Talent vs. Experience

Choosing between talent and experience is one of the toughest choices any hiring manager has to make.

People are hired for what they’ve done, but fired for who they are.

Our retention rate for placed candidates with our clients is well above average – 93% stay at least three years. According to the WSJ, the national average is only 35% employees stay longer than three years in a job.

So why are we successful?

Because we take a different approach. Sure, we look at a candidate’s experience, but we meet all of our candidates and closely assess them for their talent and potential as well.

There are four primary attributes that drive Talent:1) Curiosity, 2) Insight, 3) Engagement, and 4) Determination.

If you possess all of these, you are probably a key player building and growing your organization.

Let’s take a closer look:

Curiosity: Do you have an intellectual desire to learn more; are you a seeker of new experiences and knowledge? Are you open to change? This is probably my favorite component because finding people who are genuinely curious these days is becoming increasingly rare. Who has the time, right?

Are you content to mentally check out when the 5PM work whistle blows? Or are you on your way to a stimulating extracurricular activity of some sort?

Are you an intellectually curious person seeking out new challenges? How are you cultivating your mind?

If you are, where is this on your resume? Include a section, “Outside Interests”. It’s one of the first things we look at when getting a new resume. 

Insight: This is the ability to gather and make sense of information that suggests new possibilities. Do you see patterns? Good at puzzles? Are you good at taking raw data and putting into a format that makes sense?

Insight is the father of Judgment. Do you make good decisions in a logical way? Have you always had good relationships with people…able to select good friends to hang out with? My dad used to tell me, “Show me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are”. Account managers and sales producers all need excellent insight to be successful.

Engagement: This one is relatively simple and, in most cases, you either have it or you don’t. Unfortunately, you can’t teach this.

Simply put, this is the ability to connect with someone. Not small talk, but to have a meaningful conversation with someone one-to-one. And, sure, it helps if you have some life experiences to share with the other person. Life experiences allows you to establish common ground with a new acquaintance.

My standard advice to young people is to invest in experiences not things.  

This attribute is actually the critical component for a successful producer. If you can’t connect as a producer or any kind of a salesperson, you are doomed for failure. When I meet with candidates for coffee, I can tell within the first five minutes of the conversation if this individual can connect.

Determination (Grit): My favorite. Determination can overcome most obstacles, but because of burnout, a determined person must also be an interested person to perform over the long haul…interested in what he/she is doing. Otherwise, burnout will creep in.

I LOVE candidates who have this attribute. They are candidates who played competitive sports at the high school or collegiate level, worked their way through college while working full-time, had a paper route at the age of 12, or worked in several summer internship programs.

And there are those candidates who were raised in very humble beginnings where Mom and Dad were working multiple jobs to put food on the table. That builds family character. I LOVE these candidates!

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THE TAKEAWAY: Take a look in the mirror and ask yourself, “Do I have these attributes?” And if you don’t, the next question should be, “How can I develop these attributes better?”

Thanks for reading.

Rob Houghton