Should Small Businesses Hire for Skills or Experience?

When a small business needs to hire someone, there is usually a simple problem behind it. The work needs to get done, but there is only so much money available to bring someone in. That is why experience can look like the obvious choice. If one candidate has eight years of experience and another has two, the person with eight years will often look better on paper. But a CV does not tell you how someone will perform once they join your business. For a small company, that difference matters.

Experience can be worth paying for

There are jobs where experience makes sense. If you need someone to manage your finances, run operations or take responsibility for an important part of the business, you may not have much time to teach them the basics. An experienced person can come in and get on with the work. They may already know how to deal with suppliers, customers, deadlines and the problems that come with the job. For a business owner who is already handling most things themselves, that can make a big difference. But experience also costs money. A candidate with ten years of experience is likely to expect more than someone with two years. A small business has to ask whether the extra cost will actually translate into better results.

The number of years does not tell the full story

A person can spend eight years in a job without gaining all the skills your business needs. Someone who worked in a large company may have had one very specific responsibility. In a small business, that same role could involve five different things. Take marketing. A small company may need one person to write content, manage social media, speak to customers, run basic advertising and check whether any of it is working. A candidate with fewer years of experience but hands-on experience across those areas could be more useful. That is why employers need to look beyond the number next to “years of experience” on a CV.

Ask candidates to show you what they can do

This does not have to involve a long assessment process. If you are hiring a salesperson, ask how they would follow up with a customer who has stopped responding. If you are hiring an administrator, give them a simple scheduling or organisation problem. If you are hiring a marketing person, ask them to look at your website or social media and point out what they would change. These exercises give you a better idea of how someone thinks and works. You may find that the person with less experience understands the job better than the person with the longer CV.

Good skills do not always come from the same job

Small businesses can also lose good candidates by being too strict about job titles. Someone who worked in customer service may have the communication skills needed for sales. An administrator may already have the organisation skills needed for operations. A junior employee who has spent two years working with digital tools may be better prepared for a modern marketing role than someone with many more years in traditional marketing. The experience is different, but the skills can still be useful.

Training is part of the calculation

Hiring someone with less experience means you may have to train them. That takes time. Someone has to show them how the business works, explain the systems and check their work while they learn. But hiring an experienced person does not remove all the risk. They can still be the wrong fit. They may struggle with the way your business operates or expect a salary that the business cannot comfortably afford. A bad hire costs money regardless of how much experience the person has. For a small business, the question should be whether the cost of training someone is lower than the cost of paying more for experience you may not actually need.

Look at what the business needs now

This is probably the simplest way to approach the decision. If you need someone who can take over a role immediately, experience may be important. If you have time to train someone, skills and the ability to learn may carry more weight. It also depends on the job. Some roles require specialist knowledge from day one. Others can be learned fairly quickly if the person has the right foundation. There is no reason every position should be hired in exactly the same way.

Do not hire based on what’s on the CV

Experience matters. Skills matter too. For small businesses, the mistake is assuming that more years automatically means a better employee. Look at what the person has actually done. Look at what they can do now. Look at what they will need to learn. The best candidate might have ten years of experience. They might also have two. What matters is whether they can do the job your business needs done.