Experience is ‘just the job’

When it comes to recruitment, experience is “just the job”, in the Collins Dictionary sense of exactly what is needed.

When assessing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s call for businesses to hire more young people and to do away with the requirement of prior work experience, remember this is an election year.

Politicians will say silly, populist things to attract votes.

The ANC sees the vast numbers of unemployed young people as a pool of potential voters, even if joblessness is a direct result of the governing party’s economically disastrous policies.

If the ANC had managed the economy better, there would not be so many people desperate for work.

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It is delusional to imagine that removing experience as a criterion for recruitment is a practical option.

It’s a pipe dream to dupe young people into believing you have their interests at heart and will fix things if given another chance.

Ramaphosa’s latest election gimmick is reminiscent of former president Jacob Zuma’s reckless announcement, almost a decade ago, of a zero percent increase in tertiary education fees.

Unaffordable, daft populism to appease the #FeesMustFall movement.

As impractical as the actuarially unsound proposed national health insurance scheme.

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In similar economically illiterate election campaigning, Ramaphosa told the ANC’s recent 112th birthday rally in Mbombela that social grants and the National Student Financial Aid Scheme were “likely to disappear” if the party did not win the 2024 elections.

He knows that’s not true, as other parties quickly pointed out.

In fact, the DA said it is the ANC itself that is the greatest threat to the sustainability of South Africa’s social grants system: “For nearly three decades, they have looted and pillaged the public resources required to continue funding social grants.

“As the money runs out, the ANC has already been forced to cut the budget for critical services like education and healthcare.”

Nothing the ANC promotes makes economic sense.

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So, too, with the idea that experience should be downplayed when hiring.

Much of the ruin which the ANC has inflicted upon state-owned entities can be attributed to lack of appropriate work experience. Cadre deployment downplays work experience in favour of factional party loyalties.

And the prevalence of questionable qualifications in South Africa lends weight to the argument for proven work experience.

From “Dr Chippy Fake” (2008), to “Dr” Pallo Jordan (2014), to the latest scandal about a prominent economist’s seemingly nonexistent Phd, there have been enough signals about dodgy CVs.

People who can fool employers about their qualifications can also fib about their experience.

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Of course, there are nuances in the debate. Finesse is required when dealing with the conundrum – how to get experience if employers won’t hire people who have no experience?

The best hiring practices include thorough background checks and interviews where the character, capabilities and enthusiasm of candidates can be properly assessed. Experience is not the be-all-and-end-all.

You can have decades of experience yet remain a no-hoping dullard. Or you can have minimal experience but boundless confidence, competence and energy.

Smart, experienced business folk know what to look for when hiring.

They don’t need a B-BBEE-made billionaire to give them recruitment advice.