Should employers hire a HR-specialist without any special experience is an issue that every head should decide for himself. And this decision can be influenced by numerous factors for and against. Here are some of them.

Arguments «for»

1. Not in every company a HR-manager does a lot of work. There are companies where this person just has to be and has to fulfill some minor tasks while the job is done mainly by the recruitment agencies, consulting companies and probably by subordinate HR managers.
2. Sometimes employers value loyalty and honesty more than experience. In this case young HR’s with now previous experience have a chance.
3. Sometimes the condition “at least 3 years of experience” makes no sense. Experience assumes that an employee has certain knowledge, skills and abilities. But think about this. For example, a vacancy that demands “three years of experience with office equipment” sounds quite absurd, as a person can either learn everything by the end of the second week, or he is untrainable. Instead of demanding experience, employers should ask for knowledge, skills, abilities, etc. These things can be peculiar to unexperienced candidates as well.
4. A person may not have an experience as a HR-manager, but may have some good background as other kind of manager. Surely, the HR-managers have to develop some specific skills, but if a person was great in a previous managing job, he can definitely learn fast how to be great as a HR.
5. Sometimes it is easier, faster and cheaper to teach a person how to do HR job instead of hiring someone who previously worked for a company with different rules and requirements. 

Arguments «against»

1. While an employee without experience will learn and make mistakes, an employer has to wait for the results that could be accomplished by an experienced HR-manager much sooner. So, hiring an experienced worker, an employer saves time and money.
2. There can be no reason to take risks and hire an unexperienced employee while there are some experienced ones on the job market that will ask for the same salary.
3.  The lack of theoretical knowledge of how to work with people can be a problem for unexperienced candidates. A person needs some time to adopt and to use this knowledge. Sometimes an employer cannot wait for that to happen.  

There isn’t much difference between an experience manager with no specialized skills and experienced HR-manager. Of course, everything depends on the company’s structure, its strategy and the number of employees. Some managing experience and basic knowledge of phycology can be enough to do a great job. However, without some specific skills (knowledge of techniques of staff recruitment, creating and developing motivation systems, staff evaluation, etc.) it can be very difficult for an experienced worker to start with great result. Anyways, the concept of “experience” can be too relative. You can find out whether this employee suits your company only when you see him working.