Passion or experience - what makes a better employee?

Well...as with most things, I would have to say it depends.

In general, I agree with Mr. Nordman (above). All other things being equal, someone who has passion for a subject will provide a better return on your investment...in the long run. I also agree that you can teach the functional skills to someone who has a interest in learning them.

Having said that, the development of that passion into measurable productivity may take time. If the new hire is expected to produce quickly (no one ever really hits the ground running...there is always a period of adjustment) then the experienced person is going to get there quicker.

The flip side of this, though, is that someone with experience likely had a passion for it at some point, otherwise, they likely would not have continued in it long enough to *be* experienced. Sometimes it just takes the right team or organization to re-ignite passion in someone.

I can certainly agree with you Dan on the point about people with experience having passion at some point. But how much passion do they have versus someone who is still new to the industry and has more of that hunger to do well?

Leslie, I am not sure if your question was rhetorical or not, but I will give my two cents anyway.

There is no correlation between passion and doing well. Just because someone really really likes something and even wants it...bad...has no bearing and gives no indication that they will actually be able to do it well. For example...I *love* to play golf. I have bunches of books, DVDs, etc. I really want to do well...but all that desire does no make me a good golfer (and I am pretty bad, actually!). But my passion is so great that I keep on trying (but not succeeding...yet).

Also, passion for something and a hunger to do well are not necessarily the same thing. There are plenty of people whose work ethic is such that they will move huge obstacles to get things done and done well, but that don't really care for what they are doing. They just can't stand to *not* accomplish the goal set for them. So, maybe that could be called a "passion for doing well", but that is not the same thing as a passion for a particular subject/technology/etc.

Having said all of this, I still do think passion is important. People should be passionate about what they do...it is, after all, most of what they spend there life doing.

Your original question, though, was "which makes a better employee". Neither of those, by themselves, makes a good employee. Probably some combination of those and a bunch of other things as well. I guess it also depends on how you define a "good" employee. For example, someone who has a lot of passion and energy may also *not* want to follow procedures and standards. They *may* not get, for example, that more time is spent maintaining technology solutions than building them, so using the latest and greatest, while fun and exciting, means supporting yet another framework... forever (often by an already over burdened support team...over burdened by the previous hundred passionate, fun, "latest and greatest" solutions that are now "that junk that people used to use").

Great point Dan, passion can be dangerous if the individual is a poor learner. They may be quick to make mistakes and slow to learn. Also the experienced person may be stuck in their ways and be unprepared to learn the approaches of their new employer.

Neither of these factors correlate with success, but ability to learn does. However, both of these factors can sway an inexperienced or untrained interviewer, while ability to learn may be difficult to assess during an interview.

This is a simple example of why I urge recruiters to use objective measures, like Psychometric Assessment. Such tools can help you to see through the smoke screen that is the interview. It can also help you as an interviewer to control your own personal biases by making your dig deeper when your intuition or gut feel tells you one thing and the assessment says another.

Of course, I would recommend assessment, I'm a test distributor and have been for over 20 years. I have to say, that in each year, my confidence in the role of assessment grows stronger as I see just how many mistakes recruiters and hiring managers make.

You may well spend more time in the company of your new hire, than you do with your "Life Partner". Waking hours anyway. But you don't pick a life partner in so short a time as you would a new hire. Indeed, these days, people may stick with their job longer than they do a marriage.

Most recruiters mistake knock out factors for essential job requirements. Many include totally irrelevant factors also. Hiring is a difficult job, the success rates for untrained and under resourced recruiters is typically about 50%, but a trained and resourced recruiter can hit 65-70% success. A 15-20% increase in the quality of your people has got to be a serious competitive edge in any business.