Poll of the Day > Do you think it's rational for employers to put years of experience in the--

(+) Yeah! (+)

I must have these answers.
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"Entry level position, must have 8 years experience."

This is typically just used for age gating, since they're not allowed to deny someone because of their age.
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Yes but it's not a hard requirement. They might still give you an interview if you have 3 instead 5 years xp and if you do well in the interview they'll hire you
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Sometimes
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Yes and no. Yes, usually. If its a rare field then no. You cant be expected to know how to drive a Belaz 75710 when applying to a mine. Previous experience on similar equipment, maybe. But nothing most people have done will really compare.

Lokarin posted...

"Entry level position, must have 8 years experience."

This is typically just used for age gating, since they're not allowed to deny someone because of their age.

Loopholes dude. I know Ive been denied because of my ASD but if they simply dont call you back what kind of a claim can you make? They could deny you for all sorts of illegal reasons and if called on it say They werent as right for the position as the person we hired.

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Mead posted...

Sometimes

This. I think it depends on the job, tbh...
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It depends on the job and position. 5 years for a manager is one thing but 5 years for an entry cashier is not. I recall an ad for a programmer for a language requiring 8 years of experience in it despite it being only 2 years old. Or for 20 being an entry waitress.
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Only for senior positions and higher to prevent abuse and trust me employers have been abusing experience requirements for entry level positions since the late 90's.
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I mean yeah some jobs require more than others.
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Just say your Native American on the application and they'll hire you. They cannot ask nor check.
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Now that I'm home I can type more.

It depends on the position since some would be reasonable to require experience or training. I wouldn't expect someone to be able to become a pilot without at least some years flight experience and wouldn't be shocked if that came out as '10 years experience'. However, a lot of jobs also do NOT require prior experience to do yet employers are gleefully willing to apply a requirement there. I think some of them just do it out of reflex to be honest. This is made worse because, plenty of times, the only way to get experience in said job is to take a job which requires experience. If everyone requires you to have 5 years doing X but the only way to do X is to have a job... which requires prior experience doing X... you'll end up with an ever-shrinking pool of employees with dwindling skills and the only new blood being people who lied to get in. It's basically almost as if the only way to get anywheres is to just do menial labor until a friend in a job already waves the experience requirements. Sometimes it can be especially absurd but I think we can agree that the really bad ones are flukes as opposed to 'norms'.

So my real answer is 'depends on the job' and 'For entry-level stuff, no. For higher-end stuff, yes. For stuff more in the middle; depends.'
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My question always is how do you get the expierence if you must already have the expierence to get the job. I wouldnt mind in the cases where they need someone but at the time dont have the personell or time to fully train someone. But if they have those things they should be more willing to hire u expirenced people
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I remember how people used to complain about this sort of thing, because a lot of time businesses would ask for requirements that were literally impossible to fulfill.

Like, a programming job might ask for you to have 10 years of experience coding in Java, but Java only existed for 7 years at the time. So the only way you could ever apply for that job is if you were willing to lie about your own experience.

The other complaint along those lines was that businesses would ask you to have X number of years coding in a specific language, only to hire you and ask you to completely disregard the way you used to code at previous companies, and be retrained into your new company's personal style. Meaning almost anyone would general coding experience would have been good enough for the job (since they're going to train you from the ground up anyway), and having years worth of experience in specific languages might actually be a negative (because they're going to tell you to forget everything you know anyway).

That's part of what led to the mentality for a lot of people that you should just go to every interview even if you didn't meet the stated requirements, blatantly lie to them about what experience you had, and then if you got the job you could cram your way into learning whatever languages they wanted you to use to back up your lies. Because if you were honest you were never going to get a job in the field.
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I'm on the yes and no train, but leaning much more towards no.
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As long as it's relevant, yes. Especially if they're going to pay more based on experience. Right now, there's too much of arbitrary requirements in my area for jobs that aren't relevant or pertinent to the job

One secretary job in a local lawyer's office wanted a bachelor's degree (any field), 5 years experience of working for a lawyer and knowledge of the lastest Word/EXP. Starting pay: $11. High school kids get hired at one of the gas stations starting at $12

My last job had no idea how to pay anyone so experience was irrelevant. They rewarded my 16 years of experience with 12 an hour. Next person who was hired after me who only had 2 years of experience got 13.50 an hour. They gave her 3 raises that year because she asked and was making $15 before her yearly evaluation was due. Another employee who asked for a raise was terminated. That person's replacement? Made $10.50 with 8 years experience

mooreandrew58 posted...

My question always is how do you get the expierence if you must already have the expierence to get the job. I wouldnt mind in the cases where they need someone but at the time dont have the personell or time to fully train someone. But if they have those things they should be more willing to hire u expirenced people

That was always he problem trying to get jobs as a teenager. But still happens in the adult world...
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Funny how the poll says 'yes' but the topic itself is full of people who are saying 'depends on the job' and giving stories of how unreasonable some of the experience requirements are.
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Unbridled9 posted...

Funny how the poll says 'yes' but the topic itself is full of people who are saying 'depends on the job' and giving stories of how unreasonable some of the experience requirements are.

Because it isn't clear cut yes or no and there's plenty of situations where it is not rational. We understand why it's there but there's times where it doesn't need to be

Must have 10 years of experience with Windows 10.

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Just apply to them anyways. I've gotten several jobs that require X years of experience when I had <X.
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Even though experience does not automatically means quality work, I think it would depends as I can understand needing experience for management level type positions or operating complex machinery. At the same time even if a company ask for X years of experience, if the work is not complicated I'd imagine it is possible to learn on the spot.
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Lokarin posted...

"Entry level position, must have 8 years experience."

This is typically just used for age gating, since they're not allowed to deny someone because of their age.

lol yeah I've seen that in almost every job description

and yes they aren't allowed to deny someone (but some companies will still deny people because of their age)
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Lokarin posted...

"Entry level position, must have 8 years experience."

This is typically just used for age gating, since they're not allowed to deny someone because of their age.

With the intention so obvious, its still ridiculous its allowed over a technicality.