Finding a Job When You Have No Experience

When you’re new to the workforce or trying to shift into a different industry, finding that first job can feel impossible. All you need is one shot, but the barriers to entry are high. Every time you find a great role, you never seem to qualify. Almost every “entry level” position requires two to five years of experience. Most employers have these requirements for a reason. They want candidates to have some background in their field to narrow the application pool and attract people with at least a little industry knowledge. While “years of experience” can usually be taken with a grain of salt, your resume should prove that you have the skills to do the job well. Here are four ways to gain that experience and demonstrate you’re the right person for the role. 1) Volunteer or intern for someone you know. If you can fill your free time with experiences that energize you — and that you can also add to your resume — it will be a win-win. Experience is rarely defined as working full-time. It can be part-time or volunteer work. To get started, think of people you know: your parents, relatives, caretakers, former professors, alumni, and all their friends. Do any of them work in, or know someone who works in, your field of interest? Ask if you can volunteer or intern with them, even if just for a few days or hours a week. Gaining access to an environment where you can collaborate with seasoned professional will not only help you learn, it’s also an easy way to fill a blank space on your resume. If you don’t know anyone in your industry, look to your larger community. Have you been involved in any local organizations or groups that need a helping hand right now? This could be youth groups, religious establishments, or nonprofits and charities in your area. If you can help them out — whether through something small like filing documents or something big like organizing an event — you can add it to your resume. Tasks that initially feel tedious can still help you build transferable skills that every company is looking for and that you can highlight on your resume: organization, writing, time management, collaboration, and communication. What this looks like in practice: Let’s say your goal is to do SEO/SEM work at a big corporation. Do you know someone who owns a small business with a website? Or does your local youth group need help boosting their presence on social media? In both situations, you could volunteer to help them create a strategy aimed at increasing their reach, engagement, and traffic. You could implement this strategy, track your results, and repeat the same type of work for the same or another organization — using what you learned to drive better results. You’ll walk away with a valuable experience in your chosen field. On your resume, you could include your title and any success metrics you want to highlight. In your job interview, you can describe how you tackled a challenge on one project, what you learned, and how you applied those learnings on another project. This will demonstrate technical skills and soft skills like problem-solving, adaptability, curiosity, and your drive for continuous learning and improvement. What this looks like on a resume: SEO Intern (or Volunteer) Name of company Increased website traffic 200% by identifying and optimizing SEO keywords. Implemented three digital marketing campaigns through web and email and used Google Analytics to track results, showing customer conversion increased by 18%. Increased followers by 150% on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook by developing and implementing a social media strategy focused on user engagement. 2) Do consulting work in your area of interest. This may sound intimidating, but it’s easier than you imagine. You don’t need to set up an LLC or a registered corporation to offer services. Think about your favorite influencers and thought leaders on TikTok, LinkedIn, Instagram, or the social media platform you like best — people giving job advice, fashion advice, crafting tutorials, or other useful tips to their followers. You can promote your skills in the same way on these platforms to gain access to people who may need them and offer free consultations. Having a loyal following is a great way to show that your ideas resonate with people in your field. You can even ask connections to forward your content or services to others or make it easily shareable. If that route doesn’t feel right for you, another option is to offer freelance services through existing companies like Upwork or Fiverr. Any experience gained can be added to your resume. What this looks like in practice: Consider the example of my client, a high school teacher who wanted to move into digital marketing. When I asked her if she had any experience in the field, she told me she had used her personal social media channels to market her favorite products and companies — and even had attracted a few national brands. On her resume, she highlighted this work over her teaching experiences by placing it front and center. She ended up landing a marketing program manager job at a Fortune 500 tech company. Another client of mine wanted to move from sales to instructional design. He set up a consultancy through Upwork and other freelance sites where he took one job a quarter. When he was ready to apply for jobs, he showcased his freelance work on his resume. In interviews, he highlighted how his years of sales experience made him a better instructional designer because he understood the sales process intimately. It wasn’t long before he landed an instructional design job on a sales enablement team at a well-known national company. What this looks like on a resume: Digital Content Consultant Independent (or name of consultancy) Create inspiring video and social content for national brands and their products, including A, B, C brands, to create consumer engagement and drive revenue. Develop content strategy and messaging to target specific audiences, increasing brand awareness, and creating brand growth through digital channels. Align with each company’s brand leader to translate business strategies into breakthrough content. 