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2014-08-15 06:36:08
By Ye Eun Charlotte Chun
Whether you re a recent college or simply want to switch industries, entering a
new field can be a daunting task.
For starters, it s unlikely you ll have the just-right experience an employer
is looking for. So, what happens when entry-level jobs ask for relevant work
experience, and you simply don t have any?
It turns out that, in some cases, not having the perfect background on your CV
can fall in your favour.
Several LinkedIn Influencers weighed in the topic this week, with insights on
how to optimize a lack of work experience and get hired fast. Here s what two
of them had to say.
Robbie Waeschenfelder, senior director of marketing at Ask.com
You have a job opening, posted the job and you're getting resumes. Awesome.
Now what do most hiring managers and recruiters do? They pick the resumes of
people who already have a ton of experience with the kind of job you're hiring
for, wrote Waeschenfelder in his post Hire Someone With No Experience! Wait,
what?
But, that could be a mistake, he wrote. It seems intuitive to pick candidates
who have ideally done the exact same job you need in a different business or a
competitor. But, if you ask me there is a huge problem: they're not motivated
wrote Waeschenfelder. What possibly is their motivation to do this job
really well? They've literally been there and done that.
That s why Waeschenfelder believes hiring a candidate with no relevant
experience could actually be a smarter move.
They'll put 150% effort into it, learn every detail of the job, half out of
appetite to impress and learn, half out of (a positive) anxiety of failing,
Waeschenfelder wrote. There is some risk in them drowning in their new
responsibility, but that s not really a highly likely outcome if they have you
to keep them on track and guide them.
James Citrin, senior director at Spencer Stuart
At some point in your career, you ve faced it, the big career Catch-22: the
permission paradox . It s that moment when you can t get the job without the
experience but you can t get the experience without the job, wrote Citrin in
his post How to Get the Job When You Don t Have the Experience.
Overcoming this conundrum is fundamental both to launching your career
successfully and thriving over the long term, he wrote. You are confident in
your abilities if only you re given the chance. The hard part is getting the
shot to show what you can do.
One key to overcoming the permission paradox is to recognise you are being
evaluated on two points: your potential to add value to the firm, and your
track record in the area most central to the job .
Depending on the seniority of the position, these two sources of value will be
weighted in different proportions, wrote Citrin.
Your potential value is best demonstrated by your attitude, enthusiasm, work
ethic, communications skills, curiosity/quality of your questions, willingness
to learn, and your knowledge of the company and role, he wrote.
Citrin offered five key ways to shift the scales in your favour. Among them:
Get credentials. This can be in the form of a specialized degree or targeted
training, he wrote. So go ahead, pick your field of interest, whether it be
coding, finance, aviation, or the business of art, and find a respected
credential-granting school or organization and pursue it.
Be willing to start at the bottom. Whether it s in the Internet industry,
financial services, retail, hospitality, or any other business that touches
large numbers of people, starting at the point of customer interface, whether
in customer support, behind the cash register, on the sales floor, or at the
concierge desk, will give you a valuable opportunity to learn what s really
going on in the market. Citrin wrote. You ll be able to use this when you
seek to work your way up the ladder internally or interview elsewhere.
Barter. You may not yet have a job. But if you don't, by definition you have
something else of enormous value, which you may not be fully considering, he
wrote. And that is time. Treat your time as the precious asset it is. If you
are creative and package your time with energy, enthusiasm, and initiative, you
can barter your way to opportunity. Consider what you could do with your time
that can help a potential employer now and offer to do it.