But to be honest other than that there is nothing going on with me at the moment , the irony of having so much free time and having nothing to do with it and I swear when I do get a job and I'm busy I'm going to appreciate it and never going to wish for more free time.
(That's a lie. When I've been a job for a while and the novelty of being busy runs thin I'm most likely going to be on here complaining about it. I bet you're looking forward to that, am I right?)
Any way I've been applying for jobs for a while now and I've noticed a pattern or rather a paradox emerging, if you want to get some work experience you're going to need some work experience to get work experience.
How is anyone meant to get experience of the work place if no body is offering to give any body experience, it's bad enough that paid internships want you to have some experience (which is pretty much work experience any way, it's a lot more work than regular work experience and internships usually pay you but it's still just experience at the end of the day.) but I've actually seen adverts for work experience and internships that don't even pay travel and they want you to have prior experience and or a degree.
It never occurred to me that going to Uni and getting a degree still didn't get you into work, of course I knew you wouldn't get straight into work because there'd be a lot of competition from other graduates and the majority of the time there will always be someone more qualified (or over qualified) for the job but I never thought that having a degree wasn't enough or that a uni grad would have to compete for unpaid work experience, it just seems kind of sad really but I guess that's the system at the moment and until things pick up economy wise everyone's just going to have to deal with it.
I'm often trying to give advice on this blog just in case someone comes along having scrolled through internet searching for the answers for the exact same problem as me and I'm going to be honest I'm still trying to find experience but there is one thing I noticed, the more you have on your CV/resume the better.
If you think about it for every job you get turned down for someone must have got the role right? And that is because they have more on their CV/resume.
I personally don't think experience is absolutely everything.(although from my job hunting it seems to be the biggest thing employers are looking for.)
I think skills, qualifications, and a pinch of hobbies and interests are pretty important, of course work experience implies that you have the skills and qualifications for the job but I'm thinking about this from my point of view, I.E I just finished college, I have no uni degree and no work experience.
I now think that maybe more qualifications would help, like maybe taking up another college course, doing some A levels or going to university but to be frank I don't want to go back to college myself, maybe uni but I don't want to go back to college.
I do think the more qualifications the better but of course that costs even more money and I don't think it's wise to over spend and become over qualified to secure a job that isn't worth the money you spent.
Skills are important. Of course you will learn skills doing courses at school, college or uni and you will learn skills at work through work experience but like I said before going on lots of courses costs lots of money and I've found a lot of employers would prefer a Uni grad for their work experience placements.
Yes some employers want you to have a degree for work experience that will last a few months, not for actual work.
But I think there is away to get around this one without completely depleting your savings.
I don't know what career you've chosen but I've decided to go into journalism and writing for tv, there are plenty of courses and competitions for writers if you look in the right place for example the BBC does script competitions regularly, I guess if you do well in a competition you could add it as work experience but if you do you you should really stress the skills involved.
I'm also interested in TV and film production, I was never very good at the technical side like cameras and stuff but I liked coming up with ideas and things, it's probably a good idea not to be too specific with your career path as long as it's related you might be able to achieve your original goal in the end any way.
I know this website called mandy which has TV and film related jobs and they advertise everything from work to workshops, they often have short courses for things like after effects and TV presenting although I wouldn't recommend paying for an after effects course because you can learn after effects on a website called videocopilot.net.
even if you don't want a media based job there should plenty of ways you can learn new skills relevant to your career path, clearly for some industries it's going to be easier to learn new skills, it's going to be easier for someone in the hair and beauty industry to learn a new technique or a new beauty treatment than it is if you're in law trying to learn something new.
Hobbies and Interests are often neglected and don't get me wrong a hobby isn't going to secure you a job but put a relevant hobby or 2 along with a list of relevant skills and some good qualifications and it might give you the push you need to beat another candidate.
Think of a CV/resume as a weapon in a fight, a fight between children.
Remember what arguments were like at school when you were 6? The kid with the most impressive things in their arsenal would win and by "impressive things" I mean who's dad had had the toughest job, or who had the oldest brother or sister who could come and beat the other kid up, CV/Resume's are the same thing.
I don't think hobbies can hurt as long as they relate back to the job.
Mentioning that you play for a sports team implies that you are active and healthy and like working in a team and might come in handy when applying for the police or the army but it might not be very helpful if your applying for a marketing job.
When applying for jobs in journalism they often ask for examples of work so I often link them back to my blogs. I guess how effective your hobbies are depends on the job you're applying for really, I imagine active hobbies are very helpful in getting a job in the army and creative hobbies like photography and painting could improve your chances of getting a job in creative design. (obviously if you have experience and qualifications for creative design it's probably because you like like art and design but hobbies could get you into training or work experience so it could work that way.)
However certain jobs I'm not overly sure how you could use hobbies to your advantage, roles like personal assistants probably don't really have any relevant hobbies but I guess using sports to show you work well in teams probably wouldn't go a miss.
If you're in the experience paradox try filling up your CV/resume with qualifications, skills and hobbies instead.
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