Transcript from Video presentation:
I’m going to teach you how to get a job with no experience. So, perhaps employers have been telling you that you don’t have enough experience for the job. Well, I’m going to show you how to bridge that gap and show them that you do have something to offer. In this video, I’m going to cover with you five strategies for overcoming a lack of experience.
There’s a difference between qualifications and experience. So, I’m going to ask you, “Are you qualified for this job or are you not qualified?” and then I’m going to ask you, “Are you experienced or do you not have experience?” So, what’s the difference between experience and qualifications? That’s a good question.
Experience means that you have the raw skills to do the job. That means you’ve done something like this before and you can do it again for somebody else and a good example is managing people or taking care of customers or whatever it is. Let’s say you managed people in one industry and now you’re trying to get a job in a completely different industry. You have experience managing people; that’s a transferable skill. So, you can transfer that skill from one job or one industry to another.
So, the next thing you need to ask yourself is, “Are you qualified?” So, the difference between qualifications and experience; qualifications mean that you have met certain requirements, like maybe you have a Bachelor’s degree, maybe you have a Masters degree, maybe you have a CPA or you passed the bar.
I mean, for example, if you want to be a Certified Public Accountant, you need to have passed the CPA exam; that would be qualification. Nobody is going to hire you as a CPA without having that qualification. You might have the experience of an accountant, but you don’t have the qualification. So, there’s a difference and you need to understand where you’re at.
So, the first thing you need to do is ask yourself, “Why do you want this job? What does it mean to you? What are you going to get if you get this job? Is it happiness? Is it money? Is it a vacation? Is it a car? Is a house? Is it going to help feed your family? Is it just a stepping stone in your career? Is it going to take you to the next level in your career?” Whatever it is, write it down; just get some paper out, right now. Right now, get some paper out and ask yourself, “Why do you want this job? What’s it going to do for you?”
You have to tell yourself this. You have to show yourself what you’re going to get when you get this job. This is going to make it easier for you to attain this job. Alright?
Next thing you do; inventory your skills. Get your resume out and go through it line by line and find out everything that you can do. Now, if you don’t have a resume, maybe you’re just starting out; that’s fine. Write down a list of your skills. Think about everything that you’re good at doing. Maybe it’s stuff you really haven’t done; it’s stuff that you’ve learned about. That’s fine. Write it down. Write down all the skills that you think you’re good at or that you are good at doing.
Now, if you come up with zero, you’re like, “Don, I’ve got nothing. I’ve got no skills at all”. Well, I think you’re lying to yourself. So, ask yourself again, “What are you good at doing?” and write these things down. It could be anything. Maybe you’re good at bicycling or skiing or whatever, write it down; it’s a skill. It will get some momentum going.
Now, if you’re still coming up with a list of zero, ask a friend ask a family member, ask your mom, whoever. Just sit down and say, “Hey, what do you think that I’m really good at doing?” and don’t turn it into a joke with them just say,”What what do see are my greatest assets, my skills, the things that I could do for other people?” and pay close attention and see what they say. This will get you started.
Now, they might say, “Hey, John you’re really good at watching YouTube videos”. Well, don’t laugh. Take that as a sign and make videos that help people do something. Like I’m doing right now in this video; I’m teaching you how to get a job of new experience.
So, if you want to start your own YouTube channel and teach other people how to do something that you’re good at; it could be anything. It could be how to draw, how to cut a color, how to make baskets, whatever. Get in front of the camera and teach somebody how to do something. This is going to help your skills and your assets and your experience surface inside of you. It’s going to make you feel better because you know how to do something and you know how to teach somebody else to do something.
So, the next thing you want to do is show transferable skills. Now, what are transferable skills? Transferable skills are skills that you have, that you transfer over into another type of area.
So, let’s say for example, you’re really good at dealing with people. You know how to talk with people, you know to help people maybe a customer service environment.
You can take those customer service skills that you have in one area and use them in a completely different area. Let’s say you’re a customer service specialist for maybe for the phone company and you help people solve problems with phones. You can then take that experience of dealing with people and use that in a completely different area, maybe at Google; being customer service person over there or Apple or maybe in a car dealership. Because you know how to deal with people at AT&T and helping people solve problems on their phones, you could probably also work in a car dealership in a customer service department, helping people solve the problems because you know how to deal with people. That’s the transferable skill.
