[IPAC-List] Requiring years of experience for jobs

[mhammer at 295.ca]

Within the rapidly emerging "gig economy", it becomes difficult for both
employers and applicants to tabulate years of experience.  After all, if
one has a succession of 6-month contracts, just how much of that is actual
learning of the *job*, and KSAs required, and how much is learning who to
speak to in HR about getting paid, figuring out how to work the
copier/printer, and getting the backstory on co-workers from co-workers? 
In other words, how much of the total time spent at a particular job is
situationally-specific learning, and how much is honing the generic skills
required of the role?

That is not to dismiss the utility of experience as a predictor, but it
does underscore the difficulty of having a useful, informative, and
dependable measure that applicants can report, and employers can turn to
with confidence.

How could employers identify equivalences between longer-tenure *within* a
single job and *cumulative* tenure across a succession of jobs?  Somewhere
along the line, it has to be possible.  But I don't know of any simple
algorithm to do it.

Mark Hammer
Ottawa