Don’t be discouraged from applying for that dream job just because you don’t have the relevant experience. Of course, you will need specific skills and knowledge to get a look-in for the job, but quite often, it’s easy to pick these skills through online learning, work experience and volunteer activities.
Do your research
So, you’ve found the perfect job but don’t have the right experience. So where do you start with acquiring those skills? Start off with researching exactly what skills you will need for that kind of job. Hop on the internet and check out Seek and other online job boards for the most common requirements. You will find you need certain ‘hard skills’ (teachable abilities) and ‘soft skills’ (people and interpersonal skills). Many ‘hard skills’ can be acquired through online learning whilst your ‘soft skills’ can be developed through specific work/volunteer activities.
Free online learning
You will find plenty of free training courses and several Australian universities offer free online training through MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). MOOCs are short courses offered exclusively online and free of charge by universities, which provide education in a subject but generally do not result in a formal qualification or credit. Coursera also offers 462 free online courses from leading universities from around the world. Most popular software comes with a free 30 day trial and tutorials so this can also be a good way to practice and learn about specific computer programs. Microsoft have plenty of free online tutorials available and don’t forget about YouTube where you can search and learn about anything and everything! Check out these links:
http://www.openculture.com/free_certificate_courses
http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/training/
Work experience
You make know someone involved in the industry that you want to get into. Just like work experience, ask these contacts if you could come in and learn more about what the job involves. It’s a great way to get some hands-on experience and build your networks as well. You won’t get paid, but it may eventually lead to a job offer if you can prove yourself.
Volunteer work
This is one of the best ways to get some work experience. You can find hundreds of volunteer opportunities in Australia through church groups, sporting associations and large volunteer organisations such as Go Volunteer. Not only is it an opportunity to build your ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ skills, but you‘ll make plenty of new friends and contacts. Volunteer work also looks great on your resume because it shows personal drive and your willingness to develop new skills and help others through unpaid work. It provides opportunities to work in a team, solve problems, develop your communication skills, help plan activities and show how you can work unsupervised. It can also be extremely satisfying working for a good cause. To find out more about volunteering in Australia, go to http://govolunteer.com.au/
So as you can see, free training is available to those who want it which will help you to gain the skills that you need. Don’t forget to list any new training, work experience or volunteer work to your resume as these are important things that employers will be looking for when they consider your job application.
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Good work on this topic. As, many person don’t apply, just because they have no experience.
Great blog post! Experience is without doubt one of the biggest obstacles for graduates in the great pursuit of work. I recently visited my old university and having left three years ago, five obvious things stood out to me (see below). Keep up the good work guys!