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Actually, Experience is Pretty Darn Important
‘Hire for culture, train for skill’ is great advice… until it isn’t
Helen seemed like an ideal candidate on paper. During her interview, everyone was super impressed with her responses. She also came highly recommended by a colleague’s friend’s colleague — or something like that.
She was earlier in her career than we wanted, but as far as personality and other details, I could tell the team was leaning towards her as the candidate of choice.
But something struck me during the interview.
Helen hadn’t brought any materials with her at all — no résumé, pen, paper, etc. The role for which she was interviewing was hugely tactical, so we discussed a lot of jargon, but she took no notes. By the time we finished, Helen also had no questions for us. When she left, I mentioned these concerns to our group. “Maybe she just has a really good memory,” they responded. “Besides, we think she’ll be a great fit for our culture here!”
It turns out they were wrong.
The Delicate Balance Between Aptitude and Attitude
In Helen’s first few weeks, our team would have routine Monday morning check-in conversations. They were short (15 minutes), and our team lead would always conclude by asking, “All right, does everyone have their marching orders?”
We all did — or so I thought. The first week, I asked Helen if she had completed some detail of a project, and her response was something like, “Hmmm, I don’t recall that, maybe it’s on someone else’s task list?”
But it wasn’t. It was clearly on Helen’s task list, but she never knew that because she never took notes.
About two months later, management finally realized what I realized during Helen’s interview, and she was let go. The unfortunate thing is that this wasn’t entirely (or even mostly) Helen’s fault.
We were looking for someone with five-to-seven years of experience, and Helen barely had two. Sure, she interviewed well, was charming, and frankly even looked the part. But there was a fundamental disconnect that the hiring team couldn’t quite see because they were blinded by the appeal of a…
