
“Years of experience” refers to the amount of time a candidate has worked in a particular field or industry. ✅ Hire qualified applicants with skills-based testing.Drop years of experience for skills instead.The benefits of skills-based hiring over traditional experience-based methods.

The alternative: Focus on candidates’ skills and competencies with a skills-based hiring approach.Is listing years of experience as a requirement in a job description a good idea?.Why did years of experience become an important proxy for skills?.What do we mean by years of experience?.If years of experience aren’t the perfect substitute for competence, what else should candidates and employers focus on?Īt TestGorilla, we’re convinced we have a much better answer (spoiler: It’s skills-based job assessments!), but before we get to that, let’s explore why years of experience was traditionally a focal point for hiring and why it sometimes tells the wrong story. To do that, however, assumes that the passage of time translates into professional excellence – that more years are better than fewer, and that experiences unrelated to the job at hand are relatively worthless.

To simplify things, many employers look to a candidate’s years of work experience in a role or industry to determine if they are a suitable hire.

The bar is different for each position and can be subjective if you’re relying on past experience or job descriptions on a resume. Normally, the answer isn’t straightforward when “qualified” is such a tough metric to nail down. For job seekers and HR professionals alike, an important question arises during the hiring process – “am I (or are they) qualified for this position?”
