A few years ago I was hanging out with a friend of mine who was complaining about not getting a call back on her job application for a management position.<\/p>\n
Since I had known her, she had never had a job, so I asked her to tell me what she put down under her experience.<\/p>\n
You guessed it; she didn’t have anything down.<\/p>\n
The reality of applying for a job is that more often than naught you need to prove that you have experience in order to even get a call back. Many people think this is a never-ending cycle as you apply for a job to get experience, but you don’t get the job because you don’t have any experience.<\/p>\n
Fear not! There are plenty of simple ways to get experience to put on your resume that won’t result in you pulling your hair out of your head.<\/p>\n
Obviously, any and all higher education should be featured on your resume; however, there might be experiences from your time in school that can help fill your resume.<\/p>\n
For example, clubs like the student newspaper, yearbook, speech and debate team, robotics team, or any education related clubs are all valuable experience. Think about it: if you are applying for a writer’s position, your four years of serving as the news editor for your high school newspaper are still four years of writing experience!<\/p>\n
If you are still in high school or college, talk to someone from your school’s career services department or student activities department about what you want to do for a living. More often than naught, there is an extra-curricular activity on campus that can give you some real-world experience!<\/p>\n