Are Companies Hiring Experience or Hiring the Same Way of Thinking?

When familiarity becomes a hiring requirement, could businesses be overlooking the value of a different perspective?

Sometimes children make me question the way adults think

One of the things I genuinely enjoyed about teaching English was watching how differently children approached the same task.

You could explain an exercise, show an example and expect everyone to follow a particular method.

And then there was always that one child who decided to do it completely differently.

Sometimes the result was hilarious.

Sometimes it made absolutely no sense.

But occasionally, their approach was surprisingly clever.

They had found another way to reach the same answer, sometimes using a method that was actually simpler than the one I had demonstrated.

And I remember thinking that there was something quite interesting about that.

If someone reaches the right answer using a different method, does that automatically make their method wrong?

Of course not.

Becoming a mother has made me appreciate this even more.

As parents, we spend an enormous amount of time teaching our children how the world works.

We show them how to do things, explain what is right and wrong, and help them understand situations they've never experienced before.

But something I've noticed is that the learning doesn't always go in one direction.

Sometimes I'm the one who ends up looking at something differently.

Children haven't yet developed all the habits and assumptions that adults carry around.

They experiment.

They question things.

They try approaches that might never occur to us, simply because we've been doing something the same way for years.

Of course, not every alternative approach is better. Sometimes experience exists for a very good reason.

But watching children learn has made me think about something beyond parenting and education.

How often do we stop questioning the way something is done simply because we've become used to doing it that way?

And could something similar happen in the workplace?

Experience is valuable. But familiarity can shape our thinking

I want to make something clear before going any further.

I don't believe that people with years of industry experience are somehow less creative, less curious or less capable of challenging established practices.

Quite the opposite.

Experience gives people context, judgement and knowledge that can take years to develop.

Someone who has worked in financial services for a decade may understand regulations, operational risks and customer expectations that someone entering the industry wouldn't immediately recognise.

The same applies to healthcare, education, manufacturing and countless other sectors.

That knowledge matters.

Sometimes it's absolutely essential.

But I also think experience influences how we see problems.

When we spend years working within a particular environment, we naturally become familiar with its processes, terminology and ways of doing things.

Over time, some of those practices become almost automatic.

We know what usually works.

We know what has been tried before.

We know how things are supposed to be done.

And that's useful.

But could it also mean that we sometimes stop noticing other possibilities?

Not because we're incapable of seeing them.

Simply because familiarity makes certain approaches feel more natural than others.

The question nobody thinks to ask anymore

Imagine a company that produces the same operational reports every Monday.

Several employees spend hours extracting data, updating spreadsheets, checking figures and distributing reports to different departments.

The process has existed for years.

Everyone knows what they're responsible for.

Nobody particularly enjoys it, but it's simply part of the weekly routine.

Then someone joins the organisation from a different industry.

They observe the process and ask:

“Who actually uses all these reports?”

The team explains who receives them.

Then comes another question:

“And what decisions do they make with the information?”

Suddenly, the conversation becomes more interesting.

Perhaps some reports are essential.

Perhaps others contain information that is already available elsewhere.

Perhaps certain reports were introduced years ago to solve problems that no longer exist.

Or perhaps the business has changed, but the reporting process hasn't.

The new employee hasn't necessarily discovered something that experienced colleagues were incapable of noticing.

They simply approached the process without the same assumptions.

They hadn't yet learned that this was just how Monday mornings worked.

And sometimes that difference in perspective can be useful.

A fresh perspective doesn't automatically produce a better answer. But it can introduce a question that nobody has asked for a long time.

Different industries don't always mean different problems

This is something I find particularly interesting when I look at my own professional background.

I've worked in banking, education and self-employment.

On paper, those environments look quite different.

And in many ways, they are.

The regulations are different.

The customers are different.

The daily responsibilities, systems and expectations are different.

But some of the underlying problems are surprisingly similar.

How do we understand what people actually need?

How do we measure performance?

How do we identify an inefficient process?

How do we balance quality, time and resources?

How do we communicate information so that someone can make a decision?

A bank might approach these questions differently from a school or a small business.

But that doesn't necessarily mean the knowledge developed in one environment becomes irrelevant in another.

Sometimes the opposite happens.

You recognise a familiar problem in an unfamiliar setting.

Or you notice that something considered normal in one industry has already been approached differently somewhere else.

That doesn't mean you can walk into any organisation and immediately understand everything about it.

Of course you can't.

But it does make me wonder whether we sometimes focus too much on where someone gained their experience rather than what that experience has taught them.

Those aren't necessarily the same thing.

Are companies reducing risk or limiting perspectives?

Now imagine a company recruiting for a Business Analyst.

Two candidates apply.

One has eight years of experience in the same industry.

They understand the terminology, know the processes and are familiar with the business environment.

The other has relevant analytical and business skills, experience solving problems and working with stakeholders, but comes from a different sector.

Who is the safer choice?

At first glance, probably the first candidate.

