The best people have a good balance of education and experience. One of the most precocious things that’s ever popped into my head, and then popped out of my mouth, was something I said when I was 18 years old, and working in the paint department at Sears. An old man came in, ordered some paint, and began talking to me about his project. He said something about his technique that I knew was wrong. I don’t remember the details at all, but he said to me, “young man, don’t tell me how to paint, I’ve been doing this for 30 years”. I replied, “Sure, but you’ve been doing it wrong for 30 years”. I was 18 and had been through some pretty good formal training, but it still felt a little weird saying that to this man.
My point is that experience doesn’t always trump education, and that the best people will have a balance of both. I’m talking about people that value education and continue to be life-long learners, investing in their profession through various educational opportunities.
I don’t devalue experience at all. All things being equal, I’d take the guy with better experience over the guy with better education. But, sometimes recruiters and hiring managers don’t truly understand the candidates experience because they didn’t dig deep enough, and thus overvalue it.
The problem with experience sometimes is that it can be very narrowly-focused; but when combined with formal education, the candidate’s skills are broadened, and the concepts learned help them understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, enabling them to do it better.
As an example, if you’re looking for an ecommerce professional, and you ask them how much experience they have with Google Analytics, Adobe/Omniture Analytics, or Webtrends, they might tell you they’ve been using it for five years. Awesome, you think to yourself. But what have they been doing? If they’ve been simply reviewing the same KPI dashboard all that time, five years is no better than a few weeks. But if you have a candidate in front of you who tells you they’ve been through the Google Analytics certification program, or they’ve read the book Web Analytics 2.0, or they’ve taken Lynda.com’s analytics classes, then you’ll know that you have someone who is really committed to web analytics, and understands concepts, and if need be, can apply that knowledge to the new role, even if they haven’t needed or had the opportunity to apply that knowledge in their past role. They can apply a technique they've learned from formal training to provide greater insights to their business. Then you have someone who can provide information and make recommendations based on analysis, not just someone who is merely reporting data. Don’t assume that someone has the skills you’re looking for just because they have been doing it for a long time.
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