Issue 7: Experience vs Potential in Senior Hiring

⏱ 5-minute read

The most impressive CV isn’t always the best predictor of future success.

The Boardroom Question

When recruiting a senior leader, are you looking for someone who has already done the job — or someone with the capability to take it somewhere new?

Experience is reassuring.

A candidate who has held the same title, worked in the same sector and dealt with similar challenges can feel like the safest choice.

They understand the terminology, know the market and they can point to a track record of relevant achievements.

But there is a danger in making experience the dominant factor in a senior appointment.

Because the person with the most obvious CV isn’t necessarily the person best equipped for what comes next.

Sometimes, organisations need to look beyond what a candidate has already done and consider what they are capable of doing in the future.

The Comfort of the Familiar

When a senior vacancy arises, it’s natural to create a specification based on the person who previously held the role.

Ten years’ sector experience.

A particular professional background.

Experience within a similar-sized organisation.

Perhaps even previous experience of exactly the same job title.

Each requirement can appear perfectly reasonable.

But add enough of them together and the search can become very narrow.

Instead of asking “Who could be exceptional in this role?”, the organisation may inadvertently be asking:

“Who can we find who looks most like the person who did it before?”

That distinction matters.

Experience Still Matters

None of this means experience is unimportant.

For many senior roles, particular knowledge is essential.

A Financial Services appointment may require technical, regulatory or professional expertise that simply cannot be learnt overnight.

A senior Publishing executive may need deep knowledge of authors, agents, rights, markets or particular publishing disciplines.

Boards need confidence that an incoming executive understands the environment in which they will operate.

But experience should be considered alongside other factors rather than becoming a substitute for assessing them.

The question isn’t simply “Have they done this before?”

It’s also:

“What did they achieve, what did they learn — and can they apply that experience to a different set of circumstances?”

Potential Looks Forward

Assessing potential requires organisations to look beyond the CV. The CIPD highlights the value of selection methods that assess a candidate’s ability to perform the role and their potential for development, with skills-based assessments offering a way to test capabilities against realistic work situations.

Experience tells you something about someone’s past.

Potential asks you to consider their future.

At senior level, that might include an individual’s ability to:

• Learn quickly.
• Operate in unfamiliar situations.
• Build and lead strong teams.
• Exercise sound judgement.
• Influence different stakeholders.
• Challenge established thinking constructively.
• Adapt their leadership style.
• Deal with ambiguity.
• Develop capabilities beyond their existing remit.

These qualities can be harder to assess than years of experience on a CV.

But when organisations are hiring for a future that may look very different from the past, they can be just as important.

Beware the Perfect CV

Sometimes the candidate who looks perfect on paper isn’t the strongest candidate in the room.

A career spent within very similar organisations can provide tremendous depth of knowledge.

It can also mean someone has had relatively little exposure to different environments, cultures or ways of working.

Conversely, a candidate whose career appears less conventional may have repeatedly demonstrated an ability to adapt.

Perhaps they have moved between different business models.

Led through significant change.

Taken on unfamiliar responsibilities.

Entered a new market.

Built something from scratch.

Or succeeded in organisations at very different stages of development.

Those experiences can reveal something a job title alone cannot:  how someone responds when they don’t already know the answer.

Publishing: How Transferable Is Experience?

Publishing has traditionally placed considerable value on sector experience — often for very good reasons.

Relationships, market knowledge and an understanding of how publishing businesses operate can take years to develop.

But as the industry evolves, boards may sometimes benefit from asking which capabilities genuinely require direct publishing experience and which might transfer successfully from elsewhere.

Commercial leadership, digital development, data, technology, consumer marketing, international growth and transformation are examples where experience from adjacent sectors may bring useful perspectives.

That doesn’t mean overlooking publishing expertise.

It means distinguishing between the knowledge that is essential on day one and the knowledge that an exceptional executive could learn.

That distinction can significantly broaden the available talent pool.

Financial Services: Knowing What Can’t Be Compromised

In Financial Services, the balance can be different.

Some positions require specific technical expertise, regulatory understanding or professional qualifications.

Those requirements aren’t optional.

But even here, a long list of sector-specific criteria can sometimes exclude people who could bring valuable experience from another part of Financial Services — or occasionally from another regulated industry.

For boards, the challenge is to separate the non-negotiable requirements from the preferred experience.

The longer the list of non-negotiables becomes, the smaller the market becomes too.

Hire for the Challenge, Not Just the Job Description

One way to approach a senior appointment differently is to start with the challenges the person will need to solve.

What must they achieve during their first two or three years?

What will be different about the organisation by then?

Which capabilities will matter most?

What problems will they inherit?

What new opportunities will they need to create?

This shifts the conversation from credentials towards outcomes.

A candidate who hasn’t held exactly the same position before may still have solved remarkably similar problems.

And that may be more relevant than the title printed on their business card.

The Role of Executive Search

This is also where executive search can add value beyond identifying people with matching CVs.

A search should explore the market broadly enough to identify candidates who meet the obvious criteria and those whose experience may be relevant in less obvious ways.

That requires understanding careers in context.

Why did someone move?

What did they inherit?

What changed while they were there?

What did they personally contribute?

How have their responsibilities developed?

And, importantly, what might they be capable of next?

The strongest shortlist shouldn’t simply contain several versions of the same candidate.

It should give the client meaningful choices.

Five Questions for Your Next Senior Hire

1. Which experience is genuinely essential — and which is simply familiar?
2. Are we assessing what candidates have achieved, rather than just where they’ve worked?
3. What will this person need to accomplish over the next three years?
4. Could someone from an adjacent sector or different background bring capabilities we’re currently missing?
5. Are our selection criteria helping us find exceptional people — or unnecessarily narrowing the field?

Key Takeaways

Experience provides evidence, but it doesn’t guarantee future success.

Potential is harder to measure, but it matters particularly when organisations are changing.

Boards should distinguish between essential experience and criteria that are simply desirable.

Career achievements and the context in which they were delivered can reveal more than job titles alone.

Transferable experience can broaden the senior talent pool and introduce different perspectives.

The strongest appointment may not be the candidate who has done exactly the same job before — but the person best equipped to deliver what the organisation needs next.

The Boardroom Question

Are you hiring someone for what they’ve already done — or for what they could achieve next?

At Mosaic Executive Search, we work with organisations across Publishing and Financial Services to identify senior executives with the experience, capability and potential to make an impact.

Executive search allows us to look beyond the obvious candidate market, exploring both proven sector expertise and transferable experience to identify people who may not initially appear on a conventional shortlist.

Because sometimes the strongest candidate isn’t the most obvious one.

Further Reading

Boardroom Insights | Issue 05
Why Every Board Should Understand the External Talent Market

Boardroom Insights | Issue 06
When Is the Right Time to Reshape Your Leadership Team?