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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
"I have N years of experience in X!"
I've always been bothered by this phrase, since people obviously imply that having a certain number of years of experience in a given area must mean that their proficiency is proportional to said number of years. In most cases, it's practically an anti-signal for actual competence.
Golf
In my personal experience, the most egregious offenders are weekend golfers. Your typical weekend hacker with terrible mechanics and no course management is likely to say, "I've been playing this game for 20 years!" suggesting his supposed expertise at some point in the round. (Curiously, or perhaps naturally, the better players rarely make such statements) I wonder if these players actually know that they are terrible at the game (or at the very least are playing terribly at that time, and need to use their N years of playing poorly to prop themselves up in the face of embarassment.
Job Descriptions
Virtually every job description you will see from traditional companies will ask for "N years of experience". This is the case for both technical areas like engineering (5 years of Java, 3 years of Ruby on Rails, 3 years of Verilog, etc.) and non technical areas like marketing (10 years of product marketing experience, 5 years of web product management experience, etc.).
Of course, this phenomenon is a side effect of the current broken state of recruiting. When a thousand people spam your Monster.com job posting, HR departments are coerced into using automated filters on resumes, which in turn promote the use of such "N years" based requirements. The fact that there are a small but significant number of excellent candidates who don't meet the exact criteria doesn't seem to matter [1]. If the cost of getting rid of the 900 geniunely unqualified candidates is passing over 20 great ones who don't fit the bill on paper, it seems to be a cost most HR departments are willing to accept. There must be a way to fix this sad state of affairs, since as we stand today, both sides of the table lose out.
(On the other hand, requirements along the lines of "experience actually shipping web appilcations" or "experience creating go-to-market strategies for hand held consumer products" does seem reasonable to me.)
Teaching(?)
Teacher copensation and retention based on seniority is an enormous point of contention that I don't want to get into here. I'm definitely not qualified to say to what extent teaching ability improves over the years. All I know is that some teachers, are terrible, some are decent, and others are truly wonderful and can be life-changers for children and young adults.
But I do think that teaching is an area where having a great number of years under your belt can help, in that your sample size of students, teaching methods and crisis handling is bound to be greater. That, while correlated with teaching "ability" to some extent, I think is a distinct factor that does increase with the number of years served [2]. So if the absolute quantity of "knowledge" in something or a concrete number of "things" one has experienced is pertinent to a role, then "N years of experience" may actually be an acceptable metric. (Though frankly, I'm hard pressed to give other areas where years of experience automatically impart relevant information like this.)
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There are some cases (like job searches) where you really have no choice but to flaunt your 10 years of underwater snake charming experience. Sometimes you're in a position where you have to play the game, even though you know that the game is silly. If you find yourself in such a situation, go for it by all means, but try to maintain a certain cynicism about the whole charade.
If you ever hear me say "I have N years of experience" in anything, please do me a favor and call me out on it, so that I don't become "that guy".
Cheers.
[1] Of course, we can't forget about those job postings which ask for N number of years of using technology X when said technology has not existed for N years. (ex: Asking for 7 years of Rails experience when Rails had only existed for 6 years. Yes, this really did happen.)
[2] This thought was inspired by this post by aroberge on Hackernews.
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Originally posted here
  
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I have definitely noticed that good players are usually the quite ones. Of course there are the good players that talk a lot but the quite ones are usually the ones you need to watch out for.
Even when you ask them they will say, I've played a bit here and there
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I agree with you that some people shouldn't be out bragging about something if they can't actually back it up with results (walking the walk if they're already talking the talk), but I feel like you're generalizing a bit too much when you say that people who talk about the length of their experience are displaying an "anti-signal for actual competence". In fact, you essentially contradict yourself when you note that some people can be good at their job regardless of long-term experience... sometimes these things are indeed independent, but sometimes having experience in a certain field allows for you to shape your views and personal techniques a little better.
I think that it's important to evaluate someone by their results, rather than just the fact that they've worked at a job forever... but I think that mentioning your longevity doesn't necessarily mean you're useless. (After all, many professions would have let you go by now if you weren't working out properly.)
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Sounds right. Seniority is a measure of status, not of competence.