3) Highlight a series of personal projects. Depending on your industry, this could be a very smart route to take. For those interested in joining a more creative field or a field in which you’ll need to showcase a portfolio of work, creating personal projects that lead to learning insights or positive outcomes (like traffic growth or audience engagement) is a great way to start building that portfolio — even if you lack experience at an actual company. Uploading or linking to your work on a personal website is key. You’ll want to make it easily accessible for recruiters and hiring managers. Just make sure it looks professional and representative of your style or brand. This will not only show your determination and grit, but it will also demonstrate your skills and capabilities. What this looks like in practice: A former employee of mine wanted to move from TV production into data science but had no practical experience in the field. Instead of giving up, she downloaded public data and analyzed it to draw insights into whether certain creative aspects of reality shows made a show a hit or a failure. “The goal was to automate how creative execs choose projects. Part of the reason I was doing this was sheer interest. But it gave me practical experience,” she told me. When discussing this experience in job interviews, she could say, “I was working my way through business school, so I was unable to intern in data science. But I didn’t let that stop me. I started doing side projects, which included analyzing public data using [programs]. For example….” In the end, she landed a full-time data scientist role. In your own job search, you may find that some hiring managers are less open-minded than others. They may ask, “But you haven’t done the work professionally?” In these instances, remember that you have — and own it. For instance, you could follow up with a specific example that demonstrates your knowledge in the area: “My work may not have been for a company, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from showing how I understand the problem that needs to be solved, how to gather and analyze the data needed to solve it, and develop descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytic solutions. In this instance, I even created a dashboard that provides actionable insights.” That answer shows motivation, resourcefulness, an understanding of lingo and process, dedication, and ambition. What this looks like on a resume: Data Science Analyst Independent (or name of consultancy) Analyzed data, created models, and interpreted the results to enable executives to choose which reality shows to greenlight based on data versus gut instinct and lower the risk of failure with the goal of saving companies millions of dollars. Created automated dashboard with visuals that were both aesthetically pleasing and tell a story through patterns and relationships in data. 4) Get certified in your field of interest. Citing a certification on your resume will set you apart from others who also have minimal practical experience and are trying to move into a specific field. The exact certificate you should invest in will depend on your end goal, but there are a few that are relevant for a wide variety of jobs. Becoming a certified associate in project management (CAPM), for instance, is a valuable qualification across industries. Every project in every job you will ever do in your career will benefit from that knowledge. Technology certifications similarly show your ambition to be an exceptional worker who stays ahead of the trends — particularly those focused on generative AI or machine learning. For people interested in administrative, project management, finance, marketing, or data analysis roles, the Microsoft Office Specialist certification demonstrates the ability to create masterful PowerPoint presentations and use excel formulas. AWS or Google analytics certifications are useful for people pursuing specific fields such as cloud computing or digital marketing, respectively. You can find a list of most certifications on the U.S. Department of Labor website. What this looks like in practice: Earlier in my career, I didn’t have any traditional Human Resources (HR) experience, but wanted to get hired for a role in the field. I knew I had to prove I understood the tenets of HR, so I used my time working in immigration and child labor regulations to qualify to take the Senior Professional Human Resources (SPHR) and the Global Professional Resources (GPHR) exams. I also spent a year achieving a coaching certification because I knew from job descriptions, coaching was a skilled many companies values. Together, these qualifications helped me break into the industry. What this looks like on a resume: You can highlight certificates in a specified section on your resume. Certifications Senior Professional Human Resources (SPHR) – HR Certification Institute Global Professional Human Resources (GPHR) – HR Certification Institute Professional Certified Coach (PCC) – International Coaching Federation . . . Remember that passion often trumps experience. You can teach nearly any hard skill, but you can’t teach motivation, dedication, or grit. Showing that you’re doing everything you can to be prepared to bring value to a company — despite not having what is traditionally considered “professional experience” — will set you apart from everyone else.

Finding a Job When You Have No Experience

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