Qualifications Or Experience
Qualifications should be given more importance than experience when recruiting staff. Agree or disagree?
Recruiting the correct individual for the correct job position is a key factor influencing the productivity of the organization and its success. There are many arguments about the importance of qualifications over experience for job candidates in deciding who to hire. In my point of view, experience is a greater priority than qualifications since the latter is only raw theoretical information without the knowledge of practical application.
My opinion can be explained clearly by the following example: if a person, without any swimming experience, would surf the internet and learn many swimming techniques and guidelines would you expect him to jump in the water and swim like an Olympic swimmer? (Chaplin, 2013) Firstly, experienced Workers have know-how of the job. Experienced professionals have the knowledge of what has to be done. This is because they have encountered the usual situations that the job would expose them to, and they know how to deal with them.
Furthermore, they are equipped with the necessary skills for the job: they have the technical knowledge to use the necessary technology and equipment. In addition, they also have enough work hours to have sufficient knowledge of the work place culture .
Secondly, For certain jobs it is essential for managing crises on day to day bases. In such a case, experience is critical. A highly experienced workforce would be better at handling new and pressing troubles. For instance, familiarity with solutions of meticulous scenarios would come naturally to skilled and experienced employees.
Also workers that have prior experience would know how to strive under complex situations and would have the know-how to control the circumstances.
Thirdly, Due to having an inexperienced workforce the organization would face many employee loyalty issues and as a result, a high labour turnover which in-turn increases recruitment expenditure which consumes a lot of time that could be used more productively elsewhere. Experienced employees have a tendency to stay with their organization for a larger time. This is so that they would have greater stability and to obtain their wish to achieve a high ranking position within the firm. To save on recruitment expenditures and for efficient time management experienced workers would be Fourthly, even without proper qualifications employees do get hired. This is due to the fact that large organizations do their own “on-the-job” training with new employees to increase their job productivity and efficiency significantly.
The American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) informs that under $1500 for each worker was used up for training during 1996. The major fraction of that (49 percent) was used up for technical and expert training. This money could be used for investments rather than training. Besides, even if the employee does or does not possess the qualifications, he/she would undergo the training process to standardize the quality of job performance amongst the workers. Lastly, experienced employees would bring a lot of knowledge and clientele from rival competitors. This would mean instant revenue for the organization. Moreover, they would be capable of meeting deadlines with greater efficiency and productivity because of their wealth of experience. Furthermore, the experienced employee would be more aware of methods that contribute to a higher customer satisfaction which makes them a worthy investment.
Also, there are always quarrels between employees that reduce their focus on the job. This usually does not occur with experienced employees since they are generally more mature in the work place. (Howe and Howe, 2013) Nevertheless, in certain jobs and work environments, inexperience is considered a merit. Employees with low experience would not have hard-wired views established by prior incidents. This would make them ideal for employers who like to mold their workers’ thinking. One might object that, an inexperienced worker might break under pressure and fail in controlling the situation. It’s true that, inexperienced workers work harder to make an impression using out of the box thinking and come up with distinctive methods to solve problems. However, they would not be efficient in their problem solving because they would not have the skills and experience to apply them. Admittedly, inexperienced workers tend to have smaller salaries this means that they are much less expensive compared to experienced workers. In contrast, the firm would eventually pay high training costs for those workers, which means that it would have been more time saving to employ experienced personnel in the first place. It would be further argued that, inexperienced workers tend to have fresh ideas. Alternatively, an inexperienced worker would take very long to come up with a suitable idea for the situation as he or she would not be familiar with scenario due to lack of experience.
In conclusion, I would like to restate the points that show the dominance of experience over qualifications. Experienced workers have a greater know how of the task, they are more efficient and productive. They are better suited for crises situations since they have faced those scenarios previously. Also, they are more stable since they aim for a higher job position in the firm. Lastly, the high cost of the experienced worker would result in a lower cost in the long run since there is no need for training and they would most likely make less mistakes. These arguments show supremacy over qualification since there is added knowledge of practical application. It would be highly recommended to have a balance of both experienced and inexperienced workforce to acquire the advantages of both sides……….Howe and Howe, 2013)
Howe, T. and Howe, T. 2013. TODAYS TOPIC – Inexperienced Employees Vs Experienced Employees. [online] Available at: http://wearethomas.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/todays-topic-inexperienced-employees-vs-experienced-employees/ [Accessed: 29 Apr 2014].
Ogunjimi, A. 2014. Advantages of Experience VS Inexperience in Jobs | eHow. [online] Available at: http://www.ehow.com/info_7746182_advantages-experience-vs-inexperience-jobs.html [Accessed: 29 Apr 2014]
(Chaplin, 2013) Chaplin, G. 2013. Qualification Vs Experience. [online] Available at: http://garychaplin.com/2013/06/27/qualification-vs-experience/ [Accessed: 29 Apr 2014].
