Is knowledge more important than experience in your resume?
If this is true, why do employers value experience so highly? You might be old enough to remember looking for your first job and being frustrated at the number of job advertisements that requested previous experience. It is also common for employers to pay experienced workers more than inexperienced workers? Why?I think that the answer is that knowledge and experience are not mutually exclusive. Experience includes knowledge of related matters that may not be subject to a training or course curriculum. For example, a computer technician may be excellent at diagnosing computer faults due to his or her high quality training. But most computer technicians will tell you that a portion of the job includes communicating with frustrated and annoyed customers. Extracting the right information out of an emotional person can be difficult, but with experience one can learn to negotiate that delicate situation.
Another reason experience is important on a resume is credibility. One can claim to have incredible prowess in a certain field, but how can this be proven? Don"t forget that there are dozens of other job applicants making exactly the same claim, so who is an employer supposed to believe?
Consider the following job candidates in order to press my point.
Job Candidate #1. Computer Technician with expert level PC and Windows skills.
Job Candidate #2. Computer Technician with three years of experience in a computer support role. Received two employee of the month awards and was a key team member in a successful Windows rollout affecting over 20,000 desktops for a fortune 500 company.
By demonstrating previous successes Job Candidate #2 shows much more than just computer knowledge. Whilst Job Candiate #1 may be as competent (or even more competent) in a team environment he cannot demonstrate this claim on paper because his ability to deliver outcomes is still unproven. And this is really the key point in a resume..."it"s not what you know, it"s what you can prove".
So what about students and graduates who do not have experience? What content can be used to prove certain abilities? Don"t forget that experience does not necessarily mean professional work experience. Schooling, training, books, home projects, professional memberships, interests and hobbies are all experiences. As long as they are relevant to the job they should be fair game in a resume.