Have you just graduated from school or a college, and haven’t had any working experience yet?
Recruiters on seeing a blank working experience on your CV and Resume might be hesitant to hire you.
Or you have retrenched for a long time (due to the Covid19 pandemic or otherwise) and with your past work experience making it difficult for you to get a job?
It may sound far-fetched, but you can still get a job even if you don’t have any work experience at all.
Work experience is often a major consideration in hiring someone for a particular job position.
However, that doesn’t mean that those people who don’t have work experience won’t get the job at all.
One key factor is that you should not give up quickly while looking for a job even though you have applied to many companies.
Apart from those who are just starting a job, the rest who have worked for the same industry and want to try other jobs in a different industry might also be having a hard time getting the desired job.
Simply put, you may have some work experiences, but that experiences do not match the job you are currently applying for.
Don’t worry.
In this article, we will share the top 6 secret ways to get a job even without any work experience.
How to get a job without work experience
Some of the ways below might help you get a job even if you don’t have relevant work experiences:
- Hone skills in one or more areas
- Be active in job seeker groups or communities
- Have a great CV/Resume and Cover Letter for the specific job role
- Add organizational or volunteer experience in CV and resume
- Start a business to get that working experience
- Seeking experience through internships
Hone skills in one or more areas
If you do not have certain work experience, it’s a good idea to start honing your abilities and skills.
You can also learn new skills that are useful either for yourself or getting a job.
Having multiple skills allows you to find work in many fields so you don’t have to focus on just one area.
These skills can also be an added value for you in the eyes of recruiters.
Especially if you have many skills at once.
All you have to do is elaborate on the skills you are good at to recruiters during an interview to convince them of your abilities.
The abilities you possessed will be very influential if the company requires workers with certain skills.
Sharpening skills can also be done by the “self-taught” method or by learning with the help of others.
For those of you who can hone your own skills, you just have to keep learning to improve those skills.
If you’re struggling to find a school or educational center near your home to start learning, the good news that in this technological era, you can now find plenty of online courses to hone your skills.
There are many online course platforms that you can choose and in our recent article on the top 15 online learning and skills upgrading courses in 2021, we have shared some of the best online courses for our readers such as:
- Coursera
- EdX
- Khan Academy
- Udemy
- Skillshare
These platforms provide various types of courses ranging from those related to school subjects to job training.
Existing courses are available for free and paid depending on the course creator and the platform.
In choosing a course, especially a paid one, make sure it adds value such as the branding of the course, whether future employers recognise the course certifications, whether the course matches your interests and will be of use to you in the future.
Taking unsuitable courses will be a waste of time so always choose courses wisely to make them useful.
Be active in job seeker groups or communities or on a job portal
To get a job would entail that you have to look for it first.
There are many job vacancies, but you could be missing out on information or the company is just spreading vacancies in a few places that you don’t know about.
This is why being active in a job seeker group or community is very important.
For example, 9cv9’s IT Jobs and Internship Group on Facebook is one of the top IT Facebook Group for jobseekers in Vietnam. With over 51k+ members as of September 2021, developers and engineers in Vietnam find the best tech jobs in the region.
Whether it’s for the food industry, entertainment, technology, and others, a typical job community and group will have them all.
You don’t have to bother looking for each industry anymore because everything is fully available there.
You can also find jobs with various qualifications, ranging from those with experience, without experience, as well as educational qualifications.
In addition, you can also make connections with people in the group or community.
Making connections is very important because it can make it easier for you to find a new job, be it for your present or future need.
It’s also possible that some of those connections offer you a job.
Joining a group like this also allows you to consider jobs that you didn’t think of before.
You might even get a job that you never thought of.
All in all, joining a job group or community will provide many benefits in your job searching journey.
Have a great CV/Resume and Cover Letter for the specific job role
Maybe there aren’t as many job vacancies for those who don’t have work experience, but that shouldn’t deter you.
To get a job, you just need to be consistent and keep applying for jobs.
Don’t be discouraged if you haven’t received an interview call after applying in many places.
Before applying for jobs in multiple places, it’s a good idea to create a resume that fits the specific job you’re applying for.
Resumes that tend to be the same are more often not accepted by recruiters.
Make your resume more specific to the job you are applying for so that you have a greater chance of getting a job interview.
Some other tips are to also pay attention when sending job applications via email.
Do not apply by sending a CV or resume without any explanation in the body of the email.
How can you get a job if the recruiter doesn’t know why you’re emailing?
