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On April 11 2013 03:38 Fattah wrote:Show nested quote +On April 11 2013 01:03 Passion wrote: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?
I know what you're trying to say, but many times you'll hire the one with no experience, because you can get away with paying them crap, and you don't have to deal with retraining any old habits of theirs you don't like out of them. Using an accountant as an example is a bit misleading, because you can't magically become a CPA upon graduating from college; there's more training involved. I think most companies look for value in their employees over ability OR experience.
This whole blog is a nice idea, but reading through some of the posts, all I see is "Anecdote -> generalization!" "Contrary anecdote -> opposing generalization!". Competency is what actually makes you hireable (binary-valued) -- you gain this by having some baseline knowledge, being reliable, and that sort of thing. Ability in a field is a good characteristic for anyone to have -- it literally means you'll be doing your job better. Sadly, it's almost completely non-quantifiable -- hence the usefulness of bringing portfolios of prior work to interviews. Experience is also important, and has the upside of being quantifiable, but it really runs off in a different direction than ability. It's not a matter of being better at any particular group of things, it's about having learned how to handle the minutiae of more situation.
Competence: You learned how to bake a cake, and can do so without burning down the house or poisoning anyone.
Ability: You can bake a handful of different kinds of cake, all of which taste fucking awesome.
Experience: You understand how baking works well enough to improvise, and can turn almost any food into an edible cake.
Of the three of them, (1) is necessary, and both (2) and (3) are desirable, but having more ability is not a substitute for experience, and having more experience is not a substitute for ability.
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Experince does not mean you can bake a cake though, no less you can turn any food into edible cake, it means you have attempted to make a cake before, you could of failed everytime and still suck at it. In almost any profession there are people who are just downright awful at it with some level of experince
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28100 Posts
I'm really into Golf as well during our Canadian summers. So 5-6 months of the year I play basically everyday, and the place I have my membership at has unlimited driving range usage. So I'm there almost all day usually, and I completely agree with you on your analysis of the average weekend golfer. I don't have any friends who Golf, so if I can't find a solo spot my club usually puts me with 2-3 people I don't know. 99% of the people I play with are horribly informed about the game, and really have no idea how to properly play regardless of their "x years of experience". It's so hilarious hearing the different tips and philosophies here on a daily basis. And just the general arrogance(ignorance actually) of their abilities. You know the guy who says "I'm a 300 yard hitter", but hits it 260 max with a 50km backwind downhill, while the rest are shanks.
One guy was bragging about his sick power fade(aka he swings way over the top and slices like a mofo), and I facepalmed so hard. And he was trying to give me tips the whole round on my long iron shots(I'm a scratch player who thrives on driving/long irons), and I'm thinking he's hit 0 greens in regulation, I've hit every green in regulation, and I need the tips?
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United States24779 Posts
I don't usually find these ridiculous golfers you guys seem to...
Occasionally I get paired up with a really good golfer, and they are usually reserved as mentioned in the OP. However, the 'bad' golfers I am paired with (not that I can talk) are rarely bragging about their ability or trying to shove advice down anyone else's throat. The only thing I ever see occasionally is an old man who can't play for shit trying to give advice to anyone who will listen but even that is rare.
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28100 Posts
On April 11 2013 08:45 micronesia wrote:
I don't usually find these ridiculous golfers you guys seem to...
Occasionally I get paired up with a really good golfer, and they are usually reserved as mentioned in the OP. However, the 'bad' golfers I am paired with (not that I can talk) are rarely bragging about their ability or trying to shove advice down anyone else's throat. The only thing I ever see occasionally is an old man who can't play for shit trying to give advice to anyone who will listen but even that is rare.
In general, you're right. Most of the time people are really casual and nice, but not at the club I went to last year. This really expensive club has an insane student deal so I was able to afford it, and the majority of players there are 35-60 year old businessmen. And usually they play 1-2 times a week, and sport top of the line everything, but can't break a score of 100 
And for someone like me who plays literally everyday, sometimes 27-36 holes in a day as well, you tend run into these guys quite often. Luckily, because of the student deals, there are a ton of guys/girls my age who play here that actually play well. And obviously there is a ridiculous amount of old men who play here, and they are all really cool. Some of them hit half as long as me and still shoot better scores 
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I agree that this is generalizing a bit too far. As someone else said, aptitude is harder to judge up front than experience. A person can't say "I am X amount of good at what I do." Years spent in a trade may not guarantee competence, but calling it an anti-signal of competence is pretty strange. I must say though that I have very little experience with the "I have X years of experience" line, so I can't picture the people being referred to and disparaged.
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The best at anything are almost always the ones that say very little about how good they are and never bad mouth their competition.
IMO, the better you are at something the more you realize the less you truly know about it.
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I think this article holds some truth in it. Having said that, I think it depends on the task, if something innovative has to be done on the job then experience may not necessarily help, but if the job is mostly routine, with the key being details and good execution, then experience does help significantly.
Also I play basketball, and experienced players do play a lot better than newbies; they know when to pass and when to take a shot, the importance of defense etc etc.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
"having" N years of experience is neutral or even positive.
However, "saying" (often unprompted) that they have N years of experience in something as their way of demonstrating aptitude instead of giving concrete examples of how they've demonstrated skill, what they've built, projects they've lead, etc., is often an anti-signal.
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If it's not a job, then years of experience is very misleading. For example someone might say 'I've played guitar for 15 years', but it would be much more useful to know how many hours they've played. Someone who has played 1000 hours of guitar in 3 years will be much better than someone who has played that in 15 years. I expect the same is true of most skills, like sports, languages, etc.