They may need less training.

They may understand the organisation's challenges more quickly.

They may be able to contribute sooner.

And I completely understand why that would appeal to a hiring manager.

Recruitment involves risk.

Businesses have deadlines, budgets and responsibilities. They can't always afford lengthy learning curves.

But here's the question I keep coming back to:

If companies consistently prioritise people who already know how their industry works, could they unintentionally reduce the variety of perspectives within their teams?

I'm not suggesting that everyone from the same industry thinks alike.

That would be an unfair assumption.

Two people with almost identical professional backgrounds can have completely different personalities, ideas and approaches to problem-solving.

And two people from different industries can think in surprisingly similar ways.

But professional experience does influence the assumptions we develop.

It shapes what we consider normal, which problems we recognise first and which solutions come to mind.

So I wonder whether repeatedly selecting candidates with similar professional histories might sometimes reinforce existing approaches.

Not deliberately.

Not because anyone is doing something wrong.

But because familiar experience can feel like a more predictable choice.

And predictability isn't always the same as long-term value.

Perhaps the strongest teams need both

Imagine a team working on improving a customer service process.

One person has spent ten years in the industry.

They understand the regulations, operational challenges and reasons certain procedures exist.

Another has worked in education and brings experience explaining complex information, recognising misunderstandings and adapting communication.

Someone else has a background in customer-facing banking roles and understands the relationship between customer expectations, targets and operational processes.

A technical specialist understands the systems, data and opportunities for automation.

Would these people approach the problem in exactly the same way?

Probably not.

And that's potentially a good thing.

The experienced industry professional might explain why a particular process cannot simply be removed.

Someone from another sector might recognise a different way to organise the work.

The technical specialist might identify what could be automated.

And someone with extensive customer-facing experience might notice that a proposed solution looks efficient on paper but could create problems for the people actually using it.

None of those perspectives is automatically more valuable than the others.

And having different backgrounds doesn't guarantee that people will work well together.

But if the team can communicate, challenge ideas constructively and respect one another's expertise, those differences may become an advantage.

The goal isn't to replace experience with fresh thinking. It's to create opportunities for the two to improve each other.

But how much industry experience is actually essential?

This is perhaps the part of the recruitment process that interests me most.

Some roles genuinely require specialist industry knowledge from day one.

A person working with complex financial regulations, clinical decisions or safety-critical processes may need knowledge that cannot reasonably be acquired during a short induction.

There are good reasons for those requirements.

But not every position carries the same level of risk or complexity.

And I wonder whether companies always distinguish clearly enough between two things:

Knowledge a candidate must already possess to perform the role safely and effectively.

And:

Knowledge a capable candidate could reasonably acquire after joining the organisation.

For example, understanding how to gather requirements, investigate an operational problem, analyse performance or communicate findings may be relevant across several industries.

Understanding the organisation's specific terminology, internal systems or reporting conventions may require additional learning.

Both matter.

But do they always need to be present before someone is hired?

I don't think there's one answer that applies to every role.

Still, it's a question worth asking.

Because the way we define essential experience determines which candidates are considered in the first place.

And sometimes a requirement that feels essential may actually be a preference for familiarity.

What teaching and motherhood have made me think about

I keep coming back to the children.

Not because I think employees entering a new industry should be compared to children.

They shouldn't.

Someone changing industries isn't starting from zero. They may bring years of valuable professional experience from somewhere else.

The comparison is about something different.

It's about what happens when we become accustomed to a particular way of doing things.

Teaching showed me that people can approach the same problem differently and still reach a good answer.

Motherhood continues to remind me how easily adults can become attached to familiar routines.

And my experience across different professional environments has made me wonder how often the same thing happens in organisations.

Sometimes we need someone who understands exactly why a process exists.

Someone who knows its history, its limitations and the consequences of changing it.

But sometimes we also benefit from someone who looks at that process and asks:

“Have we considered doing this another way?”

Neither person has to be wrong.

They simply bring different knowledge to the conversation.

And perhaps the most interesting solutions emerge when both are willing to listen.

Final thought

I don't believe companies should stop prioritising experience.

I believe they should think carefully about which experience they actually need.

Industry knowledge can be incredibly valuable.

So can experience gained somewhere completely different.

One offers familiarity with the environment.

The other may introduce approaches, questions or solutions that haven't been considered before.

Neither guarantees better performance.

But both can contribute to it.

And if businesses consistently recruit people who have followed similar professional paths, I wonder how many potentially valuable perspectives never make it into the room.

Not because those people lack experience.

But because their experience looks different.

Perhaps the question isn't whether companies should hire people with industry experience or people from different backgrounds.

Perhaps it's whether they're leaving enough room for both.

And maybe, occasionally, we could all benefit from approaching a familiar problem with a little of the curiosity children bring to the world.

Not because experience doesn't matter.

But because knowing how something has always been done doesn't necessarily mean we've discovered every possible way of doing it.