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In the restaurant industry experience is everything. Culinary school teaches you how to cook, not how to survive a friday night in a busy restaurant. Anybody can learn to cook, but it takes a special person to be able to handle the stress of being a chef. those who cant handle it dont last long.
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I have seen a bunch of teachers that got worse with their years of experience. They just learned how lazy they can be and still get away with it.
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On April 10 2013 16:08 omisa wrote:
In the restaurant industry experience is everything. Culinary school teaches you how to cook, not how to survive a friday night in a busy restaurant. Anybody can learn to cook, but it takes a special person to be able to handle the stress of being a chef. those who cant handle it dont last long.
However, would there be a major difference between, say, 5 years as a chef or 10 years? 5 years would be enough to easily weed out anyone who couldn't handle the stress of being a chef, after all, and render almost all of them very experienced at handling pressure.
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Completely agree. It's mostly about anything related to "I'm doing this for x years" not including how efficient time was spent. My personal favorites include Poker ("I played this game since before you were born kiddo") and Martial Arts ("I'm doing this since 10 years (3 hours per week), you seem pretty good for your 5 years (20 hours per week)") - best to smile and appreciate the help the other side is trying to give you.
Sadly that beats antagonizing everyone who puts in less time than you if you strive to use your time efficiently. People get envious over results, not over the path someone had to take to get there.
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Both experience and ability add value to anyone doing anything. This is easily demonstrable. Haji's point that N years of x type of work is well made. Nothing magical happens after 5 years of database experience that makes a certain type of job doable, where with 4.5 years (or even 3), you'd just have no idea where to start. Yet at the same time, experience is something that is quantifiable - where ability is something which has to be tested firsthand. If you were a small business, you can do your own testing and weed out the flakes. But for most large businesses, HR rep 1 has no way of testing you to see if you actually are good at what you do or not - and for whatever reason, businesses dislike the notion of giving entrance exams (the best way to actually quantify outright ability), and therefore, they use "N years of experience in x" as a proxy.
Is this a bit tragic for people who could make good employees but who don't make the cut because of this arbitrary requirement? Yes. But heck, a lot of people lie or mislead readers on their resume anyway - and continue to do so during the interview - often doing their best to answer the question "how do you want me to answer?" rather than being truthful. Having seen both sides of the application process, the end result of the resume/application/interview process is usually very poor for both sides.
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Knowing the difference between experience and ability is important, but stating one's experience rather than one's ability is far more polite and empirical. Unless you are interviewing for a job/ convincing someone of your exceptional talent it seems odd to talk about how good you are at any one thing. Everyone can understand the nature of doing something for a long time, and the experience that time provides is often evident.
As far as how it works out, then yeah experience matters little to how well you've acquired skills and can put them to use. I've been playing basketball since I was 6, and I regret to inform everyone that I am not coming out as TL's first NBA player.
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On April 10 2013 22:59 sharkeyanti wrote:
Knowing the difference between experience and ability is important, but stating one's experience rather than one's ability is far more polite and empirical. Unless you are interviewing for a job/ convincing someone of your exceptional talent it seems odd to talk about how good you are at any one thing. Everyone can understand the nature of doing something for a long time, and the experience that time provides is often evident.
As far as how it works out, then yeah experience matters little to how well you've acquired skills and can put them to use. I've been playing basketball since I was 6, and I regret to inform everyone that I am not coming out as TL's first NBA player.
Yet it's likely that, despite my length and athletic capabilities, you're a better basketball player than I am, never having really played the game.
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I have 15 years of Starcraft experience and I am totally and utterly terrible at it!
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FuDDx
United States5008 Posts
I have 15 years of fucking off with SC never real serious..... well... I did just get platinum in Korea server!!
I also Have less than 4 years of ballooning experience but working towards an advanced masters program!!
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I think you are way off here.
Just like an above poster said with the chef example. Also, to add to that, having x years of experience means you know how to get things done.
In my contracting business we need an engineer that can be a project manager. So he must know the insides of what the work is about. They don't teach you that in school. They give you the concept and then you have to learn how the real world uses these concepts to achieve their targets.
Can you handle sending letters back and forth? Do you know your suppliers? Material submittable, do you know how to do them?.
