Experience.... why can't it be taught/tested?

SuperInfinity

Don't you just hate it when you're browsing through the requirements for a particular job and then you see "10+ years experience in a similar role"?

If things are worth knowing, surely someone can write books on them? What if you got a log of exactly what people were doing in the day and how they operated? Their conversations and decisions. And you could digest well presented information many times faster. The only unattainable experience really I suppose would be just the mechanics of the situation, which unless you play a musical instrument or are in construction can hardly be rocket science.

Frankly I think it's partly just to close ranks and block entry, make their occupations seem more mystical and difficult than they really are. Just another way to keep the ordinary man down and away from their exclusive club. All to keep you out.

I guess people also like the idea also of someone "working their way up" through the ranks, it feels more natural, like they deserve it. But are they really doing a better job? Maybe in some jobs. Is everything they do impossible to learn without going through all that? Naw.

imitation

I think experience is the easiest way to get more "suitable" candidates in most situations, even in cases where a smart graduate might just as easily do the job. It also helps a bit to prove they aren't flakey (likely to not do tasks, show up late etc), which is actually a bigger problem than you might think.

Its never going to be something teachable really, because things like problem solving, politics, managing projects are best learned in the practical environment. For instance if you did computer science in college, you'll know all about programming, but what if you have to manage an underling too, or fix problems that you will not have seen in college (like when you roll a program out to 500 computers).

I guess you can give people a trial, but if the job is going to be managing a big project and it cannot fail its not really an option. Hiring people is such a big commitment that it needs to be right the first time as much as possible.

Of course I have also seen people who have managed to rack up loads of experience and be naff at their job, either by staying under the radar or jumping ship before they get rumbled, so its definitely an imperfect solution.

Nody

Because it's not about one thing to be taught but the whole experience, decision making and all surrounding skills as well and how they interacted and quite frankly the majority of teachers out there lack any reality connection (esp. at University level were they may teach you the 15 rules for programming that theoretically exist but only 3 are used in practice). I've had several new finance graduates who thought they would be God's gift to mankind who could barely use Excel or understand how to do a monthly reconciliation! That is why you ask for X years of experience so you don't have to explain yet again the basics of the role.

SuperInfinity

imitation wrote: »

For instance if you did computer science in college, you'll know all about programming, but what if you have to manage an underling too, or fix problems that you will not have seen in college (like when you roll a program out to 500 computers).

If someone wrote a long list of problems they had to solve though, it could be one of those things they had to solve.

Nody wrote: »

Because it's not about one thing to be taught but the whole experience, decision making and all surrounding skills as well and how they interacted and quite frankly the majority of teachers out there lack any reality connection (esp. at University level were they may teach you the 15 rules for programming that theoretically exist but only 3 are used in practice).

I'm not saying it's employers' fault, I think it's mainly the fault of courses.

Nody wrote: »

I've had several new finance graduates who thought they would be God's gift to mankind who could barely use Excel or understand how to do a monthly reconciliation! That is why you ask for X years of experience so you don't have to explain yet again the basics of the role.

Well.... Excel and a monthly reconciliation are easily testable skills. Again it's the fault of the qualifications process, with no inherent dependency on experience.

chris85

You must be joking here OP, experience is extremely valuable in work as it shows you can apply the skills gained from college into a real world situation. If you want to be book smart only go into lecturing in college, you can read books for years about how to do things and may be very bad in a private sector job trying to apply this skills.

For example think of a critical position in a company, would you rather someone comes in with qualifications and real world experience or a person with same qualifications and telling you they can match their experiences as they have read about them.

I am a recent masters grad in a good job, I know the guys in work with 10-15 years of experience are the best to learn from on a day to day basis to improve my skills.

imitation

SuperInfinity wrote: »

If someone wrote a long list of problems they had to solve though, it could be one of those things they had to solve.
...
I'm not saying it's employers' fault, I think it's mainly the fault of courses.
..
Well.... Excel and a monthly reconciliation are easily testable skills. Again it's the fault of the qualifications process, with no inherent dependency on experience.

I don't mean to sound rude, but you sound like your in college or a recent graduate, once you see things "in action" you will know what I mean. And when you have to try and transfer it to the "new guy" you'll realize it doubly so as you find yourself sitting down each day for an hour or so to show him all the little gotchas that are required in so many jobs these days.

Its also a matter of time, HR people can't spend hours developing tests for the minutea of each the hundreds of roles they have to fill over the years . Likewise college lecturers can't waste precious class time teaching students tasks that are specific to one of a hundred potential jobs they could be doing.

I have seen chemical engineers, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers doing a job that could only be classed as software engineering, but they were chosen because the relevant college course didn't exist at the time, and because it took less time to train somebody familiar with the company at the processes in the software than it did to train a graduate who may know the software but not the company !

