You probably don’t want to think about this at the moment, but when you leave university, you’re going to have to get a job. Perhaps, you’ll even be faced with the dilemma of choosing the career that you’ll be in for many years of your life. When this time comes, there’s a chance you’ll discover one of the most famous catch-22 situations in the working world.
This, of course, is the fact that most of the jobs you apply for will require that you have previous experience in the role. The problem is, how do you get this experience if you need prior experience to gain any in the first place
Understanding the Dilemma
Part of the reason for this catch-22 situation is the fact that employers know that there’s a vast number of people out there looking for jobs and they can put them through a rigorous hiring process. In addition to that, from a business perspective, it’s helpful for the company to bring in people who already know what they are doing and don’t need much training. With unemployment rates going up, competition in the job market is increasing, too. There’s been a notable shift in recent decades of what employers consider to be entry-level. Jobs that required little to no experience in the past may now ask for one or two years of relevant work. The shift has led many aspiring professionals to wonder how and where they’re supposed to gain experience if they can’t get hired anywhere in the first place.
Reframing Your Experience
Even if you don’t have any years under your belt working in a particular field, there are ways to make yourself an attractive candidate. You need to consider what an employer views as relevant experience and think about whether you have any of these skills. For example, while at university you may have taken part in academic projects or coursework that could be positioned as practical experience.
You need to frame these activities in a way that highlights their relevance to the job you’re applying for. This is when it comes in handy to have a bit of CV-writing know-how. One of the best ideas is to look at some CV templates for university graduates and edit them to reflect your own abilities. Even despite a lack of work history, you can promote yourself in various other ways based on the lessons learned and activities performed while at university.
Ways to Gain Experience
There are other ways to gain work experience that can help with the job application process. While at university, you should keep an eye out for internships and cooperative education programmes that can offer a direct route to some hands-on training in your desired field.
Other options include taking on some freelancing work or personal projects to build your portfolio. Having a body of past work to display to an employer could put you ahead of the competition.
In today’s work market, you’re faced with the catch-22 situation of needing a job to get experience and needing experience to get a job. Fortunately, there are numerous ways that you can make yourself a worthy candidate if you make sure you plan ahead while studying at university.
