{"id":210,"date":"2006-08-03T10:57:51","date_gmt":"2006-08-03T15:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/?p=210"},"modified":"2006-08-03T10:57:42","modified_gmt":"2006-08-03T15:57:42","slug":"the-industry-experience-trap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/the-industry-experience-trap\/","title":{"rendered":"The Industry-Experience Trap"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting article from ere.net titled <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ere.net\/articles\/db\/57704FDA9DC148309F8E2BFA6D30401B.asp\" target=\"_blank\">The Role of the Hiring Manager in Recruiting<\/a>. The author cuts to the quick in one of his bullet points:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The industry-experience trap.<\/strong> Industry experience is not only highly overrated, but it&#8217;s also the quickest way to sub-optimize the talent you recruit. If you think of the pool of top-quality, top-quartile talent, the minute you say they must come out of the food industry or the high-tech industry, you&#8217;ve reduced that pool of available talent by about 98%! <em>The fact is that for the majority of our jobs, top talent with high learning agility can learn the nuances of our industry, but industry-experienced candidates who do not possess high learning agility will never become top talent or future leaders for you.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I emphasized the last sentence since that is a battle with which we are most familiar. The author is absolutely correct in that statement, yet companies often revert to an overemphasis on experience &#8211; especially when hiring salespeople. I believe they do it because it is difficult to discern a strong salesperson from a weak salesperson who interviews well (unless you are using assessments).<\/p>\n<p>So, all things appearing equal, it is safest for the hiring manager to hire the candidate with more industry experience. If that candidate fails, the hiring manager can say they aren&#8217;t sure what happened &#8211; the person had great experience.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.selectmetrix.com\/Process_Main.html\" target=\"_blank\">May I suggest a process that eliminates the guesswork?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An interesting article from ere.net titled The Role of the Hiring Manager in Recruiting. The author cuts to the quick in one of his bullet points: The industry-experience trap. Industry experience is not only highly overrated, but it&#8217;s also the quickest way to sub-optimize the talent you recruit. If you think of the pool of top-quality, top-quartile talent, the minute you say they must come out of the food industry or the high-tech industry, you&#8217;ve reduced that pool of available talent by about 98%! The fact is that for the majority of our jobs, top talent with high learning agility can learn the nuances of our industry, but industry-experienced candidates&hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/08\/the-industry-experience-trap\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"","bgseo_robots_follow":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,3,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hiring","category-sales","category-sourcing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5Oho-3o","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":19691,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2018\/07\/finding-sales-talent-in-tight-markets\/","url_meta":{"origin":210,"position":0},"title":"Finding Sales Talent In Tight Markets","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"July 20, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"The labor market is tight today as you assuredly know if you have been attempting to fill open sales positions.\u00a0 The issue in sales runs deeper than that as you are typically attempting to find strong sales candidates.\u00a0 \"Attempting\" is the key - many hiring managers are unsure of selecting\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Compass-on-rocks.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Compass-on-rocks.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Compass-on-rocks.png?fit=560%2C315&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2224,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2010\/01\/2010-unemployment\/","url_meta":{"origin":210,"position":1},"title":"2010 Unemployment","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"9.3 to 9.7% That\u2019s right, that is the expectation for the 2010 unemployment rate from the Federal Reserve based on this abcnews.com story.\u00a0 I find that number shockingly high, but it is realistic. Then there is this bit of information from Reuters (emphasis mine): Speaking at American Economic Association's mammoth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Economy&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Economy","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/economy\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2025,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2009\/05\/alluring-experience\/","url_meta":{"origin":210,"position":2},"title":"Alluring Experience","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"May 15, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I\u2019ve written about this phenomenon in the past and I continually encounter it in many sales areas \u2013 the allure of experience.\u00a0 In fact, I just talked to a recruiter from a different part of the country who focuses on sales hiring.\u00a0 We talked a bit of strategy and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring Salespeople&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring Salespeople","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/hiring-salespeople\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":135,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/06\/new-article-released-today\/","url_meta":{"origin":210,"position":3},"title":"New Article Released Today","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"June 26, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"We just released a new article this morning titled Selecting Salespeople from Outside Your Industry. This article is tactical in its approach to finding transferrable skills amongst sales candidates who do not have direct industry experience. This topic is one we are constantly promoting, but we have no doubts it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Articles&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Articles","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/website\/articles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":386,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2006\/10\/open-mind-hiring\/","url_meta":{"origin":210,"position":4},"title":"Open-Minded Hiring","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"October 23, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Another good article from the new Selling Power newsletter - Open Minds Open Doors. The topic here is Hiring Salespeople From Outside Your Industry. If you follow that link, you will see that this topic is of great importance in our world. From the article: \"I believe the way the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":575,"url":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/2007\/01\/what-if-all-your-senior-execs-left\/","url_meta":{"origin":210,"position":5},"title":"What If All Your Senior Execs Left?","author":"Derrick Moe","date":"January 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"What If All Your Senior Execs Left? from BusinessWeek addresses a topic we have been shouting from the mountaintop. First, a great point that I haven't considered: Organizations today are running with lean, highly productive staffs. While such streamlining is great for budgets, the fact that workplace productivity levels have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Hiring&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Hiring","link":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/category\/hiring\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/selectmetrix.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<!-- WP Super Cache is installed but broken. 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