For jobs it depends a lot on the environment. If you taught for 2 years at a private school with high demands and a policy on firing anyone who wasn't up to scratch, then odds are you are an ok teacher. If you taught for 2 years at an unaccountable state school, then you could be good or you could be getting set in bad habits.
In general though, the time people are likely to be worst at their jobs is right at the start, where they have so much to juggle and think about. I don't really see a huge difference between people with 2 and 3 years of experience, but between no experience and 1 year is huge.
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thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
^
Right, and so imo, people who've had substantial ownership/responsibility/execution during their "experience" will usually use anecdotes or concrete skills or abilities to describe their aptitude (which is more concrete), not "number of years" (which can really mean anything).
I guess one example would be a photographer or artist. You're not going to say "I have 10 years of experience doing photography / painting", but instead just have a portfolio to demonstrate your competence.
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On April 11 2013 07:53 jamesr12 wrote:
Experince does not mean you can bake a cake though, no less you can turn any food into edible cake, it means you have attempted to make a cake before, you could of failed everytime and still suck at it. In almost any profession there are people who are just downright awful at it with some level of experince
I agree there are idiots everywhere. But, as far as the restaurant industry goes, you would usually get fired very quickly if you couldnt do your job. The fact that you wasted product and labor and now they cant serve cake means you better get your act together quickly. Consistency is key, its why fast food is so successful, and if you cant put out consistent food then someone will be found that can. Long hours and shit pay mean most people are there because thats what they love to do and they strive to get better so one day they can earn that chef title. But it takes years to earn that and if you are not passionate about it, or you simply suck ass at your job then you wont make it.
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I would agree that 'N number of years' is a stupid measurement, as it could be 8 hours a day or once a week. The somewhat over-used (but still applicable) 10 000 hours would make more sense. In terms of music (I'm a musician with 10 years of experience :D) I feel there is a pretty straight-forward relation between technical proficiency and amount of time spent. Though admittedly the speed at which people learn can be VASTLY different.
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Asking for 7 years of Rails experience when Rails had only existed for 6 years. Yes, this really did happen.
A manager creates a generic template for HR to use for hiring a new employee. Neither is completely sure of the requirements of the new candidates but they know ruby on rails is needed. 7 years sounds like a good amount of time.
I've heard someone say something similar, as an applicant, on reddit but I don't remember if they were rewarded for calling out the company.
It's hard to disagree with the premise of the blog. Competence is competence and it's hard to measure competence within your company without putting people on trials, hiring them for a week or two and seeing if they are capable. If not firing them. But even this is difficult as it makes you look like a mean boss and people can put on a charade for 2 weeks. So we work through proxies.
To all you golfers: how much does it cost to golf? I always picture golfers as business people with too much money and time on their hands and not enough desire to benefit society.
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I fucking love that you wrote this. I have been trying to explain this to people for so god damn long, and no one understands.
Experience is one thing, but understanding that experience is another. You can look at all the words you want, but until you understand what they mean, you are just looking at words.
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
I hope that my next job is through a referral of someone I worked with directly rather than having to put up with all the crap of traditional job hunting. It's definitely difficult to quantify someone's skill level but not as difficult to identify their attitude towards work and where their passions lie.
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United States24779 Posts
On April 12 2013 01:13 obesechicken13 wrote:
To all you golfers: how much does it cost to golf? I always picture golfers as business people with too much money and time on their hands and not enough desire to benefit society.
Well that is quite the narrow/uninformed view you have. To address the original question, golf varies a great deal. If you don't want to join the fancy club or play at the world-famous course and shop around (courses, times, seasons, etc), you can play rounds for $20-40 dollars without any problem. A bucket of balls at the range is like $5 and short game practice is basically free if you know where to go.
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On April 12 2013 08:01 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On April 12 2013 01:13 obesechicken13 wrote:
To all you golfers: how much does it cost to golf? I always picture golfers as business people with too much money and time on their hands and not enough desire to benefit society. Well that is quite the narrow/uninformed view you have. To address the original question, golf varies a great deal. If you don't want to join the fancy club or play at the world-famous course and shop around (courses, times, seasons, etc), you can play rounds for $20-40 dollars without any problem. A bucket of balls at the range is like $5 and short game practice is basically free if you know where to go.
That's just your opinion man!
I checked prices after posting the question. Also realized it was a bait as it puts golfers in a defensive position. It's definitely on the more expensive side of hobbies but 5-10$ per game and a few more for balls and a cart (sometimes) isn't going to break the bank.
I had always imagined it was over 100 for a single game and something like ornate furniture, or fruit bowls, or fancy watches, clothes, or polo, or etiquette. I was taught in my intro to sociology class that many of these things persisted largely to divide the rich and the poor and to form groups so that the wealthy could band together, identify outsiders, and maintain power.
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On April 12 2013 10:09 obesechicken13 wrote:
I had always imagined it was over 100 for a single game and something like ornate furniture, or fruit bowls, or fancy watches, clothes, or polo, or etiquette. I was taught in my intro to sociology class that many of these things persisted largely to divide the rich and the poor and to form groups so that the wealthy could band together, identify outsiders, and maintain power.
I don't know if this is true of all schools, but Sociology was the most BS class I had to take in liberal arts by far. Propaganda masquerading as a science.
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On April 10 2013 13:40 thedeadhaji wrote:
"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.
If it weren't for your last sentence, I would actually agree with you. Basically what you're saying is that as you gain more experience (say from 5 to 10 years), you have a lot more chances to get dumber than to improve which is plain wrong .
Indeed, sometimes experience can be misleading - having 10 years of engineering experience doesn't necessarily make you better than an engineer with only 5 years experience. However, there are things which only come in time, with experience. A good 5-year-experience engineer will never be as good as a 10-year-experience one.
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EPT
