Reader:

Experience tells where you have been. Excellence reveals what you have accomplished.

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Morning Minute 10.9.26

Experience or Excellence: Which Matters More? Experience tells where you’ve been.

​Excellence reveals what you accomplished.

One of the biggest mistakes employers and applicants make is placing too much emphasis on experience.

Employers look for applicants who have held similar positions, remained with companies for reasonable periods, and demonstrated upward mobility.

Applicants respond by emphasizing the positions they’ve held and how long they held them.

Both may be looking for excellence in all the wrong places.

Experience has value. But experience alone tells us primarily where someone has been and for how long.

Excellence tells us what they accomplished while they were there.

An employer seeking competence and stability may favor someone who has spent years in a similar position. But longevity doesn’t necessarily demonstrate excellence.

What did that person accomplish?

Did they increase sales? Improve profits? Develop people? Solve problems? Earn promotions or awards? Build stronger teams?

This is especially important when hiring leaders.

How long someone held a position may be less important than what they accomplished while holding it.

Applicants often make the opposite side of the same mistake. Believing employers value longevity, they fill their résumés with positions, responsibilities, and dates—but bury their accomplishments.

The Verdict

Applicants: Immediately after your contact information, highlight significant accomplishments, successes, and awards. Give the person scanning your résumé a reason to stop and say, “I want to talk with this person.”

Don’t just tell them where you’ve worked. Show them what you’ve accomplished.

Employers: Look beyond titles and tenure. Search for evidence of accomplishment, leadership, commitment, problem-solving, and teamwork.

Experience matters.

But participation measures time. Excellence measures results.

Today’s Morning Minute Challenge

Applicants: Review your résumé. Does it emphasize where you’ve worked—or what you’ve accomplished?

Employers: The next time you review a résumé, search for evidence of excellence before simply counting years of experience.

And remember:

​Hire for attitude. Train for skills.

P.S. If you would like the interview questions I use to identify excellence, email me at lab@larryonlearning.com. I’ll send them to you.

Keep Learning. Keep Leading.

And remember, Information without transformation is wasted energy!

That is today’s Morning Minute.

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Today's Morning Minute shares why both experience and excellence are important in seeking an addition to your team or seeking a leader to take in the task of building, training, and developing a team. If this message resonated with you please pass on this message or the video.

Have a great weekend!

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