"job experience"

[sato]

Teaching an ESL class earlier this week, The expression "job experience" came up in the textbook, and my immediate reaction was that it was not correct, although there is no doubt as to the meaning of the expression.
I have a co-teacher who objects strongly to any disagreement with the textbook, and so I looked up as much as I could online. A quick Google search gave me approximate values as to common usage - "work experience" returned around 15 million hits, whereas "job experience" returned a few less than 1 million. Searching the online dictionary on the Oxford website turned up no results for "job experience", neither did a consultation with the biggest English-Japanese dictionary in our library.
All this led me to conclude that "job experience" is a term in current use but not strictly correct English, perhaps analogous to (but certainly not on par with!) "should of", or any other recent expression used in absence of knowledge of the proper term.
Also whereas "work experience" can be expressed as "I experienced work" or "My work experience", the same cannot be said of "job experience", although "on-the-job experience" is a valid usage.
I'd be interested to know what anyone else has to say, specifically regarding the 'technically accurate' side of things rather than common usage, since my students are studying for university entrance exams.

[lauralie2]

Teaching an ESL class earlier this week, The expression "job experience" came up in the textbook, and my immediate reaction was that it was not correct, although there is no doubt as to the meaning of the expression.

It's perfectly good English to me, but I am from North America, not Australia.

Searching the online dictionary on the Oxford website turned up no results for "job experience"

Try definition of Youth Training Scheme from Oxford Dictionaries Online.

[Tdol]

To me, job experience sounds strange, but I am from the UK, not North America or Australia.

I'd use professional experience for the jobs someone has done and work experience for short-term, often unpaid, tasters in the workplace for students, etc, to help them decide on their careers.

[sato]

Thank you for the replies lauralie and Tdol.
The quote from Oxford seems to be a governmental description of a particular program rather than an Oxford professor's own words, and my co-teacher with whom I am having the argument also produced numerous examples but only from newspapers since he could find no literary ones.
This would seem to confirm my suspicion that while the expression 'job experience' is used, it is not strictly correct English and shouldn't be in a textbook.
Does that sound like a fair assessment?

[susiedqq]

Job Experience would be seen as a heading in a resume

or

one gets on-the-job experience, where one is trained at the actual job site.

[sato]

Job Experience would be seen as a heading in a resume

or

one gets on-the-job experience, where one is trained at the actual job site.

Are you sure this is correct? I've been advised that 'professional experience' is the appropriate resume heading. A Google search seems to confirm this, 16 million hits for 'professional experience' and less than 1 million for 'job experience'.
People sometimes make mistakes such as this, usually when the correct expression is unknown. Another example is 'addicting games', in common usage by anyone who doesn't know that the adjective is 'addictive'.

Also you seem to be confusing 'training' and 'experience'. 'On-the-job training' is where one is trained at the actual job site.

[Tdol]

I'd use professional experience (British English speaker)

[somera]

'Work experience' seems more natural to me.

[Johnson_F]

You seem to be wanting someone to come up with an authority to say that 'job experience' is incorrect English. They won't, because it isn't. Most of us may use other terms; you may not like this one; but it's around, and, that being so, it has every right to appear in a textbook.

[sato]

Quite right, or an authority that confirms that it is in fact correct English. As I've said in previous posts and what should be clear to anybody, an expression being 'around' doesn't make it correct, see examples given above.