Experience versus Education – Subjective?

Is it your belief that during the review of your overall career information by a recruiter or hiring manager, he or she is being as objective as possible? I’d have to agree with you that in most cases you are right; I’d wager they are objective more than 80% of the time. But, what about that other 20% of the time? You know, those calls or interviews where you were left to wonder, “What happened, anyway?”

Have you ever sensed during a phone screen or interview, either with the sourcer/recruiter or the hiring manager, there was something just not right with their tone, the direction of the questions, or even the consistency of the subject matter covered at different stages in the process? Hopefully you kept notes of the key concerns during the conversation? Because later, as you walk through or replay the conversation, a pattern might emerge to provide you a key insight into your inability to get that dream job.

In the field of quality, scatter grams enable you to perform an activity known as defect density analysis (I will refrain from getting into Poisson, DPMO, and Sigma, OK?!). This invaluable information gives you an opportunity to redirect your efforts early with greater precision and efficacy. If, however, your test reference is influenced, or weighted, by a single attribute or input sample, the density of error(s) can be skewed resulting in a false indication. In fact, for each iteration, if a different attribute is utilized at a higher concentration, your resulting data is completely useless. One needs to be consistent across all phases and with all forms of input to get the best predictive result possible.

Stick with me here while we go through a simple hypothetical scenario. Upon reviewing your notes of the phone screen a pattern emerged uncovering a particularly obvious focus, or weighting, on your education and less on your experience. Then, your notes regarding the interview process with the hiring manager (et al) uncovers a heavier than expected influence on your work experience. Based on the very simple density analysis process outlined in the previous paragraph, the result is a pretty obvious false indication. Remember, that false indication will greatly affect your candidacy and you’ll quickly drop off the radar. Weighting a different attribute over another at different stages of the process, therefore, is not a best practice anyone would ever view as, well, best.

School work, while helpful and supportive in a learning context, does not always prove the creativity in, or mastery of, a specific body of domain knowledge in the field. On the job work experience, while powerful and clearly a result of hard work and focus, doesn’t always translate into the best ability to excel in a particular domain, either. Allowing for differing perspectives or proclivities of the individuals on the reviewing team, the entire team must decide at the outset whether one attribute will have significant influence (EDU:60 – EXP:40) or if there should be parity (EDU:50 – EXP:50). Once the decision has been made to choose one over the other, stick with it to the end of the hiring cycle and ensure all participants remain consistent when interacting with the candidate pool.

If you had a tool that allowed you to lock in the percentage of influence (EDU:55 – EXP:45), do you believe your hiring process would be more effective and result in the best candidate joining your team? Let us know …

Staff IT Right© knows … let us help you … it’s sooo much fun firing on all cylinders!!!