Why are companies scared to hire “junior” people?

A little while back, I was asked this question by someone looking for their first design job: “why do companies fear hiring “junior” people?”

Oof.

That’s a tough one. Both because “fear” is a strong word, and because yes, a lot of teams don’t want to hire junior people.

Putting aside whether “fear” is too strong a word, here are the areas of concern I’ve seen raised about hiring someone without experience.

Junior people require more time

This is the underlying theme for all of these answers. Time is a precious commodity, and junior folks require a lot of it from their managers and colleagues. That’s not a bad thing,when structured well, but it is a thing that hiring managers think about.

Given the workload and overall team resources, there may not be enough time to invest.

Training is an investment

Hiring anyone to fill a role is already an investment in time and energy from a lot of people on the team. No matter the new person’s experience, they’re new to this team, it’s shorthand, processes, and tools. They have to learn how this team works.

Someone kicking off their career significantly compounds that effort. Colleagues and managers have to fill in the gaps between what the new hire was taught and the reality in professional life.

In this situation, one manager plus one new employee doesn’t equal two. You’re pretty lucky if it equals one and a half for the first three or six months.

It’s an upfront investment by the manager that she hopes will pay dividends down the line.

It will be significantly longer before they produce at a high level

Hiring tends to happen when a team is overburdened. Either they lost someone they need to replace, or they have so much work that adding a new person justifies the expense.