A Matter of Time: Why Experience Won’t Always Get You a Dream Job.

When we think about landing the role you’d be crossing your fingers and toes for, usually the first thing a job seeker starts sweating over is:

“Have I really got what it takes for this job?”

Experience is a slippery beast. It can come as a shock to find out that experience doesn’t always equal viability in a recruiters eye.  If the agenda is to fit the role well, it’s important to remember that it’s not just what you’ve done in previous roles listed on your CV, but also the timeline that provides useful information to recruiters- and it’s not always clear-cut.

Experience can mean a lot of things. Here are just two very general examples of why ‘experience’ isn’t always what you need to focus on, although of course, it’s vital in most roles.

Experienced individual a) Key member with their current company. 1-3 main roles that span over the last ten years. Proven record of company loyalty in both cases, is productive in both roles but not necessarily risk-taker.

Experienced individual b) Four to six months as an employee in their current company, a record of eight+ roles over ten years, spanning multiple skill sets. CV shows the individual has advanced through acquired skills with each new role.

It is easy to see that both candidates have valid experience on paper, but what many job seekers don’t realise when they aren’t successful in securing a job that looked perfect, is that experience and the perfect track record of staying put don’t always add up to being right for the job. Where some employers prioritise experience and low staff turnaround, others may be happier to risk turnaround and prioritise proof of motivation to progress.

Not sure whether you’re using your experience to best effect? A recruiter can give you plenty of tips and hints as to what is useful to talk about and how to make sure you stand out- whether that is in the form of a CV or in an interview. If you’d like to talk, call the team at First Personnel today. Our experts are skilled consultants that can help you realise your dream job. Call us on 1800 510 640 today.