How to Get a Job With No Experience

Hey everyone, this is Self made Millennial. I'm Madeline Mann. Today we're going to be talking about how to get a job when you have no experience. It's a total paradox that pretty much any job you will get online, you need experience to get that experience. And so I'm going to walk you through a three step process that truly works, that will get you that job that you love. This is the topic that has been requested the most for me to do a video on. I know this is top of mind for you all, so I'm super so excited to be finally doing it. The first thing I want to say before we jump into all the content is that make sure before you go through this process, I'm about to say that you know exactly what career you want to go into. The thing about this process is that those who do it the best are people who are super passionate, they're driven, they know that this is exactly what they want. So make sure to go watch the video. I put the link in the description of the video. Four steps to find the right career for you. If you don't know exactly what your career should be, that needs to happen before you start pursuing these opportunities. We'll walk through a three pronged approach. Develop relationships, build skills, add value. So the first is to build relationships in that industry. You have your eye on the prize of exactly the type of industry, company and role you want to go after. And so now it's time to start reaching out to people in those companies to have informational interviews with. The purpose of the informational interviews is to build a foundation of meaningful relationships in that industry. And what you'll learn in these interviews is exactly what you should be learning on the side. What kind of skills should be building, how does the industry work? What are the industry terms that you should know and get some tips from them on how to break into that industry. Make sure in these discussions that you're not asking them for a job. Sure, maybe a few months down the road they might call you up, say they know someone who's hiring, they might make you as a referral. That's a bonus of doing all these things, but really the purpose is building your network and learning from them. And then while you're in these informational interviews, ask them if they will introduce you to someone else in the industry and that will give you your next interview. I have a video that goes so in depth on informational interviews. How to find these people, how to reach out to them, how to have the actual interview, how to follow up, look in the description. I'll link that video on informational interviews, so make sure to watch that. So in the end, this whole step is about networking, building those relationships, and becoming a student of the industry. Step two is to develop skills so you likely know what kinds of skills are necessary for that given career based on your informational interviews. Now go out and build those skills by any means necessary. That could be. You are taking online classes, watching YouTube videos. You're asking to shadow someone somewhere. Be creative. Make sure you get this experience in any way possible while you're in school. You built a lot of skills. Skills probably time management, teamwork, communication. Now is the time you must build hard skills. This is how you're going to get your first job. So hard skills would be things such as using Excel, building a website, creating an SEO campaign. You must build these skills. Having a great gpa, being excited, driven. That doesn't really offer anything tangible to a company. And that brings us to step number three. Add value. Here's the secret ingredient to getting a job. When you have no experience, create opportunities where there were none. A lot of other videos will focus on branding yourself, but be a resource, not a sales pitch. You have to see opportunities that other people don't see. It's like career hallucinations. Do you guys hear that? Wait, wait, did you guys hear that? I heard opportunity knocking. One way to see an opportunity that wasn't there is to intern for someone busy. You could meet someone in your line of work who talks about how busy they are and a project they're working on. And you. You could offer to intern for them and pick up the slack. Make sure you don't talk about how you're so eager to learn from them, but instead focus on the value you could provide to them. You could say something like I've helped build out similar campaigns to that before. You know, I could intern for you on this project and do all those little tasks while you focus on something more strategic and truly insist. I can start as early as Monday and I don't need much pay. I just really want the industry experience. Do not be overly insistent, but noticing where someone's pain points are and offering to add value there is the best way to get an internship where none existed. A second strategy to add value, which I've seen work for a lot of people is to start blogging about an industry and writing for industry relevant publications. This is a killer way to get a job in an industry you don't work in. I know I have personally Hired someone who all of his experience was in totally different industries and but he had a section on his resume that was all of these publications that were extremely relevant to our industry and it showed that he was taking his free time and doing all of this research, meeting people in industry, writing articles about it, and it was very compelling. The third strategy is to utilize any skills you have and find customers. Whatever your skill is. Digital marketing, social media, graphic design, utilize those skills to find your own customers. And if you don't have any hard skills, make sure you go back up to step two. So one thing you could do is you go to the restaurant at the end of your street and say, hey, I come here all the time and I notice that you all are not on social media. Would you like me to start getting your social media up and running? Emphasize that you are talented, committed and a bargain because companies are willing to take a risk on you if you're really cheap. So really search for these opportunities to add value. Maybe you help them recreate their logo, or someone mentions that they have a big presentation, an offer to build their PowerPoint presentation for them, or they need an Excel model built and say, hey, give me 100 bucks, I'll do that for you. I'll take that off your plate. You will be simultaneously adding so much value while also gaining that important experience. After doing just a few of these things, suddenly you have real job experience on your resume that you can go out and market and get a job. This really truly is the way to get a job when you have no experience. And I'll give you an example. Bernadette Hoban. She posted an article on LinkedIn called Outsmarting the Job Paradox and Landing My Dream job at age 23. You have to read her article, which I've linked in the description. In the article, she talks about how she's so passionate about the Better Business Movement and wanted to get a job in that field. She had skills in branding and digital marketing. So she went out there, found local companies to help with that, got some money on the side, got some experience on the side. While she pursued finding a job in the Better Business Movement, she learned everything she could about the Better Business Movement. She was meeting with tons of people in the industry. She was tweeting with prominent people as well. One thing that I thought was so clever is that she reached out to her alma mater and asked if she could do an article series for their newsletter on the Better Business Movement or B Corpse. And they said, sure, of course, we're always looking for More content. And so she created this industry relevant experience experience out of thin air where she was interviewing people from all these different companies that she was interested in working at and then publishing those articles through her alma mater. It didn't matter that this article series wasn't super official, but it got her in front of really interesting people and for the first time she had industry relevant experience on her resume. Additionally, she met with different companies and sent them decks on opportunities she saw for them. In all of these examples, she shows how she's a resource instead of a sales pitch. What I love about Bernadette's story is, is that she doesn't understate how hard it was to eventually get her dream job. She put in all of this work and a lot of places where she sent those decks or created value. She didn't get a job there and know that that is okay. It's about building these relationships, adding value in as many places as you can and eventually you get to that final destination. But it is so difficult and know that you have to have passion like she had for whatever job or industry you're going into and you will get there. So go read her article. In the description she gives lots of details and examples. I've also linked Austin Belcak's blog and he has a similar story of how he overcame the no experience paradox. So you may be thinking, holy cannoli, this is so much work. Why is this so difficult? And I'll tell you why. First of all, the job market is very competitive. The second is that hiring someone with no experience comes at a huge cost to a company. Even if you say you'll work for free. I once got a slew of very rude emails from someone. He just had graduated undergrad and he offered to work for free. And I said, I'm sorry, we don't have enough resources to mentor right now. And he said, I'm working for free. This should be a no brainer for you. You guys are giving up nothing. What you didn't realize is that bringing on someone even for free, free is very costly to a company because you take your high performers and then put them on helping someone and mentoring someone and teaching them. And meanwhile they're not working on the most important work that they need to get done. So that's why it's so important to mitigate that risk for the company by building skills, building relationships, having them feel like you've already added value so they feel confident that bringing them on the team won't be a resources strain. So in conclusion, this strategy screams passion, drive and initiative. I promise if you are committed to this, committed to adding value, building those skills, building those relationships, you will get that job with no experience. Do let me know more questions and videos you want to see in the comments. Hit a like on this video if it helped you out. Make sure to subscribe to see these videos coming at you every week. Thanks and see you next time.