How to Get a Job When You Have 0 Experience
Sep 1, 2024
Feeling stuck trying to get a job without experience?
We’ve interviewed dozens of people who have successfully made a career transition without experience.
Here are 5 Lessons we learned:
They are patient and play the long game
We all want a simple, quick solution to this problem of getting a job in this economy (a higher-paying, better job at that). But the fact of the matter is that time is an essential ingredient for many folks making a career jump.
Headcount and cost scrutiny mean that open roles are limited. Being patient gives you a huge advantage in this environment.
Sometimes that will mean being patient in waiting for the right opportunity to directly into the role you want.
For example, Verena @ Okta was able to make the jump from Sales Development to Technical Account Management at Okta by waiting months between different potential opportunities. She tenaciously worked every different opportunity for 1 year to achieve her goal.
Other times, this will mean being patient enough to go through a transitory role between the role you have and the role you want.
For example, Stella @ Google was able to make the jump from finance to product management by taking on a role in product operations for 2 years.
Being patient is easier said than done. How your peers toughed it out on Transition Tales.
They get as much experience as they could without the job title
Apart from taking on side projects, one straightforward way to show you have “experience” for an internal promotion is to complete all internal onboarding materials, certifications, and training that you can get your hands on.
People who made this transition often told us, “I felt like I onboarded myself for the job before I even interviewed.”
People who successfully made a jump outside of their industry or company heavily leveraged outside resources – books, online courses/programs, podcasts, and more. Check out Transition Tales stories for the specific resources used by your peers.
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3.) They ask close coworkers AND strangers for help
If just hearing the word “networking” makes you feel like you want to barf. You’re not alone. But here’s specifically a few ways folks asked for help:
They try to get their manager the manager of the team they are trying to join on their side
They look for people who have done the same transition for advice
They meet up with people in the space they are trying to join and learn their language
They ask their colleagues for help in the interview process
Every single opportunity requires help from other people. Networking is just that: asking for help.
If you feel a little lost at the prospect of networking, that’s OK, it’s a skill you can always get better at.
4.) They face employer’s biggest worries about them head-on
Getting a job with no official experience means hiring managers, recruiters, and interviewers will challenge your ability to do the job.
Before you go into the interview process, you need to have a convincing & authentic answer to the challenging question: “Why should we hire you when you have no experience?”
Here are some of the great answers used by Transition Tales storytellers:
“I’ve had experience learning on the job: I learned everything I know on the job in my current job and I am a top performer”
“I own the fact that I’m inexperienced. That’s why I’m this hungry to join the team. These are the things I did to prepare for this role.”
“You should hire me despite my lack of official management experience because I don’t have bad habits. I am hungry to learn and I can really manage the way you want me to manage your team.”
“As someone who has ADHD and has to really work to learn, it actually makes me better at this job because I can accommodate the least common denominator. I know I can be a good teacher because I don’t learn quickly myself!”
4.) They own their strengths and weaknesses
Beyond giving you confidence in the career transition process, being clear on your strengths and weaknesses is critical to convince hiring managers to give you a chance.
For strengths: identify the transferable skills that are most valuable to hiring managers and communicate that effectively.
These could be soft skills valuable to any job like being coachable or knowing how to communicate.
Transferable skills also include niche knowledge and skills you have developed over time.
For example, Britton @ Uber made the transition from consulting to product management by leveraging 2 transferable skills. First, as a consultant at a large firm, he had extensive experience with stakeholder management: getting buy-in from different departments and communicating across different teams to move a project forward. Second, he had experience working in highly regulated industries (healthcare), which requires due diligence and patience that non highly regulated industries do not have to face.
When he was strategizing his jump into product, he decided to interview at companies that would value his stakeholder management skills and experience in highly regulated industries.
Second, acknowledge and address any critical knowledge/skill gaps by doing your research. Fill those gaps through mini opportunities and self-learning.
One final tip from the team at Transition Tales: Fake it Till You Make It
Everyone starts a career without experience. Don’t let your lack of official experience scare you away from pursuing something you want. As our community shows us: there’s always a way to finagle your way into a career path.
We hope there’s some actionable tips in this blog to help you work towards your career jump.
But at the end of the day, none of the people we interviewed really knew what they were doing.
Everyone is trying to figure it out. You’re not alone! So if you feel like an impostor: just fake it! Fake it till you make it!
Transition Tales