How to Get a Job With No Experience

How to get a job with no experience? How to get experience with no job?
It's the Catch 22 no job-seeker wants to find him or herself in.
Whether it is because you are looking for a first job, are finding yourself in an industry that no longer requires your skills, or you are simply looking to change directions in your career path, this situation is pretty common.
As the job market becomes more competitive, it becomes difficult to find a company that actually hires with no experience necessary. Yes, there are some jobs left that "will train," but you will often find that these jobs are not the paid employment you had in mind. These jobs often consist of:

• Commission-based sales.
• Telemarketing.
• Door-to-door canvassing.
• Part time and minimum wage.
• Multi-level marketing.
• Etc.

Please understand me correctly - I am not knocking any of these job choices. Some of my first and best experience gained in sales came from doing all of the above job descriptions. And while this article is not intended to be a plug for sales opportunities, I do strongly encourage everyone to give a commission-based sales position a try. The skills you will learn in time management, interpersonal communication, problem solving, goal setting, etc. will make you much more attractive to employers in the future.
That does however tie in to exactly what is article is about: acquiring skills.
If you have little or no experience, you do not need to be limited to jobs that demand no experience. You can do the following two things:

1. Acquire some desirable skills.
2. Skill-sell your way into the job you want.

What kind of skills do most employers want regardless of the position?

• Team player
• Positive attitude
• Interpersonal communication
• Ability to work independently
• Problem solving
• Leadership
• Etc.

Let me ask you... do you need to graduate from Harvard with an MBA to have these skills? Of course not. In fact, you might be reading this saying, Brent, I already have those skills! They are right on my resume! But I still am not getting any interview calls.

That may be true, but consider this. After having personally looked at thousands of resumes, I can safely assure you that job-seekers generally do not advertise that they have no skills. I have never seen a resume that says, "Lazy, disorganized and malcontent misfit desires highly skilled position." Simply telling your potential employer that you are good for the job is not enough. You need evidence.

So let's start with step one, which is acquire some desirable skills. This is where you will need to roll up your sleeves a little bit and do some hard work. You need to find a position - paid or otherwise - that will allow you to gain some skills you can actually put on paper. Some examples might include:

• Volunteer opportunities
• Internships
• Community service
• Temporary placement services
• Work terms through school
• Contract work such as commission-based sales
• Multi-level marketing
• Entry level, part time positions

While these may be positions that generally accept all those who apply, it is crucial that you take these positions seriously. Your objective in doing this work is not only to gain evidence that you have acquired desirable skills somewhere, but also to have a qualified reference to provide your next prospective employer.
Once you have acquired some legitimate experience, you can begin step two, which is to skill-sell your way into the job you want.
Skill-selling really breaks down into two parts:

• Craft your resume in such a way that you do not just list skills - but list where and how you acquired these skills. Give specific examples, such as:

Instead of putting "Works well independently" as a skill, put "Responsible for providing nourishment to the elderly at set times without supervision" in your experience. Setting up your resume with these types of examples in a clean and concise fashion is much more likely to get you a call for an interview. That unpaid volunteer experience just bought you marketable skills!

• Prepare before your interview with specific examples to answer questions around various skill sets.

The interview or phone interview is where the skill-selling really begins. Most recruiters are likely to focus the interview around behavioral questions. Simply put, he or she is likely to ask you to give specific examples from past experience when you demonstrated a certain skill.

If you prepare a list in advance of skills you have that will most likely be required for this job, you can easily refer to your notes and say, "I demonstrated the ability to work independently when I was put in charge of providing nourishment to 12 elderly residents at a specific interval without supervision."

Remember that everybody starts somewhere. You can skill-sell your way into a job that actually requires some experience, but to do so successfully, you will need to acquire evidence that you have some skills - both through some marginal experience and through a couple of glowing references.

If you stop counting the dollars and start counting the hours of experience you are getting, you will begin to see that your time spent now is an investment into your career and the future - not just a short-term means of passing the days or making a pay check.

For more articles and other tools to help with your job search, I recommend you visit my blog at JobGettingTips.com. There you can subscribe to get updates and find other valuable resources.
My name is Brent Jones. I am a recruiter living in Toronto, Canada and the author of the successful resource '7 Fatal Mistakes Made by Most Job Applicants.' You can read it for free by clicking here.

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