A year ago I asked myself this question “How to get a job without any experience?”. The answer was simple “You need higher education, otherwise, you can’t get a job”, “you’re not enough to get any job right now.” “Learn more.”
The day I wrote this article I called my mom asked her if she would like to change her very low-paying job to anything bigger and gave her a couple of examples of job offers. I heard “Aha, sure. The first question I’m asked will be: What’s your education? And I don’t have higher education. Moreover, I don’t have any skills. I can’t do anything.”
If you’ve ever heard something like that or said it to yourself, it’s high time you reconsidered your self-esteem, your values and your own price.
“I’m 21, and I can’t get a job anywhere. Stuck in the no-experience loop. What should I do?”
Here is the problem, you need to make money either it’s some extra cash or you want to provide for yourself and your family. There are a lot of ways to make money. You can go steal, rob a bank or do anything else like that. The disadvantage of that approach is that you’ll have no possibility to enjoy your money because you’ll probably end up in jail.
Another a more delicate approach to earning your income is to get a job. A job is just a way for you to make money, and the money itself is just a tool to satisfy your needs. But how can you get a job if you have no experience or degree?
I’m not saying that you need to learn your university program or go to courses or anything like that to get a job. Also, I do not say that you don’t need to go to the university. Whatever you choose will take your time. And time is the most valuable asset that you have. You don’t want to waste the precious months or years learning relatively useful nonsense at the uni.
Instead, concentrate on learning about the job itself. What are those requirements for the position that you want? You probably have an idea of what kind of job you want to get, and you may even know what the requirements are.
Most part of any job requirements that are written there is a cliche and hasn’t been thought out to the details. However, that’s exactly what your HR wants to see. So, when you craft your CV, you need to keep those requirements in your head and adjust your CV accordingly. Let’s take a look at this job offer for content writers.
You must be talented, passionate and have an ability to put your hands on the keyboard and push buttons in order to make letters appear on the screen (strong writing skills). You also need to google things and check your writings with free tools like Grammarly or other text checking tools (an eagle eye for grammar).
You should be ready to write a 1200-word article today and then write a 100-word description for our Facebook page. That’s the fast-paced environment. And, of course, your articles should be very compelling, or in other words, you must be able to solve somebody’s problem with your article which is itself very compelling.
What you actually need is to have 3 samples of your writings which you better craft in the meantime for that particular niche that you’re trying to apply for. For example, if you’re passionate about cats, and you’ve found a content writer position for a vet clinic, then create 3 articles about cat treatment, cat care, cat diet, etc. Share those articles across all your social media accounts. Now, you have experience. (You’re not the expert yet, but you’ll learn everything you need in the process when you get the job.)
Read any job requirements between the lines. Learn how to spot things that you’ll actually be doing. Anything at any place can be narrowed down to some basic everyday procedures whether it’s niche content creation, construction, management, restaurant business, etc. You’ll probably need 2 weeks to find out what it is all about and then 2 weeks to try yourself at every task. Two months after, you’ll be able to do everything more confidently and after 4-8 months you’ll be a pro if you keep learning.
There are so many prejudices that getting a job is some kind of supernatural process, that you must be the most creative person in the world to land this job. This is so wrong.
One basic understanding of a job is that you need to price them as high as you can while they want to get your expertise for as cheap as they can. That’s it.
Understand, that a business has a problem. They need content writers because they found out that content creation on regular basis brings people to the website. And if this content is more or less well-written, it will help the company deliver their message to the audience and bring more sales. It will also increase their online presence and brand awareness which means that their company can be found on the internet easier.
What they are looking for is not a magician or the most creative guy on earth or the most experienced folk on the planet because they can’t afford them anyway. They are looking for somebody who can solve their problem and create content for a reasonable price.
The company is ready to teach you anything you need to know and they will, simply because they want a content writer who’ll write for them and the problem of content will no longer be a pain in the butt and they can move on with their business.
Of course, you don’t say it during your interview. You present yourself as a passionate and talented person who has everything they need and here is WHY.
If you come to your job interview and start saying “Well, my name is Philip and I’m very passionate about writing, I can write anything for you, easy peasy.” The company will say, well, we have 1000 candidates who are even more passionate and have stronger writing skills than you. Goodbye.
Let’s have a look at the example that I gave at the beginning where a guy was applying everywhere and could not get a callback or even an email. He was applying everywhere retail, food, restaurant, etc.
All these professions have “strong communication skills” in their job requirements I’m 99% sure. So, you write in your CV that you have strong communication skills and apply and then you wait without doing anything.
And then you ask yourself why nobody called you after 2 weeks. Here is the truth, you have failed to show your strong communication skills. If you state that you have great communication skills, then once you’ve sent your CV take your damn phone and call the HR. You can say something like that “Hello, my name is Philip. I’m interested in this position that I’ve found at Indeed.com. And I’ve just sent you my CV. Could you please check it for me?”
This is a game changer. You don’t wait for a stupid call wasting tons of precious time. Understand that you need money to survive or whatever you need it for. You need this job. And so you get it. When you’ve made the call you’ve confirmed your passion, interest, communication skills and a strong desire to be result-oriented. You may not have experience, but you’re better than your competitors because you care.
This is your WHY. This is why you’re better. I can guarantee that if you make the call you’ve landed 60% of your job. Another 40% is your job interview. At the interview, you say that you have stress resistance. Great. But you must prove it. Give examples. You know, I have a small brother, and I needed to sit with him for several months. Also, one of our family friends brought his kid.
Here I was, sitting with 2 small kids who were always messing around and crying every other minute. It was difficult to calm them down. But I did it. This is WHAT I did to calm them down. This is how I developed my stress resistance and organizational skills. If I can manage kids quite successfully, I think I can cope with big guys as well.
Not only you have just shown your skills, you have also shown a good sense of humor. There is no HR who will object to it or refuse your candidature. Give examples, stand up for yourself to prove your skills even on everyday activities. Most importantly, be brave.
As you can see, getting a job without any experience is not that hard. However, you need to be quite persistent. Learn the most important tip from this article. Check your knowledge by answering the question below.
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