Experience, the false idol [#19]

Don't let years of experience requirements fool you

Dear Reader,

Today’s Letter is on a somewhat different topic, but one which is probably one of the most valuable advices I can give for a job seeker.

I’ve coached (literally) hundreds of people throughout my journey. I’ve recently passed the cap of over 1,700 hours of 1:1 coaching, so I know a thing or two about this career thing.

Here’s the thing:

When job descriptions ask for X years of experience in Y, that’s not what they are actually looking for.

How many times have self-eliminated from an opportunity because you thought “I don’t have the experience they are looking for”, because you are trying to take a step up, or switching careers?

If your answer is more than “never”, I need you, for your sake, to stop.

With extremely rare exceptions, companies don’t actually need you to have years of experience in a particular domain. That’s not what they are asking for.

Let me take my JobSpecTranslatorAI and ask it to translate what is the ask behind the ask.

Just Kidding. The only thing AI contributes to these Letters is the illustrations - content completely organic and from the battle scars!

When a job description read “must have a minimum of 3 years in digital marketing”, what they REALLY mean is “we are looking for someone who has the skillset we would typically expect from someone with 3 years of experience”.

That’s it. That’s what they mean.

Do you really think a company that comes across a superb candidate who wows everyone will turn around to the hiring manager and say

“I’m really sorry hiring manager, I know you are desperate to get that role filled, but that person only had 1 year experience/doesn’t have formal experience so we can’t take them on. Here’s a clearly less talented candidate but who meets the requirement on paper”

I know recruiters get a bad rap, but that’s not it. Companies care about getting people who can do the job. If you convince them you can do it to a high standard, they won’t care what you’ve done before. Years of experience is a proxy. A lazy proxy, but a proxy at that.

Let’s take a moment to think about how lazy that actually is. Years of experience is a measure of time. Time is linear, it’s quantitative. One hour is objectively the same length for everyone. It lacks a qualitative element.

Let’s take two salespeople. The first spent the 55 minutes scrolling LinkedIn and engaging in fads and political debates, and 5 adding random contacts to their list (& pitch slapping those who dared accept). The other has spent 20 minutes cold calling, 20 minutes warming up on existing leads, and another 20 preparing for their next sales call. It was the exact same hour.

Which hour was more valuable? Now, compound this over a year. They both would have had, objectively, an extra year of experience added to their tally. Is that one year equally valuable? Of course not! That’s why years of experience is so flawed.

Now, let’s take a third person. That person actually doens’t work in sales. They are a project manager. What they know how to do however, is get buy-in for their ideas, they know how to get resources to support their projects, and unlock big revenue opportunities for the organisation, and build exceptional relationships with internal and external stakeholders. Who would a company prefer? The project manager who wnats to move to sales, or the scroller?

Any reasonable and self-respecting company would obviously prefer the project manager. All the project manager needs to do is convince them of this.

The good news is you can work do this fairly easily. All you need to do is give them the conviction that you can pull this off. That goes through the realisation, as I wrote in the very first Letter, that there are two types of expertise, and we rarely focus on the one that gets us hired.

Your goal is to demonstrate that while you may not have the formal experience they are saying they need, you actually have all the skill they expect, and more, because you know how to relate your existing experience to the role and its requirements. Be the project manager, who is so good at getting buy-in, they get buy-in on them. Help them perceive you have the skills for the job, and you WILL get the interview.

Michael Jordan became a pro Baseball player after a successful career in basketball. Why? Because the decision makers perceived he had what it took to perform at high level in that sport, despite never playing it professionally.

That’s how the game is truly played. Companies don’t really care if you have x years experience, they care whether you have the capability they’d typically expect from someone at that level. And if you know how to articulate your skills, you’d be surprised at how many more calls you’d get!

Now, you may ask, what if you don’t have that experience in the first place, that you cannot translate what you have done to that field. That, young grasshoper, is a completely different topic called personal projects which I am extremely bullish on, and will likely write about in the near future.

For now, bear in mind, dear reader, that what’s standing between you and your next job may well be you: you reading things too literally, and you not articulating the value you bring well enough.

The good news is that this doesn’t require loads of certifications. The better news, is that if you hit reply and give me some context and your attempt at figuring out, I’m happy to lend you a helping hand.

Let’s unlock your next step, shall we?