Three ways inexperienced job hunters can make themselves more attractive to employers
If you haven’t been in the job market for very long, it can be difficult to find employment. One of the main things employers look for is experience. This is partly because they want to know that you are capable of dealing with the kind of work they are offering and partly because they want to assure themselves that you are a productive worker in general. It’s therefore not surprising that those who lack experience find it especially hard to acquire jobs. If you don’t have years of experience and are looking for work, this can be a little disheartening. However, there are things you can do to make your CV more attractive to prospective employers, despite your inexperience. By following the tips we’ve assembled below, you can drastically increase your chances of finding work.
1. Start leveraging your ‘invisible experience’
You might have more experience than you realise; you just need to start including this ‘invisible experience’ on your CV. Have you ever undertaken any voluntary work or unofficially completed tasks in a work-like environment for your own edification? If so, you should include these instances on your CV. Whether you’ve collected money for a charity or simply organised a local sports team, you can use these experiences to prove that you are a hard worker with a versatile skill-set. Just because you weren’t officially employed to undertake these tasks, it doesn’t mean you can’t make the most of them on your CV.
2. Emphasise your qualifications
If you have very limited workplace experience, it can help to emphasise your qualifications on your CV. This is particularly the case if you a high-level qualification, such as a bachelor’s degree, master’s degree or doctorate. Many job hunters make the mistake of simply mentioning their qualifications without giving any details. Instead, you should attempt to signpost how your qualifications demonstrate that you have the skills necessary to take on the job you are applying for.
Let’s look at an example. Imagine that you have a history degree. Now imagine that you are applying for a junior position in qualitative data analysis. You might think that your degree is irrelevant because it is not in a directly-related field. In fact, you could emphasise that your degree required you to analyse and extract relevant information from historic documents in the same way that data analysis requires you to extract information from modern documents. Remember to look at your qualifications carefully and see how they might be relevant to the jobs you are applying for, then attempt to draw your prospective employer’s attention to this.
3. Take on online work and casual work
There’s no such thing as negative experience when it comes to job hunting. Nowadays, there are many websites where you can pick up useful experience to add to your CV. Some sites, such as Amazon’s ‘Mechanical Turk’ site, allow you to carry out basic tasks over the internet to earn money. These sites can be useful for proving your ability and willingness to work to employers. Other sites, such as Upwork, allow you to find work that requires a particular specialist skill. You can also take on casual work for friends and associates who might be willing to give you references. This type of work can also be added to your CV.
By utilising experiences that aren’t necessarily work-related, emphasising your qualifications and taking on unconventional forms of work (which can sometimes be slightly easier to obtain), you can make yourself more attractive to almost any prospective employer.
