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The Circle of Experience

“Hello, Andy speaking?”

“Hello there Andy, it’s Acme Marketing here – you interviewed with us earlier today.”

“Yeah, hi there.”

“Andy, we were really impressed with your portfolio and the way you comported yourself at interview, so well done.”

“Oh great, thanks.”

“But sadly we’re not able to offer you the position because of your lack of experience in the industry, sorry.”

“Oh, but I really feel I’m ready for a role like this, and this is the perfect opportunity.”

“Yeah, I understand that, but sadly we’re looking for someone with a bit more experience of what the role entails…”

Sound familiar? Although having been self-employed since the age of 16, and having only ever had one ‘proper’ job actually working for someone, I’m not really in a position to comment, I’ve heard this exchange, or second-hand reports of it, innumerable times. I call it the ‘Circle of Experience’ and it remains the greatest challenge for younger people when it comes to securing employment. The rights and wrongs of it are perhaps a topic for another time, but it’s a topic that you’ll rarely hear Careers Advisors discussing much beyond endlessly extolling the supposed virtues of Work Experience in any form.

It is my role in an article like this to present balanced and well-researched arguments, which I intend to do, but I must admit that having built my business on the talent and passion of younger (average age 24) people, the seemingly never-ending circle of demanding ‘experience’ from young people really gets to me. As simple a question as it is; how are younger people expected to gain experience without being given the chance to accrue it? I am not for a second denying the importance of experience in the working world and the immense benefits that it can bring to any organisation, but I will happily dispute that it is the be-all and end-all of suitability for employment.

I’m a coward, and not liking the idea of trying to fight to woo employers, decided to become my own boss, and now find myself as a manager of eight people. Since my business started in 2003 I have recruited ten people to my firm, some more formally than others, but the ultimate decision as to whether or not to employ them has been my decision. I have recruited people as young as 19 and as old as 50-something, but I have always been of the belief that the passion and desire to find a footing in an industry that a younger person brings to an organisation is invaluable. Experience is crucial, but not as crucial as an attitude to what experience one has.

As a younger person seeking work, one appears to have three basic choices. There are, of course, many more, but in the majority of cases these appear to be the most prominent. First, one can start right at the bottom, the very bottom, and simply accept that the middle or upper echelons of any career are reserved only for those in their late-30s and beyond. Second, one can fight and fight for responsibility at a younger age, often incurring the inherently dispiriting nature of the hypothetical conversation above. Thirdly, one can ‘go it alone’ and launch into the world of entrepreneurship, which is, speaking from experience, just as riddled with the Circle of Experience as the second option. The problems, therefore, are apparent, but what are potential solutions?

Sadly there is no easy answer to this one. My career has been dogged, until more recent times, (although it is not entirely extinguished) by people simply not taking my business partner and I (aged 25) seriously. Our only response has been to work as hard as possible and look to prove ourselves, often to our own financial detriment. Ironically, it is the benefit of experience that enables me to make some suggestions to younger people about how best to tackle either employment or self-employment in the face of those who feel that their lack of experience rules out opportunity. Essentially, for want of an innuendo-ridden statement, it would appear that the really pressing issue is not how much of it you’ve got, but rather how you use it…

What is experience? In the world of work, the simple answer would be that it is previously encountering situations that would be pressing or common in the workplace. However, more broadly speaking it is perhaps worth looking at the broader use of the idea of experience and the perceived benefits of it in British industry. Experience of something is generally considered to mean that you will handle the situation correctly if it comes up again – but is that really true? If you put your hand in a fire and it burns, you should learn not to do it again. However, if you then proceed to plunge your hand into the fire again then what point did the experience serve? It would appear, therefore, that experience is only of any use if lessons are learnt from it. The challenge to younger people, then, is to show employers, potential clients and peers alike not how much ‘experience’ they have, but what they have learnt from what they do have.

In essence, the challenge to younger people is to genuinely draw learning from experience and position the value of that on their CVs and in the way they communicate with potential employers and clients. At any stage in life we are all going to come across new experiences from which we are tasked with learning – it would appear to me that the only difference with being of a younger age is that it is likely to happen more often. So think about what experience you do have, not what experience you don’t have, and think about what you have learnt from it. It is our responsibility to analyse the things that happen to us and make best use of them, no matter how many instances we have to work with.

My true empathy lies with the entrepreneurs, with those who are willing to prove to their markets and to themselves that they have something to offer an industry. In the early stages of your careers the issue of experience will no doubt adversely affect you as potential clients (somewhat understandably) look reluctantly at your proposals, as you can’t offer as much portfolio as others. I would do the same, so am not in a position to criticise. What I can say is that for ourselves, certainly, we are interested in what the portfolio work (however much of it there is) says to us. Someone who has produced a thousand average websites cannot hold a candle to one who has produced two fantastic sites. Make the very best out of every opportunity you are given or you find – the old adage that “you are only as good as your last job” must be a motivator to any younger entrepreneur.

And what of those new experiences in the world of business that knock you off your feet? The first time someone leaves your business for greener grass, the first time you have to let a client down, the first time you’re rejected in a pitch? Different people handle disappointment or challenge in different ways, and all I can do is offer what I cling to in those darker times. Indelibly imprinted in my mind are two lines of a poem, of all things. Never a truer word spoken by Rudyard Kipling, who wrote “If you can meet with triumph and adversity and treat these two impostors just the same… then you are a man, my son.”

Article by Miles Latham B.A. (Oxon), Managing Partner, Affixxius Productions