“We need someone with real hands-on experience.”
You need to hire a software programmer at your company. You don't want to hire a young programmer who's just out of school. You want to hire someone who's created similar software in the past. You say this to explain what kind of employee you need.
We need someone with real hands-on experience.
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(someone) with (something)
When you're describing a person, you can talk about the qualities and experiences they have using "___ with ___". For example:
I want to meet a guy with a good job and a good sense of humor.
Jason is a great carpenter with over 15 years of experience.
People with college degrees earn 30% more on average than people who have only graduated high school.
hands-on experience
When you have "hands-on experience", it means that you have done something directly, on your own. In American culture, having "hands-on experience" is usually respected and valued higher than understanding something in a more general way.
The adverb "real" is often included with the phrase "real hands-on experience". This just makes it sound even more hands-on.
You can use the phrase "hands-on experience" in all situations: casual, formal, written, spoken, etc.