So, here’s what you do. Get the job description out, put it on one side, get your resume out and put it on the other or if you don’t have your resume, just write your list of skills, whatever they are. Then go through the job description, get yourself a highlighter and highlight all the key areas that they are looking for; what’s most important to them. And then see if you can draw lines from what they’re looking for to skills that you have. And the whole point here is to take a skill that they’re looking for and relate it to something that’s similar to what you’ve done.
Now, if you’re coming up short on this and you don’t really have the skills that they’re looking for, you don’t have the experience or you don’t have the qualifications, then the next thing that you want to do is to educate yourself; It’s very easy to educate yourself.
And maybe you don’t have a college degree, maybe you do; I don’t know. But if there’s a certain area that you don’t know, that you don’t have experience in, there are so many free resources on the Internet where you could learn about something, you can teach yourself anything, you can get a book or watch a video and start learning something new immediately. You could start doing it after you watch this video. Go down to your library, load up the Internet and do some research on a certain topic. I’m sure you’ll even find a video out there of something that will teach you how to do something.
Now, even though you don’t have the experience, now you’re qualifying yourself; you’re giving yourself the knowledge. This will enable you to go into an employer and say, “Even though I’ve really never done this before, I know a lot about it. I’ve learned a lot about it and I think I can do this for you”
I want to give you a quick example here; I just worked with a guy who was an industrial project manager in the cement business. He does stuff with cement; big industrial projects that need cement. And anyway, after 20 years, he lost his job and he only has very niche experience in this industry.
So he’s looking for a job at a recycling company; a company that recycles aluminum, but they’re looking for a project manager. So, even though he knows nothing about aluminum recycling, he knows about project management; how to manage people, how to manage projects, how to manage budgets. So, his transferable skill are his project management skills, because this company is looking for a project manager. Yes, they would like some experience in the recycling industry.
So, you know what he did? He went out and he watched some videos on aluminum recycling and he brought himself up to speed with what’s going on in that industry. Now, that enables him to go into an interview and talk more intelligently about what they do and how he can apply his skill set to what they do.
That’s how you show transferable skills and if you’re lacking experience, that’s how you educate yourself. You don’t have to go to college, you don’t have to take classes, you can read a trade magazine, you can watch a video, you can read a book, you can educate yourself on any topic that exists, virtually overnight.
You might not be an expert at it, but at least you’ll have educated yourself, you’ll know the buzz words, you’ll know the terminology that’s used and you’ll be able to talk intelligently about it. Really ,do it. Do it.
So, the last thing I have for you; connect the dots. When I when I say, connect the dots, I mean, to show an employer what you’ve done before and here is how you can do these things for them.
So, no matter what they’re looking for a project manager, show them how you know how to manage people, maybe you know how to manage budgets or we can even take this a lot simpler. This is somebody who’s been working, let’s say you’ve never worked before, let’s say you’re are just right out of high school, right out of college and you’ve never even had a job. So, you have no work experience; no big deal.
You still have experience doing things. You still have knowledge. So, show an employer how your knowledge or just your understanding of things. Just show them how you understand what they’re trying to do and then you can help them solve their problems. Because you have to think about it; Why is an employer looking for somebody? They’re looking to hire somebody to solve a problem that they have. They’re looking to you for a solution.
So, if you can show them how you can help them. Show them that you understand them, then they’re going to be more inclined to give you a chance. If you just show up and say, “Sorry Mr. Employer, I don’t really have any experience, but I really want the job”. That’s not going to fly. Put yourself in their shoes. Would you hire somebody who doesn’t have any knowledge or experience about what this job is for? Of course, not. Why would you? There are going to be a total disaster.
So, go out there educate yourself, get some knowledge on what you’re trying to do or what you want to do and then show an employer, say, “Hey, I may not have the exact work experience you’re looking for, but I have some knowledge about what you’re trying to do” and then demonstrate that knowledge; connect the dots for them and show them that you are a solution to their problems.