As well, book learning cannot cut it for everything, you have to experience it, theres no other way.

Ps. As were mentioning excel, I barely got any education on excel in college back in the early noughtys , even though its vital to the running of any company and every job requires interacting with it now ! It seems like was assumed you would just know it or pick it up no bother.

Stheno

I look at me now and me fifteen years ago, and the difference cannot be calculated.

It's the difference between knowledge and wisdom, I knew how I should do stuff, but I learned how to apply it in the workplace.

I learned how to deal with clients, unions, staff, managers, directors, etc.

I work as a consultant, and they place huge value in my previous experience as they are looking for someone who has done it, knows their environment etc.

It's hard to explain but the 25 year old me would never have coped with what the 35 year old me coped with as I'd that ten years of background to enable me.

I think OP you don't understand the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Did you ever hear Brian O'Driscoll on the topic?

SuperInfinity

chris85 wrote: »

For example think of a critical position in a company, would you rather someone comes in with qualifications and real world experience or a person with same qualifications and telling you they can match their experiences as they have read about them.

All things being equal, obviously the person with the track record wins out. However most jobs look for lots of experience no matter what. Obviously, I can't question the practical advantages of what employers of highly efficient and productive firms do all the time when hiring. I'm just saying that in theory it should be possible to match that if you have many practical qualifications.... just that it shouldn't be regarded as irreplaceable in every way.

chris85 wrote: »

I am a recent masters grad in a good job, I know the guys in work with 10-15 years of experience are the best to learn from on a day to day basis to improve my skills.

Maybe an instructional video with a voiceover would help? I know, I know it's very different, but I do think it could make significant improvements. Technically, that's observational learning anyway. I meant experience as in doing yourself rather than observing others.

imitation wrote: »

I don't mean to sound rude, but you sound like your in college or a recent graduate, once you see things "in action" you will know what I mean. And when you have to try and transfer it to the "new guy" you'll realize it doubly so as you find yourself sitting down each day for an hour or so to show him all the little gotchas that are required in so many jobs these days.

Its also a matter of time, HR people can't spend hours developing tests for the minutea of each the hundreds of roles they have to fill over the years . Likewise college lecturers can't waste precious class time teaching students tasks that are specific to one of a hundred potential jobs they could be doing.

Well, the rarer the skill the more unlikely it would be in a person who had experience in another non-identical job anyway. The guy with 3 years experience in a similar position will still be the "new guy".

imitation wrote: »

Ps. As were mentioning excel, I barely got any education on excel in college back in the early noughtys , even though its vital to the running of any company and every job requires interacting with it now ! It seems like was assumed you would just know it or pick it up no bother.

I agree. It's a sophisticated tool, I think some people figure it's just pick it it up as you go along like Word or Office, but there's a lot more to it than that, if you want to get things done at a decent speed.

Stheno wrote: »

I look at me now and me fifteen years ago, and the difference cannot be calculated.

It's the difference between knowledge and wisdom, I knew how I should do stuff, but I learned how to apply it in the workplace.

I learned how to deal with clients, unions, staff, managers, directors, etc.

I work as a consultant, and they place huge value in my previous experience as they are looking for someone who has done it, knows their environment etc.

It's hard to explain but the 25 year old me would never have coped with what the 35 year old me coped with as I'd that ten years of background to enable me.

I think OP you don't understand the difference between knowledge and wisdom.

Alright, I'll believe you to an extent. But I still say that if an expert in a field really sat down and analyzed everything he did, and really tried to explain every detail, that extensive (tens of hours) studies of this could leave someone with something like some experience. I find it hard to believe that there are things people do that they could not write about to any extent. Of course, there is little incentive for someone to give away any of their hard-gotten experience like this.

Stheno wrote: »

Did you ever hear Brian O'Driscoll on the topic?

Nope.

Mr. Loverman

You can't teach experience. It's like trying to teach wisdom.

SuperInfinity wrote:

I think it's... Just another way to keep the ordinary man down and away from their exclusive club.

I don't think that's true at all.

I used to manage and hire people, and although new hires can be much better than old hires, hiring inexperienced people is risky (for the manager).

The hiring process goes something like this:

The manager has a small amount of information (CV: possibly inaccurate; interview: possibly inaccurate; reference, possibly inaccurate) and a limited hiring budget. Her team are probably overworked so she needs someone who can be up to speed quickly. All new hires are a risk but she can minimise her risk if she employs someone who has experience in a similar role or similar organisation.

Someone who has 10+ years working as a manager in a family business probably won't have the same amount of "experience" as someone who worked for 5 years in a political multinational or somewhere like that, but in general, if you want to reduce risk and reduce training time, going for experience is your safest bet.

