Credibility
Why Longevity Shouldn't Be Mistaken for Quality Experience.
A common pitfall in assessing a third-party resource's experience is the assumption that longevity equals credibility. Just because a resource has been around for a long time doesn’t mean it offers high-quality insights or expertise. This flawed assumption often leads to overvaluing outdated or narrow experience while overlooking results, accuracy, and the ability to innovate.
What Defines a Credible Experience?
To meaningfully evaluate the credibility of a person or source, we need to ask deeper questions:
What process is the resource involved in?
How does the process operate in real-world scenarios?
Is the process aligned with best-known practices?
Notice how none of these questions are answered simply by the number of years of experience. The key lies not in time spent but in the diversity and depth of exposure to different implementations of a process.
Illustrative Scenario
Consider two professionals:
Professional A has 10 years of experience in the same group of companies, handling the same set of business processes.
Professional B, a consultant from a midsize management consulting firm who has only 5 years of experience but specializes in a specific industry or problem and has worked with 20 different clients across various industries.
Who has the broader, richer experience?
Professional A likely encountered:
A low number of different process implementations.
Only minor variations since major differences would disrupt coordination across the group of companies.
Professional B, on the other hand:
Was exposed to a wide array of business environments, each with unique challenges.
Observed many different ways to implement the same core processes, including both successful and unsuccessful approaches, providing a broader and deeper understanding of what works, what doesn’t, and why.
In this comparison, it's clear that the quality of experience—measured by variation and complexity—is far more valuable than simple tenure.
Considerations for Standard-Setters
Unfortunately, many regulatory and industry bodies still define expertise based primarily on the number of years worked. In particular, the current AICPA and IFAC quality management standards follow the approach that allows a resource to be recognized as credible solely based on years of experience.
This approach:
Ignores the real-world diversity in experiences.
Fails to account for context, complexity, and learning velocity.
Can misrepresent true expertise, favoring those who’ve merely “been around” over those who’ve done meaningful, diverse work.
Conclusion
To improve how we assess experience, we must shift our focus from “how long” to “how deeply and diversely” someone has engaged with a process. Expertise should be a reflection of meaningful exposure, critical thinking, and adaptability— not just longevity.