May 21, 2019—Screening job applicants based on their prior work experience is often a mistake among employers, according to new research from Florida State University, as noted by Insurance Journal. 

In a paper published in the journal of Personnel Psychology, Chad Van Iddekinge, FSU’s Bank of America Professor of Management and an expert on human resources management, and his colleagues reported the results of a five-year research project that examined more than 80 workplace studies conducted over the past 60 years.

Van Iddekinge’s research clearly showed that organizations prefer applicants with similar experience.

“That approach is very intuitive,” he said. “You would think prior experience would be really important. Employers always ask, ‘Does the candidate have experience?’ The idea is that experience helps people develop knowledge and skills relevant for work. But, the types of experiential metrics used by many organizations generally are not valid indicators of someone’s potential and whether that person will perform well if hired.”

Employers often consider how many jobs an applicant has held, and how long the person stayed in that role. Organizations tend to downgrade applicants if they have jumped from job to job, Van Iddekinge said, and that’s another common hiring mistake.