Is Experience Really so Advantageous?

We constantly hear a lot about experience, and how valuable it is to any job. But experience is often not a good thing to get results, because experience has tradition at its core: dead men's solutions which suited their time, along with fear of risks, and the constant grind of doing things in a certain way - one that has been 'tried and tested', but which is guaranteed to produce the same, often limiting, results.

The trouble with this great 'experience' is that the more someone gets it, the more they believe they have all the answers, and the less they seek to learn. Yet learning is the most important thing in our lives to widen our store of knowledge, to keep up with inevitable changes, to allow a new perspective, and to prevent us being fossilised in the same ways of thinking and acting.

In essence, experience on its own keeps us in the past, saying the same old things, doing the same old actions, quoting the same old tired phrases, while a fresh approach opens new doors to possibilities, and puts other options on the table.

The Paradox of Work Experience

One of the strangest occupational paradoxes is how employees view their own acquired experience. Everyone, especially younger recruits, begin a new job all wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, eager to learn, and to begin their journey on the career ladder. A few years into that first job, especially if the person hasn't moved away from it for other experiences, and he/she is likely to be fearful, clinging on to that job for dear life, while feeling they cannot afford to take any risks to find another.

With time, they are likely to believe they cannot compete with anyone else because no other company would want them at that particular age, and with that career history! Their years of experience appeared to have counted for nothing. Instead of experience making them feel ready for other things, it seems to keep them stuck as their confidence falls. Thus they stick to their experience, fearful of the wider world and new competition, while thinking how unworthy they have become.

The sad paradox is that the experience they have spent so much time acquiring appears increasingly useless in the face of their fears. So they will remain in the same job as long as they can to avoid being rejected elsewhere.

The bottom line is that experience is a very limiting commodity in its value. It limits vision, aspirations, opportunities for change and, most important, it limits possibilities. 

Some people might argue that experience prevents them from making mistakes, and helps to demonstrate what is wrong to prevent repetition. That is very true in certain instances, like medicine, where mistakes can be costly in terms of human life. But some mistakes are actually necessary to our development because that's how we learn.

The main advantage for experience is that it gives you the confidence to be able to see which route MIGHT be beneficial, based on what has already been tried, but it does not guarantee that route will work, because it is based on past results. Yet an old result could be the last thing one needs to apply to a new situation, especially when it is likely to have the same effect. Experience also stops people from making decisions they should make, because they are afraid to stray from the 'accepted' or 'expected' path, which means stagnation and dithering, while nothing new is added.

The bottom line is that experience is a very limiting commodity in its value. It limits vision, aspirations, opportunities for change and, most important, it limits possibilities. Experience only sees itself, harps back to itself, and promotes itself, while preventing innovation and excitement along the way. Experience is also about the past, not the future, because experience is a dead activity that has already enjoyed its time.

Thus, in any hiring situation, experience should only count for a quarter of the requirements. The other three should be qualifications, the desire to learn, and most important, personal confidence. Someone who has the confidence, fearlessness, and high self-esteem to get on with the job is likely to do far more, and achieve even better results, than another person who might have great qualifications, and tons of experience, but is pretty insecure and fearful, and with a closed mind to go with it!

#experience #limiting #aspirations #learning

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