Are Years of Experience Still the Best Way to Evaluate Candidates?
For decades, years of experience have been one of the easiest ways for recruiters to filter candidates. A job description might ask for three, five, or ten years of experience, and candidates who fall below that number can be screened out before anyone looks more closely.
But as skills-based hiring becomes more prominent, companies are questioning whether time spent in a role is really the best indicator of what someone can do.
Experience still matters. The question is whether years of experience should be treated as a shortcut for capability.
1. More Years Don't Always Mean Better Performance
A candidate with ten years of experience has had more time in the workforce, but that doesn’t automatically mean they are better suited to a particular role.
Someone may spend several years performing similar tasks, while another candidate with fewer years may have managed complex projects, learned new tools, or taken on significant responsibilities.
Instead of asking only “How many years have they worked?”, recruiters should also ask “What did they actually accomplish during those years?”
2. The Type of Experience Matters More Than the Number
Two candidates can both have five years of experience but have developed very different capabilities.
One may have worked on routine tasks, while another may have managed clients, improved processes, solved complex problems, or worked across multiple teams.
This is why recruiters should look at the context behind the experience. Responsibilities, achievements, projects, and skills can provide a much clearer picture of what a candidate can contribute than a number alone.
3. Skills Can Come From Many Different Places
Candidates don’t develop valuable skills only through traditional full-time employment.
Internships, freelance projects, university projects, volunteering, entrepreneurship, certifications, and cross-functional work can all provide evidence of relevant capabilities.
A candidate with fewer years of formal experience may therefore have strong skills that aren’t immediately obvious from their job history.
A skills-first approach focuses more on where the candidate demonstrated the capability than on whether they acquired it through a traditional career path. SHRM’s 2026 research describes this approach as evaluating skills and competencies regardless of where or how they were acquired.
4. Some Skills Are Transferable Across Roles
Candidates don’t always need direct experience in the exact same position to succeed.
Someone moving from customer service into sales may already have communication, relationship-building, and problem-solving skills. A project coordinator may have many of the organizational and stakeholder-management skills required for project management.
Looking for transferable skills can help recruiters discover candidates who would otherwise be rejected because their previous job title doesn’t perfectly match the open role.
5. Learning Ability Can Matter More for Some Roles
For rapidly changing roles, what a candidate knows today may not be enough for the future.
Technology, tools, and processes can change quickly, meaning companies may benefit from candidates who demonstrate curiosity, adaptability, and the ability to learn.
This doesn’t mean experience becomes irrelevant. Rather, experience and learning ability should be considered together, particularly when hiring for roles that are likely to evolve.
6. Experience Should Be One Input, Not the Whole Decision
The strongest hiring decisions usually combine multiple sources of evidence.
Years of experience can provide useful context, but recruiters can also consider demonstrated skills, achievements, problem-solving ability, interview performance, work samples, and potential.
The World Economic Forum reports that work experience remains the most common assessment method, with 81% of employers expecting to rely on it through 2030. At the same time, 48% expect to use skills assessments, showing that direct evaluation of capabilities is becoming an important complement to traditional experience-based screening.
7. The Better Question Is: “Can This Person Do the Job?”
Instead of using years of experience as an automatic pass-or-fail filter, recruiters can define what the role actually requires.
Which skills are essential? Which can be learned? What evidence would demonstrate that a candidate can perform the work?
This creates a more meaningful evaluation process and can prevent recruiters from overlooking strong candidates simply because they don’t meet an arbitrary experience threshold.
Experience tells you how long someone has been doing something. Evidence helps you understand what they can actually do.
Look Beyond Years of Experience
enfue helps recruiters evaluate candidates based on relevant skills, experience, and evidence—not just what’s on the surface of a CV.
Look beyond the CV. Find the right potential.
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