Most organizations believe that experience is important, even at the entry level.

Editor’s note: This article is from WeChat public account “Harvard Business Review” (ID: hbrchinese), author HBR-China visit | Alison Beard | < Span>马冰仑 school | Liu Weiwei Edit | Teng Yue.

Chad H. Van Iddekinge of Florida State University and colleagues reviewed 81 studies to investigate the relevance of their pre-employment work experience to their performance in the new organization. The results showed no significant correlation between the two. Even if employees have completed tasks, held positions, or worked in positions or industries related to their current position, it does not mean that their performance will be higher. conclusion as below:
  Old experience
  Unable to be qualified for a new position
  .

The so-called work experience, is that really important?

Fan Ideco
  : We are also very surprised, because applicants with work experience or the same job experience clearly have a natural advantage. We screened 81 cases with relevant data from thousands of studies and found that pre-employment experience and performance are very weak, whether in training or at work. At the same time, we also found that
  There is no correlation between the work experience of the previous employer and the time of the job, and it has nothing to do with the possibility of the employee staying in the new organization.

HBR: But when screening candidates, isn’t the company first considering work experience?

It is true. We pumped 115 job advertisements posted on Monster.com.The survey found that 82% of the work clearly requires work experience, or expressed a strong preference for work experience.
  Most organizations believe that experience is important, even at the entry level. Unfortunately, the research evidence does not prove that applicants with more experience perform better or stay longer.

How do you assess performance in your research?

The evaluation methods vary, and they are roughly divided into two types:
  Supervisor assessment, such as annual assessment;
  Or more objective quantifiable indicators, such as sales performance or unit production used in research cases on sewing mechanics.

What occupations or industries are you involved in?

The most representative are security services (such as police, firefighters), followed by sales and customer service.
  The respondents were mainly first-line workers, but also manager-level, but did not have senior management.
  But our sample covers 15 of the 23 categories of occupations listed in the US Department of Labor’s Career Information Network, so we think this is quite representative of the US economy.

Why do you have experience, especially job seekers with direct relevant experience that are not better?

My co-authors – John Arnold of Florida State University, Rachel Frieder of the University of North Florida, and Philip Roth of Phillipson University Roth) speculated that there are several possible reasons.
  One possibility is that many indicators that measure work experience are simple
  :
such as the number of jobs, working hours at the previous employer, number of years of work, and whether they have held similar positions before. These indicators can only indicate whether a candidate has experience but cannot reflect the quality or importance of experience, while the latter may have a greater impact on performance.

One of the fundamental premises of our research field is that past behavior can predict future behavior, but pre-employment experience is not a measure of behavior. The candidate’s career development in the previous paragraph may have failed or stagnated, so while we are considering work experience, we should also focus on performance. We also want to know if the candidate has learned from previous experiences. Not everyone is good at learning lessons; people may forget about work leaks or make excuses for them. Finally, we need to consider that if the two organizations operate differently or have a different corporate culture, the experience of one organization may not help or even adversely affect the performance of the candidate in another organization.

Interviews and background checks won’t help employers solve these problems?

will, especially when the employer is targeting behaviorWhen asking questions, such as “How did you deal with difficult customers before?”
  Please tell the specific situation, what you did, and what the results are.”
  But not all employers evaluate candidates like this.
  Moreover, applicants who are likely to give full scores are eliminated in the resume screening stage because of the lack of traditional work experience.

What factors should we consider in addition to experience?

Another reason why employers tend to find experienced employees is that they believe that work experience contributes to the accumulation of knowledge and skills. They may even think that candidates who have done a certain type of work have particularly desirable personality traits. But we recommend that employers focus directly on the candidate’s knowledge, skills, and traits, rather than treating work experience and even educational background as an excellent embodiment.

Which situations does work experience reflect?

We did find some situations where work experience is helpful to employees. We found a set of studies in our own dataset that examined the impact of pre-job work experience on employee performance levels after three, two, and five years. Although the correlation between experience and performance levels is weak in two and five years, it is more significant at three months. and so
  It seems that pre-employment experience will make some of the employees who have already started to take advantage of the initial stage of employment.
  The reason may be that employees are used to the workplace and organizational life, and can be immediately put into work; it may also be that managers will initially give higher scores to experienced employees. However, over time, the pre-employment experience of employees is less and less affected by the completion of existing work tasks.

Secondly, we found in a few studies that the indicators for measuring experience are more reflected at the task level.
  For example, the employer does not ask the pilot or truck driver for the number of years of work, but rather the number of hours of flight or driving record.
  Such indicators are more predictive of employee performance after entering the job.

So can we assume that the HR department and hiring manager should stop screening work experience?

Because work experience is easy to assess, many organizations are more willing to do so.
  Do you have three years of sales experience? Have you managed someone before?
The answer is yes or no. In contrast, past performance and existing knowledge and skills are difficult to judge, especially if you have only one candidate application or resume at hand. But now everyone is complaining about skills shortages and talent competition. The company can’t eliminate potential applicants who are qualified for the job but are afraid to apply for the position because they have no work experience. The loss is too large. Companies should expand their talent pool for consideration.

Is there any other simple screening metrics?

Maybe, but the indicators will vary depending on the organization and position.
  The key is to have a correlation between screening indicators and job performance.

  Suppose the company needs to recruit sales personnel, and in the long-term practice, it is found that the marketing professional staff stays longer than other professional employees and is more popular with customers, then the marketing professional may be a feasible screening indicator. In some positions, employees who may have a professional certificate show a superior level of performance, so companies can use the screening of professional certificates as indicators when recruiting. Companies can also consider using other screening tools, such as work-related tests. The problem is that most organizations don’t take these approaches. They tend to use data to make decisions about products, marketing, and finance. But they don’t use data to make decisions about talent because the data is not valid here.

Is the experience within the organization important?

We have not studied post-employment experience, but other studies have shown that there is a link between the time employees work in a position or in a company and their performance.
  Although there is no strong correlation, it will affect the company’s decision-making when it is promoted and transferred.
  Is experience more important to managers?
  This is the subject we are currently studying.
  For example, a sales representative wants to be promoted to a sales manager. How much does his experience in low-level positions relate to the success of high-level positions?

I have worked as a senior editor for nine years at HBR and have 20 years of professional journalist experience. Do you think that this article will be well written?

Not good to say.

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