Looking for a job but lacking experience

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I have recently graduated and I am currently looking for employment. Of course, I am interested in looking for jobs in my area of expertise, but I am also looking for general work as I really need the money and I'm just starting my career in the creative industry. The problem is that I have very little work experience.

I have years of voluntary experience as well as relevant skills, but due to my lack of actual paid work I am worried that I will not get any employment. I'm worried that employers will ask why I haven't been working while I was at uni and I'll be browbeaten into describing my aspergers' and history of mental illness, which prevented me from managing both uni and work simultaneously. Employers are supposed to be equal opportunities, but I am highly sceptical of this.

How do I get employment despite my lacklustre CV?

I'm in the same boat as you.
I graduated with a Masters in IT Management (double bachelor's in MIS and Marketing)
I also have three internships under my belt, one job, two clubs (one of which I was on the board and quite activity).

Right now the real unemployment rate is between 10%-15% in the U.S. as a whole, higher in most parts of the country.

Most entry level jobs still require 3-5 years of industry experience on top of certifications.
Most internships now require at least 2+ years of experience and possibly certifications.

At least half of recent grads are in the position while being too experienced and educated to get retail and food services (me), with almost other half able to at least get retail and food service jobs.

It's an employers market still and the amount of decent paying jobs being added each month aren't many.

You list your volunteer experience, especially if it is field related as you would work experience.
It counts as long as it is related to your field, though it is still better than having nothing.
Also list the projects you've done while being in school.

Come join us in the unemployment/underemployment club!

If you have the money and want to do something programming related...

One thing that I see people do recently is go join a web/software development bootcamp or a data science bootcamp. You can list your projects that you've worked on in your resume (call the work section "Professional & Projects" rather than "Work experience"). Heard some good things about bootcamps - they are usually very practical and have a good employment rate, and employers seem fairly willing to hire bootcamp participants who do not have a computer science degree, since coding is the real skill you need to know to do your job. They also look pretty fun. Plenty of the major cities in North America have them now, you can google if you are interested.


On a side note, you can turn alot of school club / project experience into work-ish experience if you play it right. Google
"mergers and inquisitions resume no experience" for an example of this. Of course, you'll need to customize it to your field of study, but that video is demonstrative of how impressive you can make an university resume that has very work little experience.

For a lot of employers, volunteering counts as experience, it doesn't even "have" to be in a relevant field.

I was able to transfer my bartending into an IT job for experience: it was work, in a field that needed me to be somewhat effective.
I stated that i "wanted work that allowed me to rest my brain" outside of college and homework; this was acceptable.

Having had to employ and manage many people in my career(s), I would suggest playing down (but not removing): college degrees, professional certificates and professional titles. Instead, in the current world economy, emphasize a functional resume or answer application questions functionally ( http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Functional-Resume ).

I was always much more impressed with an applicant's knowledge and experience than degrees, certificates and titles. In a functional resume, it is expected that volunteer work, family work, church work, nonprofit work and professional internship work means much more to the hiring individual than it would seem. Focus on management or "people" skills. Businesses being what they are currently, most employers want to know how well an applicant can work with (or lead) others. Suddenly, all those high-school and college student group experiences become valuable. For older adults, all those community and church group experiences become valuable, too.

Among applicants with ASD, consider whether or not, you should disclose on your resume. If you do, tie it into the skills that your intended employment needs ("As someone with a neurological disorder, I have learned well how to help other workers (or customers) who are disabled themselves" or "Having overcome many disability-related characteristics, I am able to adapt my experiences and skills quickly to fit many workplaces.") These kinds of statements always get the attention of the human-resources staffers who look for "team players."

In the end, be a real human in the interview and not just a breathing version of the resume. Joke mildly if you can, talk about a sport you like, and have a couple of not-so-serious questions you want to ask the interviewer.

I've got no degree but did spend time at university (2 years) but didnt get anything out of it so I failed pretty much. I've only got experience in retail that lasted 2 weeks and unofficially experience in a library at school which was compulsory. I dread interviews because every time I prepare for them the informations gone the next day or whenever I have the interview so in a sense I have very short term memory, but my brain balances it out and gives me a better long term memory which doesn't help interview-wise. There should be a system that lets you do a work trial instead of an interview, since interviews just assess your ability to communicate, in that regard I fall at the first hurdle.

If it was a work trial I could show them the best I can do in the workplace, but although interviews are usually one-to-one, you wouldn't have to worry about remembering details like research of the company, what your ideal job is, why you'd want to work for them, what you can bring to the company etc.

Nothing wrong in terms of my CV but a big gap between education and now.

Easy answer if employers ask about lack of work while at uni: I wanted to concentrate on my studies. Then work it into a general point about how good you are at focussing on a task and giving it your all, for example.

With interviews a good trick is being able to turn a negative into a positive. i.e. 'Yes, I've had a bad experience, but this is what I have learned from it and this is why this job is perfectly suited to me.'