Expensive and experienced vs cheap and keen?

[warp9]

Without going into the long ins and outs, in a nut shell would you:

a) Employ someone experienced in your industry (8+ years), with drive and enthusiasm, who can get their hands dirty and offers managerial potential (which we want in time but maybe not now), but is going to cost £50K

or

b) Employ a recent graduate, with 6 months experience (not in our industry), who is also full or drive and enthusiasm and came over very well, but will only cost £20K.

Pay peanuts, get monkeys? Invest in the potential?

[randlemarcus]

Depends where your business is. If completely static, but you need warm bodies to cover a middlingly urgent needs, employ the cheap ones for a year or so, and then watch them leave.

Anything else, go for the greybeard.

[Shirt587]

warp9 said:

Pay peanuts, get monkeys?

Professional services industry (lawyers, auditors, etc) I see a lot of this. Young, enthusiastic, shiny suit, empty skull.

One office in a large firm of accountants I know simply stopped taking on trainees and only employs people who were qualified. Apparently while they cost more, the reduced supervision and the reduced hassle from clients who had been asked something stupid by a junior more than made up for it.

[phumy]

There's a saying, "quality costs" and i believe you only get quality with experience. Buy cheap, buy twice..

[The Beaver King]

Depends on what you're expecting of them.

If the role has a decent bedding in period, other personnel who can spare the time to provide advice/answer queries and you are looking long-term; then you could probably take the risk with the less experienced person.

If the role requires someone to hit the ground running, with minimal supervision and/or can bring in their own experience; then it has to be the old hat.

Clarification of the role and requirements would help.

[warp9]

Thanks for the comments. It's for a marketing exec (or manager). Role will consist of; looking after all our printed media, ads, leaflets, artwork, email campaigns, direct mailing, 3rd party relationships, maybe website updates and blog.

Department currently consists of:

1) digital media person - new role starts next monday. This is a new area we are getting into.
2) Business development person who does all our affiliate relationships. They also do shows and events.
3) PR person - use an agency 1 day a week.
4) marketing exec as above.

The previous person was technically the manager, but didn't do a great job of managing and liked doing more strategic stuff. What we need and want is someone to get on with it and make things happen. I don't particularly want to manage the team myself so it could be useful if we took the experienced person on to do this, but am unsure if we actually need a manager.

[GroundEffect]

Shirt587 said:

warp9 said:

Pay peanuts, get monkeys?

Professional services industry (lawyers, auditors, etc) I see a lot of this. Young, enthusiastic, shiny suit, empty skull.

One office in a large firm of accountants I know simply stopped taking on trainees and only employs people who were qualified. Apparently while they cost more, the reduced supervision and the reduced hassle from clients who had been asked something stupid by a junior more than made up for it.

And then how do these graduates/trainees GET the experience?

[jonah35]

An experienced marketing manager should get £35k so go for the middle ground.

[shtu]

warp9 said:

It's for a marketing exec (or manager). Role will consist of; looking after all our printed media, ads, leaflets, artwork, email campaigns, direct mailing, 3rd party relationships, maybe website updates and blog.

With that sort of influence of and direct effect to the bottom line, I'd go for the experienced person. Too many potentially business-damaging cockups available to an inexperienced person in that role.

[Shirt587]

GroundEffect said:

And then how do these graduates/trainees GET the experience?

The view from that office was "Not my problem". When they needed more bodies, they simply recruited a few more qualifieds. And certainly for auditors the Big4 take on more than enough grads to keep the system ticking over.

[Du1point8]

Sometimes experience doesnt pay.

Got a support analyst (8 years in the industry) that we have in the department and whilst not bad at technical side of his job, his manners with clients and other people suck majorly.

Client is the boss and you need to maintain a good relationship with them, I had to hand over one of my clients to him to free me up with more vital tasks, had spent 6 months and visited the client face to face a few times and relationship got so far I would get invited out for beers when in the area by him.

Within 2 days I had the client ringing me up to find out whats going on... A vital update that needed doing within 24 hours (client specified) had been answered by the support analyst that he will do it when he has time and could take several days (90 min job) and client would have to wait until its his turn.

Then some of the files were misspelt and the support analyst demanded the client sort it out as its all wrong and hes not doing it (could have rang him to mention it and still taken the files)...

In the first 2 days the support analyst didnt even bother to ring the client to tell him he was taking over. Simple introduction and get to know him, which I told him to do... Nope the first the client knew was a snotty email demanding answers.

Sometimes Experienced is not always better.

[skeeterm5]

Recruit the one with the right attitude for your department/company. Skills can be taught pretty quickly.

S

[santona1937]

Shirt587 said:

GroundEffect said:

And then how do these graduates/trainees GET the experience?

The view from that office was "Not my problem". When they needed more bodies, they simply recruited a few more qualifieds. And certainly for auditors the Big4 take on more than enough grads to keep the system ticking over.

Graduates should go in at the ground floor, not as a manager. That is how they gain experience. Hire in the experience, use him/her to train his successor, grow your own future management.

[oldbanger]

I hire a mix of both. However we have set up an internal training scheme where the inexperienced buddy up with someone 5 years plus for the first year. We support this with formal work based training and assessment. It's a real drain on my time but we can't attract and retain enough experienced staff so the long term investment is worth it.