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Reader question: When a recruiter says they’re looking for someone who “can hit the floor running”, what does it mean? My comments: Among job seekers, some are experienced while others are new to the job, or trade. He (or she) who can hit the floor running is, yes, you probably guessed it, someone who is experienced, someone who can go right to work instead of having go through a lot of training on the job. Question is, why “hit the floor running”? “Hit the floor running” is actually a variation of the American expression, “hit the ground running”, which, probably, originates in a horse race. In a horse race, you see, the ground would be the race ground. After the starting signal, especially after the horses’ hooves hit the ground, they’d be galloping off right away. Plausible, isn’t it? Still, there are other theories pointing to different origins, all plausible to some degree. The Phrase Finder (Phrases.org.uk), for example, names “hobos jumping from freight trains, troops being dropped by parachute etc.” These literal uses all make sense. The figurative sense, a usage where no actual ground or running is involved, dates back to October 1940, in The Hayward Daily Review, according to the same Phrase Finder: “It sometimes seems to me that the young idea nowadays wants to hit the ground running and to tell the old editors how to run things.” | 
