Professionalism

Young employees without work experience sometimes struggle

to adjust to the expectations of a workplace. Despite their
education and skills, traits such as getting to work on time,
dressing appropriately and conducting themselves professionally
might be challenges to workers who have never held a job.
Work experience seasons an employee. He gets the chance to
see how others behave in the workplace and to be guided by
more senior workers. Ultimately, when these issues are
resolved, an employee with the right training and skills will be
more effective and add value to the organization’s staff.

Teamwork
Work experience teaches employees about the value -- and
challenges -- of working with others. Whether a business is
organized around a team structure -- that is, each manager
supervises a team of people who work together toward
common goals -- or workers just sit on ad hoc teams that are
formed to accomplish a specific task, employees are exposed to
team members with different backgrounds, needs, perspectives
and thinking styles. As a result, they learn to actively listen to
others’ ideas and to compromise when those ideas conflict with
their own interests. Perhaps most importantly, an employee or
job candidate with work experience knows about accountability.
They come into an organization understanding that in a team
environment, other members of the team are expecting them to
fulfill their commitments, make their deadlines and maintain
high quality standards. Likewise, workers with experience will
have learned to depend on others to meet their own
obligations.

Time Management and Organization

Work experience is the best training when it comes to managing
time and keeping up with multiple priorities. Workers who have
dealt with deadline pressure and lengthy to-do lists are more
likely to have developed personal strategies that make them
more efficient. In addition, someone who has been expected to
negotiate lots of active projects should have a system of
organization that works for them. They have learned to filter
incoming information, determine what’s important or
actionable, and manage correspondence in a timely manner.

Problem Solving
Employees with work experience have encountered their share
of bumps in the road and are more likely to know how to
mitigate problems before they derail day-to-day operations.
Work experience teaches workers to address problems earlier
rather than later and to take ownership of them -- seeing the
solution through to the end. When a problem requires an
outside-the-box solution, someone with experience knows how
to gather the stakeholders to brainstorm creative approaches to
the problem. An experienced employee also understands that
the first idea may not be the one that works and that failure may
mean returning to the drawing board.