Hire talent first, then experience

What I have found recently in various discussions with people is that the labels of job titles, previous job experience, and other such items causes others to pin hole you into your history, never into your future.

During a recent job fair I overheard a job applicant state that they wanted to head in a certain direction for their career but the HR person took one look at their resume and said "I see you have sales experience, you'd be great at our company in sales!" The person stated flatly that they did not want to be in sales any more and for the HR person to think that the HR person was only just doing their HR job. The HR person was not thinking like a business owner becasue they would probably have to rehire someone in a number of months because the person left to find other work.

In discussing the idea as to how to hire, an HR Director stated it the best, "Hire talent first, then experience." The reaon: talent is engrained in a person much like Michael Jordan has talent at playing basketball, it just flows from them. If you hire based on experience you may not get a Michael Jordan and miss completely those things that people LOVE to do and would do it without getting paid. If you pay for performance, then those that love their work because of their talent will be paid hansomely by the right company. If you read the book "Now Discover Your Strengths" you'll get the picture.

In talking with a small business owner over lunch one of the things that stuck in my mind was his comment that most people will work 40 hours a week for someone else but over 60 for themselves. It's a shame that "The Joy of Work" does not get practices much in corporate American. All hail the Dilbert comic.