I think, and I could be wrong, when they ask for a relatively high number of years of experience, they mean they want someone who can come in and do the job. "We don't want to teach someone".
So yes experience does matter, but the difference in experience from 5 years to 10 years, I'm not really sure what is the point.
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I agree with the OP and would like to quote Kurt Tucholsky:
"Erfahrung heißt gar nichts. Man kann seine Sache auch 35 Jahre schlecht machen."
Rough Translation: "Experience is meaningless. You can do you work wrong for 35 years."
It is, of course, an extreme position, but shows very nicely that experience itself is neither good nor bad. What you have experienced and how you did it / how you came to that experience are important, and what you learn of it. But noone cares about that.
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On April 11 2013 00:30 Fattah wrote:
I think you are way off here.
Just like an above poster said with the chef example. Also, to add to that, having x years of experience means you know how to get things done.
In my contracting business we need an engineer that can be a project manager. So he must know the insides of what the work is about. They don't teach you that in school. They give you the concept and then you have to learn how the real world uses these concepts to achieve their targets.
Can you handle sending letters back and forth? Do you know your suppliers? Material submittable, do you know how to do them?.
I think, and I could be wrong, when they ask for a relatively high number of years of experience, they mean they want someone who can come in and do the job. "We don't want to teach someone".
So yes experience does matter, but the difference in experience from 5 years to 10 years, I'm not really sure what is the point.
This is pretty much exactly wrong, and what's so frustrating about it.
Having x years of experience sure as hell doesn't mean you know how to get things done. I've met countless experienced people who simultaneously are completely clueless.
However, not having experience pretty much guarantees you don't know how to get things done. You might, however, be able to figure it out quickly and prove more valuable than someone who's experienced.
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On April 11 2013 00:20 U_G_L_Y wrote:
I have 15 years of Starcraft experience and I am totally and utterly terrible at it!
You just aren't trying to actively improve every single game. Just like those weekend golfers. Ofcourse there is nothing wrong with this. Some people play golf/starcraft to relax and therefore aren't trying to stress themselves to improve every time.
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United States24718 Posts
Regarding years of teaching experience, this is somewhat different from most other jobs for the following reason: it typically takes 3-5 years to become an effective teacher. Not a very good one. One that is adequate. The difference between 5 and 10 or even 5 and 30 years of experience isn't telling though for reasons such as what was already alluded to in this thread. From 5 to 30 years a teacher could burn out or could develop one of the must amazing curricula ever.
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the problem with "recruiters" is that they treat "people management" experience the same as "technical process execution" experience.
a guy looking for a role that primarily involves "people management" who is 50 years old with grandchildren... and a handful of dead relatives probably also has a bazillion years experience in his role as a "people manager"...
and he is probably a far better manager than a 23 year old looking for their 2nd full time job.
none of this applies to years of experience coding javascript ... but recruiters are too lazy or too cowardly to make the distinction.
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On April 11 2013 01:03 Passion wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2013 00:30 Fattah wrote:
I think you are way off here.
Just like an above poster said with the chef example. Also, to add to that, having x years of experience means you know how to get things done.
In my contracting business we need an engineer that can be a project manager. So he must know the insides of what the work is about. They don't teach you that in school. They give you the concept and then you have to learn how the real world uses these concepts to achieve their targets.
Can you handle sending letters back and forth? Do you know your suppliers? Material submittable, do you know how to do them?.
I think, and I could be wrong, when they ask for a relatively high number of years of experience, they mean they want someone who can come in and do the job. "We don't want to teach someone".
So yes experience does matter, but the difference in experience from 5 years to 10 years, I'm not really sure what is the point. This is pretty much exactly wrong, and what's so frustrating about it. Having x years of experience sure as hell doesn't mean you know how to get things done. I've met countless experienced people who simultaneously are completely clueless. However, not having experience pretty much guarantees you don't know how to get things done. You might, however, be able to figure it out quickly and prove more valuable than someone who's experienced.
Suppose you are starting a company, you don't have any staff, you need an accountant. Would you hire a fresh grad, or someone who might know how to file your taxes from experience?
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EPT
