As an HR specialist, should you hire people based on passion over experience?

It depends upon the "Position" to be recruited.  

If the position requires monotonous performance, then only experienced candidate is preferable.  Whereas, the position requires brain based performance/innovation/methodology, then passion plays vital role.

It is always better to go for a candidate who has passion with little experience than one has experience without passion on his profession.  Passion will motivate to think out of the box and push to find solutions for complex issues that may not be sometimes available with experienced hands.

Both are in need for a perfect candidate. However it depends on the job description and responsibilities !

I think HR specialist should put passion aside when he selects the best employees for the organisation. He should forget passions and feelings , and just put in his mind the skills, certificates , and the qualifications of the applicants who will carry out the activities and tasks inside the organisation. Otherwise, the company will collapse if he depends on passions and it will achieve nothing. 

For any competitive position passion should always be the first thing to look in, Keeping in mind the experience and qualifications as one of the prerequisites for a particular position, it is always the responsibility of the recruiter to see the level of passion among the talent pool.

As a recruiter you always have the chance to choose the best of the breed by keeping the passion as one of the main elements in the recruitment process.