Every reader of this article has finished at least ~10 years of primary/secondary/high school. Apparently, there were honors pupils and low scorers. And all of them have 10 years of experience, eventually. The first statistically join better universities, know their job better, and live wealthier lives. However, all of them were called senior students in the last years.
Let's take a look at military forces. There is only one army in the country (and multiple companies on the other hand). Your level of seniority depends on your rank or shoulder mark. And... these days, servicemen achieve it for the number of years, primarily. It is even not the experience. Does it show anything about the level of expertise or ability to combat? Unfortunately no, it says only about the legalized number of potential subordinates.
In social life, seniority is a synonym to social status. In an ideal scenario, it should at least say about liaisons and abilities to use them. However, you can get it from your parents, powerful friends, place of birth, flattered public image, or even just by elder age. And it says nothing about what a person has really done or is really worth.
Perhaps, the most corresponding area for the term of `seniority` in its modern meaning is sports, however, it is not used there for some reason. Sports activities are grown of permanent challenging yourself and competing with others. Competence (or ability to compete) is at its core, and that is what we are aiming to see in the core of the term of `seniority`.
And the worst situation with this term is in business recruitment, 'cause it is commonly used with the meaning of `an ideal specialist that will come and solve all our concerns at once`. Everybody uses it the way he wants, the meanings are different from person to person, and almost nobody can clarify this term.
Needless to say, that this misunderstanding puts us on a false track — when you ask the wrong questions, you get the wrong answers.
Let's take a look at military forces. There is only one army in the country (and multiple companies on the other hand). Your level of seniority depends on your rank or shoulder mark. And... these days, servicemen achieve it for the number of years, primarily. It is even not the experience. Does it show anything about the level of expertise or ability to combat? Unfortunately no, it says only about the legalized number of potential subordinates.
In social life, seniority is a synonym to social status. In an ideal scenario, it should at least say about liaisons and abilities to use them. However, you can get it from your parents, powerful friends, place of birth, flattered public image, or even just by elder age. And it says nothing about what a person has really done or is really worth.
Perhaps, the most corresponding area for the term of `seniority` in its modern meaning is sports, however, it is not used there for some reason. Sports activities are grown of permanent challenging yourself and competing with others. Competence (or ability to compete) is at its core, and that is what we are aiming to see in the core of the term of `seniority`.
And the worst situation with this term is in business recruitment, 'cause it is commonly used with the meaning of `an ideal specialist that will come and solve all our concerns at once`. Everybody uses it the way he wants, the meanings are different from person to person, and almost nobody can clarify this term.
Needless to say, that this misunderstanding puts us on a false track — when you ask the wrong questions, you get the wrong answers.
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The reason for this article is exclusively to explain that in a modern business landscape the only more or less meaning explanation os `seniority` is that it is just an exclusively internal metric of person usefulness in business processes, already established in a company and is virtually used for structural strengths or retention purposes only (to assign privileges).
That means that a person is well acquainted with all [internal] business processes, can effectively interact with them (within the scope of expertise), and can be a disseminator of this knowledge within a company, eventually.
In other words, perhaps, it's not the best idea to hire a `senior specialist` from another company and expect that he'll be the same way productive in yours.
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