Always write a cover letter in the body of the email clearly when sending job applications via email.
If you are sending a job application in person, pay attention to writing a job application letter as well.
Do not let your handwriting be sloppy, illegible, or have misspelled words.
Arrange application files in an organized manner and make it easy for recruiters to see.
Also, make sure you don’t write down important information such as personal data, company name, and company address incorrectly because it can give a bad impression and get your application rejected.
If you are still confused, you can find tips on making a good resume to avoid making resume mistakes.
To get started on building and creating a CV or Resume for free, then check out UrbanCV, the world’s most modern and fastest CV Builder.
Add organizational or volunteer experience to your CV or resume
For those of you who have participated in organizations or volunteering activities during school, you can include them in your CV/Resume.
Adding organizational experience and volunteering activities are great because they will make up somewhat for paucity of work experiences.
In addition, the contents of your CV and resume won’t look too empty because of a lack of work experiences.
Just like writing a typical work experience, you also have to write the volunteering activities clearly.
Not only do you write the name of the organization you are following, you also write down your position in the organization and how long you have been in the organization.
Also mention your responsibilities and accomplishments while at the organization, but don’t write too much because it will make it difficult for recruiters to read your resume.
Because not everyone is interested in volunteering, it can be an advantage for you who have participated in volunteering activities.
The experience gained during volunteering will also be useful for you later.
Various experiences gained during volunteering can be added to your CV/Resume.
If possible, choose organizations and volunteering activities that match the job you are applying for so the company can immediately relate and assess the relevance.
Start a business to get that working experience
If applying to jobs without the relevant work experience makes you inferior as compared to other job applicants, then you might want to consider getting those work experiences by starting a business instead.
Starting a business and working hard to make it work can translate into relevant work experiences.
For example, suppose you want to apply to a digital marketing role which requires 2-3 years of digital marketing experiences and you don’t have any of such experiences yet.
Either you can find a company that is willing to lower that requirement, i.e., a company who is willing to take in interns (without working experiences).
Or, you can simply start a digital marketing startup to start getting some of that needed work experiences under your belt.
During running the business, you can put those experiences in your CV/Resume and co-relate them to the job position you are keen to apply for.
When you start a new business without any qualifications or experiences, it can be hard but not impossible.
The main goal will be how to get your first few customers in order to reach a level of momentum and scalability to get your needed working experience.
One of the many ways would be to work for free in the initial few weeks or months of the business, and prove to your customers that you have the needed capabilities to perform for them.
Once they are convinced, then you can use their results and testimonials for the next few customers, and so on and so forth.
After some time, then the whole process can be fine-tuned and you will realise the required working experience can be obtained eventually.
That said, starting a business can be highly risky and not advisable for everyone.
Also, if you are doing well in your business, then perhaps you might even re-consider applying for that job in the first place.
Otherwise, besides venturing into a new business, perhaps it is better to seek a traineeship or internship whereby there is almost no requirement for prior working experiences.
Seeking experience through internships
You keep applying for jobs but haven’t gotten any?
Or you don’t like the high risks inherent in starting a business?
Then, why not consider a traineeship or internship?
Through internships, you will garner relevant working experiences about work and the world of work.
For more explanation on why internships are important, we have elaborated on the top 6 key reasons why internships can add value to your career.
Internships will make you better prepared for the world of work in the future.
From an internship you can also improve your abilities and discover your potential.
Listing your internship experiences will increase your chances of getting a call for job interviews and thereafter, in getting the job.
Adding that internship experiences to your CV/Resume should be neat and detailed.
Avoid adding irrelevant things as it will affect the relevance of the CV/Resume.
For internships, you can start doing internships while you are still a student or even after graduating from your school.
There are two types of internships to choose from, paid internships and unpaid internships.
Take an internship that suits you so you don’t regret and have trouble later.
Conclusion
Getting a job when you don’t have any work experience can be difficult.
Maybe this is also what makes you feel more inferior when applying for jobs because you feel you are still not qualified compared to other candidates.
But don’t let that feeling stop you from getting a job.
In this article, we have shared 6 top tips that can be used to get a job even without the relevant work experiences.
Ultimately, remain positive and do your best to improve yourself for the betterment of your future career path.
To find various job vacancies and internships, do check out 9cv9 jobs and career platform.
You can also find interview tips, job applications tips, and other job-related things on the 9cv9 blog.
To build your CV, we recommend taking a look at UrbanCV, the world’s most modern and fastest CV Builder.
