There are some inspectors today boasting of something to the effect of: "I’ve been an Inspector for over 15 years and I’ve done 7 thousand inspections."In Illinois Home Inspection only became licensed in 2003, so before that it was not very official or professional, and there were no legal rules to define what a home inspection was. 

You have to ask- What Regulations or basic standards were followed?, what kinds of “inspections” were performed and what really did they consist of?  It could be anything goes and the “inspector” could be anyone, so how much weight does that really hold? Some of those “inspections” were very likely simple checklists, of maybe a few areas, maybe just an exterior drive by. It was really just up to them, they could have also counted every time they went to a property to give an estimate on a construction job. Hey, you could do ten of those a day. How long would it take? 15 minutes?

Before licensing, unless they were part of an organization that certifies the individual and they were personally adhering to some kind of home inspection standard, it is meaningless and can’t be counted as an official inspection. THE ONLY WAY IT COUNTS FOR SOMETHING LEGALLY IN ILLINOIS IS IF IT’S A LICENSED INSPECTOR DOING A HOME INSPECTION ACCORDING TO STATE STANDARDS.

I am proud to say that I have been a legal licensed home inspector and have been a member of InterNACHI from the beginning, and I have performed my inspections according to the IL state standards and Nachi standards.

So when you hear talk about 20+ years as an inspector, ask them if they were at least certified by a professional organization and if they performed ALL of the inspections to a defined minimum standard.