Getting it
Nearly all graduate employers ask for prior work experience, whether within the field you're applying in, or general work experience in any work area.

A problem can arise in that many potential work experience opportunities - internships, placements and temporary jobs for example - ask for work experience too! This is a famous, and fiendish, Catch-22.

So how can you get around this? One way is to start out in a very basic role which doesn't require any previous experience, and use it as a stepping stone. Examples of these include office admin roles, bar work, customer service, telesales and so on. Recruitment agencies are often a good source for these types of roles.

Other places to look are Job Centres and especially University Careers Services. There are also a number of websites which advertise temp jobs.

Even in entry-level roles such as these, you'll often have the chance to acquire invaluable basic skills such as client service, task management, communication, teamwork, exercising responsibility, and so on.

As well as entry-level temp jobs, a lot of volunteering and extra-curricular activities are also open to people with no prior experience. There’s great diversity in the volunteering sector, in terms of the roles you can perform, and the organisations you can work with – from a homeless outreach charity on the streets of London, to an international relief agency in the developing world. And the same diversity applies obviously to extra-curricular activities (sports, the arts, crafts, etc).

So these can also be a great way to gain the skills which are demanded by employers. Also you will often find that you are able to get involved at a more responsible and senior level when doing voluntary work, than you would in an entry-level job.

Search for Internships and placements or visit the Life Zone for opportunities to gain vital experience.


Getting the most out of it
Both these routes will therefore enable you to build your portfolio of skills, and add substance to your CV – but they can also, crucially, let you discover what you’re interested in, what you enjoy and are good at, and what options and routes are available in the world of work (much more comprehensively than job ads will!), and build up contacts.

Then when you go on to complete application forms or attend interviews for permanent jobs or internships, you’ll find that you have plenty you can talk about, and can give convincing examples of having acquired the skills they’re looking for. As a side-note, the ability to analyse and speak articulately about what you got out of a particular experience, and how it makes you the kind of candidate they’re looking for, will take you far.

You should use your experiences strategically: if you are clear on your career direction, you should choose temporary jobs and extra-curricular activities carefully to try and build the particular portfolio of skills and experience that’s required in that field.

In this way, you can work towards entering a career using different jobs as stepping stones. Let’s say you want to work in PR, which is a field which often asks for previous relevant experience, even for entry-level jobs – making it a great example of the Catch-22 mentioned before.

You might want to draw up a checklist of the skills which PR employers look for – these might include client service skills, commercial awareness, ability to manage a variety of competing tasks and deadlines, telephone skills, etc – and then think about how you can combine different types of work experience and extra-curricular activities to tick these off.

Continuing with the PR example – employers in the sector often also ask for experience gained within the actual industry. To get around this, it’s more or less the same principle:

You could start off by getting a holiday job in office admin, which will give you some basic skills, and give you a good basis (especially if you can gain a significant amount of admin experience) from which to apply to similar admin jobs in public relations agencies.

Then, doing admin within an agency will give you crucial insights into PR work, and you might even start to take on some operational PR tasks while you’re there. This experience on your CV would be invaluable for eventually landing your permanent job (perhaps with the agency you temped for!).

Sadly, many work experience positions in PR, and other fields which are very in demand (in the media and so on), are unpaid. However, if you can save up in advance, or take paid work in the evenings, you may be able to fund some unpaid work experience.

To summarise, don’t be disheartened by the initial barrier of jobs asking for prior experience. Set your sights low for the first few short-term roles you take (while keeping your higher long-term goals firmly in mind). Take a tactical approach to building up the skills base you need. And gradually parlay your way into more and more senior and experienced roles. Good luck!