Sure... "in a wide range of fields" experience counts for little, maybe nothing. The author mentions auditors, clinical psychologists, parole officers etc. I be

Sure... "in a wide range of fields" experience counts for little, maybe nothing. The author mentions auditors, clinical psychologists, parole officers etc. I bet astrology and water dowsing could be added to this list. In many other fields, experience counts! I have worked with many young engineering graduates, and seen them develop (I also was inexperienced myself, once). So much of the time in their early career is spent looking for information, making/fixing silly errors and reinventing the wheel. I have the following semi-quantitative observations to offer: Engineering salaries in my field roughly double between 0 and 5 years experience, and then roughly double again between 5 and 12 years. And in engineering consultancies, one does not expect to make money on engineers with less than 2-3 years experience - we take the hit in the hope of benefitting later. Of course the experience benefits vary from person to person. Furthermore, there is another factor that tends to offset experience - drive, or energy. The sweet spot - for majority of engineers - seems to be at between 5 to 15 years experience, where the drive + experience combine to deliver a very productive individual. This is of course a generalisation, and I am sure we all know many exceptions.