How to Beat the “You Need a Job to get Experience – You Need Experience to get a Job” Paradox

Have you heard the expression “You need a job to get experience, but you need experience to get a job”? Let’s talk about some of the loop holes in this Catch-22.

Be strategic with how you organize your résumé. Instead of dividing your work history into the traditional and tired subheadings of “Work Experience” and “Volunteer Experience” try using the categories: “Relevant Work Experience” and “Other Work Experience.” Using these upgraded subheadings makes it less likely for an employer to overlook the experience you gained as a volunteer or unpaid intern.

When you apply to a job, pay careful attention to the career sector of the company. For example, if you are applying for a job at a University, that University fits within the “Post-Secondary Education” sector. This means that on your résumé under the “Relevant Work Experience” subheading, you will want to include any jobs (paid or not) you’ve had in Post-Secondary Education. You should, however, make a point of only including jobs that demonstrate you have the skills and experience necessary for the job you’re applying to. So if you volunteered as your school’s Varsity mascot, although it was a job at a post-secondary institution it does not show that you have the relevant skills needed for that administrative position you’re applying to. Also, even though it was a job at a post-secondary institution, it does not technically count as a “Post-Secondary Education” job. Instead, the type of work that mascots do fits under the “Sport and Recreation” job sector.

To continue with this specific job example, if you are applying for an administrative job in Post-Secondary Education, but have not worked in a strictly “administrative” role before, under relevant work experience you could, for example, put that you were the Secretary of your school’s Student Council. That volunteer position is not only in the appropriate job sector but it highlights many of the skills you’ll need for the job. As a student council executive, you would have had to be organized, have good public relations skills and the ability to connect, communicate and network with your school’s staff and faculty. By including a volunteer experience to your résumé, you’ve now added 1+ years of relevant experience to your application.

Job postings will specifically list that they are looking for “x” number of years of experience. If an application ever says an “equivalent combination of education and experience,” this means that part of your formal education and training can be used towards the number of years of experience they’re looking for.

With this in mind, you may want to include a “Relevant Coursework” section on your résumé. In this section, you can include any classes, tutorials or seminars you took in school that are directly related to the job you’re applying to.  You can also include any research projects you did that demonstrate you’ve developed a working understanding of a topic pertinent to the job.

There are many incentives for employers to hire summer students and co-op students.  Employers like that such positions only last a couple months at a time, this allows them to use the talent of a young professional but not make a long term commitment.  Here in Ontario, there are also monetary incentives for employers to hire students like the $2-per-hour Summer Incentive.

Because of these employer incentives, summer students and co-op students are given entry-level opportunities that are otherwise not available.

By using our resources on labour market trends, you can determine which jobs will be in demand in the next few years. Use that information to gain valuable experience now so that your résumé will be ready when you apply to jobs in a couple of years.

For example, if you’re interested in working in Agri-food but not currently enrolled in an Agriculture related program, start using your electives in school to develop the relevant coursework section of your résumé.

If you’re not in school, consider taking a summer job or internship in the Agri-food sector and evaluate your current hobbies. Is there a way for you to modify or change your current volunteer roles and hobbies so that they prepare you for a job in Agri-food?

Stay tuned for next week (July 16), when we will be posting a checklist on how you can avoid the Job Experience Catch-22 specific to whether you are in high school, post-secondary schooling or working.