A good manager should be flexible though - if the person in the interview is bright but inexperienced, and her team is full of experienced but not so bright people, she should probably consider higher him.

chris85

SuperInfinity wrote: »

Maybe an instructional video with a voiceover would help? I know, I know it's very different, but I do think it could make significant improvements. Technically, that's observational learning anyway. I meant experience as in doing yourself rather than observing others.

You must be joking.

Op to be honest you sound like too many recent grads, think you are god's gift to the workforce and can do it better than others that have been at the job for years, you will soon learn!

Procrastastudy

SuperInfinity wrote: »

Frankly I think it's partly just to close ranks and block entry, make their occupations seem more mystical and difficult than they really are. Just another way to keep the ordinary man down and away from their exclusive club. All to keep you out.

How would you ensure they were taught it? How would you ensure it was tested?

Education in this country teaches you one thing. How to do well on an exam.

What I'd do is show someone how to do something then expect them to show a track record of being able to do it. I might expect to see them doing it for 1, 3, 5 or 10 years; depending on the seniority of the role.

I'd perhaps waive some of that requirement where a person was in education and spent some of their time working in the industry for free.

Smart alecness aside - If you've no degree you need to show you can do a job through experiance. If you've a degree, you've no excuse you should have atleast 2 years industry experiance by the time you leave.

juan.kerr

imitation wrote: »

For instance if you did computer science in college, you'll know all about programming

You're kidding right? Most graduates will have minimal real world knowledge when it comes to programming. College assignments or placements are in no way comparable to delivering production quality enterprise software.

SuperInfinity

juan.kerr wrote: »

You're kidding right? Most graduates will have minimal real world knowledge when it comes to programming. College assignments or placements are in no way comparable to delivering production quality enterprise software.

See, this is what I'm talking about. :rolleyes:

Stheno

SuperInfinity wrote: »

See, this is what I'm talking about. :rolleyes:

He's right though.

Having to do an assignment is like working on a project.

Having that project **** up an cause chaos in production and being able to deal with the pressure that brings is something no college could teach you.

To give you a backwards analogy, I'm going a masters at the moment in an area I've worked in for 15 years. I'm averaging a B+ with feck all work. I chose it deliberately as it was in my field and it pretty much is what I do every day.

My lecturer keeps referring to my experience at work and how that shows and has suggested that my thesis be based on that, and has recommended that if I get with the programme and learn to do academic referencing right I'll end up with a first.

There is no substitute for experience, it cannot be taught. Especially when it comes to those bowel clenching moments when you realise you've made a mistake, and how to deal with it. Or worse, when you discover an employee has made a mistake and 40 people will lose a weekend getting it fixed.

Irish_Elect_Eng

A good college graduate is one that has managed, at some point during their degree program, to learn "how to learn".

A really good graduate, is one that knows how to learn and that they know almost nothing of any practical use, but are willing to listen.

To whom should they be listening? Yes, to those with experience, unless they want to make all the mistakes that the experienced person has made all for themselves. ( And many do chose to do it that way :-) )

Others,with management experience, have explained why hiring managers look for experience.

One of the reasons that there are not more entry level jobs ( = No-experience) is that most of these positions are given to people within the organisation as promotions or development opportunities. In many companies it is policy to look internally before advertising externally. It is often only when there are no suitably "experienced" people within the company that external candidates are considered.

juan.kerr

SuperInfinity wrote: »

See, this is what I'm talking about. :rolleyes:

What a ridiculous thread.

looksee

I will charitably assume the OP is not trolling.

OP, if it were teachable it would not be called 'experience'. The nearest you are likely to get is 'work experience' as part of a course. This can be great, the problem is that no-one can give real work experience to an unpaid student with no personal responsibility. If something goes wrong or there is a problem, someone else is minding them so closely it doesn't matter.

Experience comes when you can deal with situations without asking someone else what to do, and take responsibility (up to and including your job) if it goes wrong.

nogoodnamesleft

The OPs question is similar to asking why for sake of argument why driving experience cant be assessed. The driving test (degree, qualifications in my analogy) is merely an assessment if you are capable of "doing" something in the broadest sense of the word. To become fully competent in a role/situation in an organisation will take time, exposure and skill to achieve which will be honed and perfected as time passes.

A lot of roles will require latent knowledge to carry the task out efficiently and competently hence once you have the required skills and qualifications learning on the job can be one of the best ways of learning a new skill (especially learning from someone who has been doing the job for years).

The OPs attitude is similar to what I have seen in new graduates in the past. After spending 4-5 years completing a course some expect to be heads of the organisation after a few years.

One issue I have seen with new grads is that they seem unable to apply what they have learned in theory in a real world scenario they are totally lost!

One instance is of a recent grad complaining that he hasnt been given an adequate job to carry out over another individual who joined the organisation at the same time. The other individual is higher qualified to a Masters level and has a number of years experience in a related engineering area. On the other hand the grad has a low BEng degree with experience of making coffee in Costa!:eek: