Do Hiring Managers Focus Too Much on Industry Experience When Interviewing? (Part 2)

Emily Bell: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Blueprint Roundtable. Today we are going to be retouching on a previous topic from a roundtable that we’ve done before, basically going to be touching on the forward future facing role, incorporating challenges and maybe some benefits to whether or not, you know, folks are focusing too much on industry experience and how we envision that potentially evolving or shifting as we move forward into current and future states. So with that, Matt, I’ll kick it to you.

Matt Lewers: Yeah. Thanks, Emily. I appreciate you having me on the show again. I think, I think we’re continuing to see the trend of industry experience is more of a requirement than a nice to have, whether or not the job description that you’re looking at says it, hiring managers and companies are looking for candidates or individuals that come from the industry, that know how to talk to the personas, know how to navigate the, you know, the whatever vertical they’re in.

Matt Lewers: So, I’m, at least on my end, I’m still seeing the trend as, year over year significantly higher. And still just, still as high as it was earlier this year. I don’t think we’re going to see that go away anytime soon. I think with the market where it is, it’s more of a safe bet for, for clients to hire somebody who’s come from the industry, right?

Matt Lewers: It reduces your risk of a negative price. Onboarding or negative performance, long term regardless of the role. That being said, we do have some clients that prefer not to have any industry experience. Those are, those are more rare. I, I appreciate those approach. I think it makes. It makes it for a much more, diverse background in terms of shared experiences across the team when you bring people in from different industries or different verticals, maybe, maybe even non, non traditional like people that haven’t sold SaaS, but have sold services into the industry that you’re you’re providing SaaS for.

Matt Lewers: I think those teams, holistically, they’re more fun to work on as a recruiter, and I’ve always enjoyed managing that type of team where you bring people from different backgrounds together. But, but there is more risk there that you bring somebody in industry who has always sold to technical white collar folks and can’t sell to non technical blue collar, individuals, and we, and we’ve seen that, all three of us have seen that before, right?

Matt Lewers: But, so, I think the trend is here to stay for the foreseeable future. I’ll pause there because I don’t remember the part two and part three of the, the question. But Krissy, let’s get your thoughts and then we can route back to me if needed.

Krissy Manzano: Yeah, well, you broke out up a little bit there, Matt. I’m not sure if it’s because you live so far out from the city and you don’t have good reception, but we’ll work with what we’ve got.

Matt Lewers: This isn’t, this is not SNL, Krissy, please get it together for our

Krissy Manzano: and that’s just a laugh at hard.

Emily Bell: unfiltered.

Matt Lewers: We’re not doing this one again. Our viewers could still be listening. We’re not doing this again. So we’re going to run it.

Matt Lewers: Yeah.

Krissy Manzano: So, oh, there’s a hummingbird. Yeah, so I heard most of what you said, but you broke up a little bit. So I will try to, answer and hopefully not cover what it sounded like you were more supportive of people hiring for from industry experience to have industry exp… No. Okay. Then I misheard that a little bit.

Krissy Manzano: I think.

Matt Lewers: It’s like our one on ones. It’s like the message gets lost somewhere.

Krissy Manzano: Right, so my, from the, from a future standpoint, so I think right now, particularly a little bit earlier this year, which I know we’re talking current and moving forward, but I think anytime people want to feel good about a decision or feel like they’ve got to have a backfill or a good reason for why they hired somebody, if they don’t work out, it’s to say, like, they had all the industry experience, right?

Krissy Manzano: It’s kind of a way to not take accountability. And I think that that actually is just going to continue to get harder and harder to do, because, and I say this all the time, probably broken record, but it’s true. We’re in a transitional moment where employees no longer have the same upper hand that they have had for decades.

Krissy Manzano: I’m not saying that there aren’t times where they have the upper hand, but it is not like this with employees, employers up here. It is much, it is starting to even out more. And so. Why that’s important is folks, when you’re looking for, you know, your desired unicorns and things and offering a job and it was, you know, there weren’t as many jobs available for a while like that because of remote work.

Krissy Manzano: So you could maybe get your unicorn a little bit easier or higher with that background. But, and in the workforce, even in a bad economy, and there’s so much more demand from employees that, you know, you choosing, like, what you want that makes you feel better, but doesn’t really interview the person has skills or not. It’s just, it’s not something that’s going to continue to, you know, go back to where it was.

Krissy Manzano: Right? And so. I also think to, like, how many times do we have to see studies that tell us that that doesn’t work? Like, industry experience is one piece of a much bigger puzzle and and it often does not have any correlation to how good someone is. Right? Like, you can hire someone from the industry and they can be rock star and you can hire someone from the industry and they’re awful.

Krissy Manzano: Right? The industry experience has nothing to do with either of their performance. It’s skills and behaviors that are lacking or strong between them. Right. And I think we’re going to get more comfortable with that. And I think we’re, we’re seeing that more, right. Like, a little bit, but the, when you, but also there’s more, you know, accountability for when you make this higher, they need to work out well.

Krissy Manzano: And so. I think we’re just in that transitional moment where it’s still going to be a little tough. People are still going to expect things that aren’t realistic, but I think the workforce and the demands that are coming from that will will change over time. And you’re also having so many new industries or, you know, little sub industries pop up because of technology like AI that you’re not going to have a lot of experience in things like that because they’re newer. So I think we’ll just kind of naturally gravitate away from some of that over time is my thought. That’s all I have.

Emily Bell: No, those are both fantastic points of view. I think very similar. But yeah, I think to wrap the, the summary would be that, you know, people still do it. It’s a way to kind of maybe not intentionally, but definitely a way to kind of dodge some accountability if a potential hire is not the right fit. But yeah, I think it goes, it goes to kind of what we always say is look beyond the resume, look at the skills and behavior that the person brings.

Emily Bell: And I think that as the workforce continues to evolve, that the thought is that we might be forced to kind of look beyond industry related experiences, especially as tech comes into play more and more, but great chat, great points of view, thank you both for your thoughts and that’s all we have today. See you

Matt Lewers: Thank you everyone, as always.

Krissy Manzano: Bye.