressing the interviewers to get that job. Interestingly, these people were not even at entry-level management positions but really higher up.
For technical jobs, it is I guess very easy to judge a candidate's qualifications because he has X,Y & Z certificates/degrees to show or some work he has accomplished during his education. On the other hand, for service industry or management related jobs, it is too difficult to prove you are capable when you have no concrete evidence for the same. All it matters for many is whether you have put in enough time. Does experience also give a declaration that a particular person also has excellent customer service skills or comes up really amazing marketing campaigns or is extremely effective in sales? Don't these jobs at least warrant an interview where these skills might be put to some sort of screening test?
If the argument to this is that companies don't have time to go through the recruitment process in its entirety, then I have no counter-argument to this. I have always understood that a company's employees are what will spell out the success. Shocking, how very few really care about this or just choose to ignore!
Bravo !!!! :)
ReplyDeleteis baat pe karodon lobaaaan jala duu agar hovay toh!
The question has been asked by me several times. In my struggling times in the service industry, it was really difficult to find a job cause education wise, I was over-qualified and realtime industry experience was zero. After spending 3-4 years ata a managerial position, I have been able to understand the situation recruiters are facing.
ReplyDeleteThere are many other reasons but the main reason is - training.
For a limited service hotel like mine (less than 20 employees), I do not have the luxury of having a recruiting and training staff. Yes, I do not mind training the new employees and I have done that for several positions. But as I do not have any help in training the staff, it becomes a burden (extra work) for me. Plus, knowing that working in hotel is nowhere near rocket science and no specific certification is required, I would give preference to an experienced candidate and save my efforts in training them. With no Assistant Manager, I have thousands of things to be done everyday.
As far as The higher scale hotels are concerned, when there are thousands of applications coming for a position, a recruiter will simply check some lines of resume (experience, highlights if done properly or career goal etc.) to determine whether the candidate fits in the position or not. Trust me, there are many candidates who are not shortlisted (and cannot be when 1000 applications are there and the hotel needs only 5 employees). They can interview 50 candidates max. So not only the experience, but achievements are also considered. In short, it is difficult to get an entry level management position unless you have some exposure. Or u should have a network where people can recommend you. That will just earn you a chance to interview the recruiter, again that interview is the decider.
@Ruchit: The important thing really is to get that interview but getting that is just the difficult part. And even more surprisingly, I have been on interviews where the interviewer has dismissed me as an unworthy candidate just by looking at my experience and then did not bother about asking me any questions.
ReplyDeleteAaa..MIG!!!....finer points brought to light....
ReplyDeletemy fingers are itching to race away with the keyboard.... but kya karun....will not be the same as chatting with u over a drink...
If there is something i miss.... of u not being around...is a good clean discussion(ok, i lied...sometimes with the gloves as well) ....
yaar vapis aajaa......
I will come back as soon as I have a job. Let me know if you know something.:-)
ReplyDeleteI would really appreciate your comments Nirupam. I am sure I would like to know your views on this.