Experience is not the amount of time you have spent doing something, it’s the results you get in the time you commit to work.

This last Sunday at Church the sermon was about being enslaved versus being free but for purposes of this blog post let me pick out one thing. As you all know the Israelites spent forty years in the wilderness before getting to the promised land.

What is more interesting is; they spent thirty eight years of the forty around one mountain.

Over ten years ago when, the corporate world I entered had this notion that “experience is about the number of years” Knowing that in my early twenties made me uncomfortable because I needed the experience but I didn’t have the time because my plan was to work for four years. During this time my goal was to rise to managerial level. Study how systems work and exit to start business. People back then became managers in their thirties.

Thankfully I wasn’t working for a big multinational that is alien to changing times. Though part of a conglomerate, the Company I worked for was flexible in policy if there were results to prove. I submitted my plan to my boss who gave me highly ambitious targets both technical and character based. If I achieved them I became a manager. If I didn’t I would stay just like everyone else.

I beat the targets ahead of time, became the Marketing and Sales manager of that organization aged 24.

The traditional workplace was designed in an era when knowledge was hoarded in books and libraries. Fast forward in 2023, we have automated processes, knowledge is ubiquitous and for such people entering the job market are highly exposed. What took a 45 year old seven years to learn can be learnt in months of a year. If things have changed why should the promotion system not change?

It’s for that same reason why I don’t think people should be spending three years to get a degree in 2023

My title is to get invoke curiosity. I believe experience is important if it is defined according to the
new context.