How to Land Your Dream Job Without Experience

So many job listing now requires experience, for fresh graduates or new job seekers, this can be a difficult situation. So many people are unable to get a job because of lack of experience, but you can’t get the experience without someone offering you a job.

Fortunately, the experience is not all you need to get your dream job. However, it would seem that 90% of job adverts state “experience needed” many people make it through without any experience. So, in this article, I show you how to land your dream job without experience.

How to Land Your Dream Job Without Experience

Get Qualifications

Qualifications can help you secure your dream job. This is so because most job listing requires a degree as a prerequisite for employment. Some jobs may require niche qualifications while others may simply require a degree of any kind.

Regardless of your age, they are so many ways to get an education. Online courses can allow you to study in your own time around other work. They are courses that can be completed in two years or even one year which can help speed up your education process. To guide you better, you should check the difference between regular education and distance education.

Know the Right People

Sometimes you can get a job with no experience simply based on knowing the right people. The phrase “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know” has some truth in it.

An employer is very likely going to offer you a job if they know who you are or if you’ve been recommended by one of their employees. In order to know the right people, you’ll need to network and there are plenty of ways to do this.

First, consider your circle of friends and their friends. There may be someone who already works in your target career field who can put a good word into their employer or who may be an employer themselves.

Also, your friends may be able to offer advice on what employers may be looking for, allowing you to tailor your job application to what these employers are looking for.

Another way to meet the right people is to attend networking events within your target trade. These could be job fairs, trade fairs, conferences or conventions. By going out of your way to speak to people at these events you may just meet someone who can help you to get your foot in the door.

You can, of course, bump into the right people anywhere. If you’re going to a wedding or attending a friend’s party, take advantage of the opportunity to talk to guests who may be in that trade.

You may even be able to use online social networks to meet people. LinkedIn is a great platform for connecting with people within a target trade.

Get Non-Paid Experience

Many employers may not be willing to take on inexperienced staff on a paid basis but may be willing to hire you on a voluntary basis. Of course, nobody wants to work for free, but this could lead onto a paid role if you’re able to prove yourself to the employer.

Even if the employer doesn’t want to hire you afterward on a paid basis, you’ll have some experience that you can use to try and get a paid job elsewhere.

Getting a non-paid experience could involve a couple hours a week so that you can still take up another job to receive an income. Alternatively, if you feel you’ve got enough money to live on, you could ask an employer to try a week or two of voluntary work giving you a more intensive experience, but one that’s more likely to get you hired.

Don’t just target companies that are advertising voluntary vacancies. Go out of your way to contact employers directly either via email, phone or in person to ask for voluntary experience. You’ll be surprised at how many employers are willing to say yes regardless of your experience.

Consider Transferable Skills

Maybe you have had jobs that are unrelated but still show evidence of certain skills required for your dream job.

For example, if you’re trying to become a project manager, but you’ve only ever worked as a sales representative, you may still be able to use this job as proof of experience working with customers as well as skills such as multi-tasking, negotiation skills, and organizational skills.

Even if you’ve never had a job before, you may be able to draw evidence of soft skills from other life experience.

Playing a team sport meanwhile may show evidence of team skills whilst having an artistic hobby could show creativity. Even something such as traveling could be used as evidence of adaptability and organizational skills.

Customize Your Resume(s)

After everything said and done, you need to write a convincing resume. Most people make the mistake of using the same resume for different job applications. This mistake should be avoided at all cost. See common CV writing mistakes that you should avoid at all cost.

Recent studies show that a recruiter spends less than 10 seconds reading a resume before deciding whether the applicant qualifies for the position or not.

Take your time to tailor your resume to every position and every company you send it to. See the difference between resume and CV for further information.