Raw talent vs experience: whom should you hire?

Your management has decided to expand the engineering team, and you have a couple of prospects in sight. One is a fresh graduate with suitable skills and an excellent educational background, while the other has nearly six years of experience in the same profile minus the excellent educational background. Who will you hire and why?

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Hiring managers and human resource professionals come across such situations many times in their daily lives, and how efficiently they handle them determine whether they gain competitive advantage or not. While hiring a raw talent or experienced candidate varies from case-to-case, if you keep the following points in mind, the decision making can become a lot easy for you.

When you need someone to lead a team

If you have a team-lead requirement and need someone who knows his way around with minimal inputs from the management, you should look for an experienced candidate. No matter how talented a fresh graduate is when it comes to preparing reports and acquiring clients, having on-field experience in any sector has its own benefits and can't be neglected. So, it's always good to follow the traditional way and hire someone with relevant experience when it comes to hiring leaders.

When you want to expand your current team

The process is in place; your existing team is performing well, and your team leader is doing pretty good in terms of achieving targets. Practically, all you need is someone who can do what's known to everyone already. For this, you don't need to spend excessive money and hire an experienced candidate. Go for a raw talent, people who're filled with energy and new ideas and are likely to gel well with other team-members from day one.

When a new business section or process needs to be introduced

When you expand and try to bring new clients on board, chances are you may have to add a few additional processes or business sections in your current setup. This is a critical time as one wrong step can cost you a client and millions in revenue that he could bring along. Raw talent might not do well at this stage, so you better hunt for someone who has a proven track record and decent experience. An experienced candidate will come with suitable skills and the right attitude for the new process.

When you can't afford to invest time and money in training

Talented people are highly valuable to their employers, but at times you need to take decisions that are best for your professional interests. In case you can't afford to spend another 10 weeks and huge money in the training and development of fresh talent, it's wise to hire experienced candidates. They can hit the floor right from the very first day and take the responsibility for project delivery, something you can't expect from employees without experience.

Running a business is no less critical than fighting a battle in which you have to try and survive every day. In order to come out as a winner, you'll need a good team, a team that can perform under pressure and live up to clients' expectations. A perfect combination of experienced candidates and raw talent can help you form such winning team.