26 Sep 2016

When you graduate high school or university, sometimes it can seem like every job you want to apply for requires the one thing you don’t have, and can’t ever have without getting a job in the first place: experience.

Work experience is the bane of a graduate’s existence, and unless you’ve gone through some kind of practical component of your studies, you’ll likely finish school with none of the kind of experience you need. Tending bar or serving fries at Maccas, sure! But anything that’s actually relevant to building your career? Slim to none.

Luckily, there’s one thing most of us millennials have that our older employer counterparts do not–and that is an extensive and deep-seeded understanding of social media and the world wide web. We are the Stephen Hawkings of Facebook and Snapchat. Surely that must count for something.

Well, as a matter of fact, it just might. In this booming age of social media, companies are realising just how important it is for them to get online and get their name and work out there into cyberspace. So, it plays in our favour that a lot of company and business owners are just a little bit lacking when it comes to their social media skills.

But just being a whiz on the interweb isn’t going to secure you a job. You need to use your abilities to give yourself the illusion of having had years of experience. No, I don’t mean lying in the education section of Facebook or photoshopping yourself shaking hands with the prime minister. This way, you won’t even have to fudge on your resume.

I’ll give you an example:

If you’re keen on becoming a writer after you graduate, for example, then why not start a blog? If you can keep a blog for a year or two before you graduate, you not only would have had a heap of writing experience, but you would have possibly gained a little bit of an audience, and maybe have even been lucky enough to make some connections in the industry.

Want to get into graphic design? Create an online portfolio or website showing off your designs and building a little bit of a following–you could even try selling merchandise printed with your designs.

Start a Facebook page, a Youtube channel, an Instagram account. Heck, you can blog about almost any topic under the sun. Get creative about how you can promote yourself and gain a little bit of experience in the industry you want to get into while you’re still studying. It’ll improve your chances of getting employed, and it’ll prove to your boss that you’ve got all the technological savvy that they might be missing.

Instead of lacking the experience they want you to have, try and make your own kind of experience. Sure, it mightn’t be exactly what they’re looking for, but it proves you’re a creative type who can think outside of the box. And, let’s be honest, something is better than nothing.