How I Landed a Job With No Experience!
Last week I posted about my 10 year anniversary in recruitment. It’s easy to say “it’s easy for them, they have lots of experience.”, but remember - nobody was born with experience, they had to start somewhere!
When I left university I didn’t follow the standard path. I didn’t do an internship, didn’t start my way at the bottom of a company and worked my way up. Instead I worked in the travel industry and did ‘odd jobs’ around the world to fund my travels. But the money was just enough to get by and then when I got back to the UK I had to start all over again.
When I reached my late 20s I was worried I’d be seen as a job hopper who just wanted to get their next job, save up enough money to go travelling, then disappear again {which may/may not have been true}.
But I was determined to get a job that paid enough to fund my next trip and a friend told me about recruitment. I applied to a few positions and eventually I got an interview for a tech recruiter in a recruitment agency.
They asked me “what are your tech skills like”. Instead of answering the question directly, I talked about how I grew up around computers as my Dad is a complete computer nerd and got the internet way before it was ‘popular’.
This wasn’t a lie, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have got the job if I had answered directly “I’m not ‘techie’ at all.”
Lesson 1: Telling someone the answer they want to hear in an interview doesn’t have to be a lie, so long as you’re confident you can learn something quickly on the job.
Lesson 2: Confidence in your abilities is worth more than a fancy degree to the right person!
They went on to ask about my knowledge of recruitment and what I expected to be the biggest challenges in the job. This is where my research came in handy…
Tip 1: DO YOUR RESEARCH
Never done this job before? Speak to as many people as you can about what the job entails - the good, the bad and the ugly. How will you overcome any challenges that arise?
Before working in recruitment, I worked in the travel industry selling tours and experiences. So I used the challenges I faced when making a sale and tied those in with challenges in recruitment.
Example: “When helping customers plan their trip and suggesting trips and accommodation to sell them, I had to first establish exactly what it was they wanted and assess their budget before advising on what’s possible.
So in this way, as a recruiter when I’m speaking with companies I’d need to properly assess what they want from their ideal candidates, consult with them based on what the market looks like and share profiles based on what they’re looking for. Similarly I’d do this with candidates too.“
I was able to draw comparisons between the challenges I faced selling tours and experiences with the challenges one would probably face as a recruiter. I showcased how, despite the difference in industry, I would be able to solve similar challenges as a person.
Tip 2: Find parallels in the job you’re going for and what you’ve done in the past
This doesn’t have to be previous work, this could be projects you’ve done at school/ college, it could be the skills you developed as a carer or parent or it could be things you’ve picked up while volunteering.
Tip 3: Use examples wherever possible
It’s easy to say “I’m good at XYZ, but prove it with a concise story”. The STAR method is a great example of how to answer interview questions.
This is my team gearing up for a paintball war
So… no spoiler alert here - I got the job!
I remember getting my first job - a .Net Developer position. It may as well have been written in Swahili, as I understood about 10% of what was written on it.
That’s when I worked hard to fill in the knowledge gaps I’d (*ahem- blagged) during the interview. I devoured books on understanding tech for non techies, books on recruitment and asked candidates at every possible moment for them to explain things I didn’t understand.
I joined communities, attended events, expanded my network on LinkedIn and was constantly asking for feedback and analysing what I was doing to make improvements.
It’s not enough to just blag your way into a job - if a company have given you a chance with zero experience, you need to demonstrate why they made the right choice and show them what you can do!
Once you become great at what you do, you have more leverage for training, expanded responsibilities, a higher salary and more importantly (in my opinion), more flexibility.
So if you’ve been telling yourself you can’t get a job because you don’t have experience, stop! Change your mindset and find ways to demonstrate why your passion, skills and/or previous experience (professional or not) make you a perfect fit for that job!
Stay rebellious,
Michelle
This post is sponsored by flatio - A rental housing platform for digital nomads, offering hand-picked, mostly deposit-free, and reasonably priced accommodations in over 300 destinations, mainly in Europe.