You can see this in many industries, and obviously where the skillsets of the role require that, it is not only useful, but probably essential. After all, if you were going to have open-heart surgery, you'd want to ensure the surgeon doing it was a leading heart specialist, not the best kidney transplant guy in the world!
Casting our eyes further afield, however, I don't think there are really too many roles (as a percentage of total jobs, and probably outside industries like healthcare!) which truly require this. If there's one thing that is a real hallmark of humans, it's our adaptability. As a species we've adapted to almost every terrain on earth, and people change what they do all the time. Yet how many roles have you seen advertised - even for relatively junior positions - which require particular training or skills, or experience in exactly that role before?
Now I understand the desires of any business to have people come on board and get up to speed quickly, BUT (and it's a big one I think) does this really happen just because someone has done the same or similar role in another company? Really? Think about it - people are adaptable but also habitual, and if you're doing something very similar to what you were doing before, but different in a couple of points, are you more or less likely to carry on doing the things you are used to doing, that aren't the processes in your new role? On the other hand, someone completely new to this work is likely to check what they are doing more often, resulting in a slower initial start but less likelihood to make repetitive mistakes of a previously learned process.
As any company will have a start-up time for ANY employee (getting to know process, rules, where the coffee machine is etc), is this hiring of people who have very similar experience really going to gain you anything? It might gain you a little up-time, but it also severely restricts your recruiting process to a much narrower resource pool. You might find that a little more open-mindedness gains you a recruit with much better skills, but who previously had a different role title or different industrial experience.
I think the benefits of this cross-fertilisation go further, however. Having a fresh pair of eyes on a process is often a godsend. I've come into businesses and after asking a few questions like "so why do we do this?", people often come up with "we've always done it this way" (I told you it would come up again, didn't I?!) - which is NOT a reason or explanation. The follow up of "wouldn't it be better for everyone if we did this?" or "is there a better way we can achieve this?", is often met (in businesses with a desire for improvement) with agreement, leading to better practices. This is more likely when someone comes in who is generally less familiar with that type of environment than one who is used to it.
If this was implemented more widely in businesses, it may well have many more knock-on benefits. If engineering understands why marketing wants x & y specification, or if sales understands why engineering can do A but not B (at least, not until next year), it should be possible to have a company where all departments are pulling together, rather than apart (as is often the case). Unfortunately it seems that even very closely allied genres (such as sales and marketing) are often seen as completely separate and the people in them as "different" somehow.
Of course this is a very optimistic view of things, and looking out there it doesn't seem to be that very many businesses take this approach (though there definitely are some, and very successful they are too). Many managers and HR recruiters will feel more comfortable employing someone who already has a title the same (or similar) to the one they are advertising for, than to think a little more "out of the box" and recruit purely based on the skills and type of person required. This is very normal and very human - but then again "to err is human", so the next time you're looking to hire someone, just think about whether you're helping or restricting your business by how you go about getting that talent into your company.
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