What are you hiring for?
When you hire someone you get:
- Existing knowledge and expertise
- Experience in applying knowledge in certain contexts
- Capability to generate new knowledge
Depending on what the organisation needs at the time should guide the balance of these three things.
If the area of expertise is new to an organisation, then experience of applying it more important and matters more than how much knowledge they have. Applying a few things well is more effective than applying lots of things poorly.
If the organisation is trying to mature an area, then hiring someone who is strong in existing knowledge helps most with that.
And if an organisation wants to innovate in an area, then they should hire someone who is good at generating new knowledge.