# No Job/No Experience Catch-22 **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 24, 2002, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794 "2002-03-24T03:06:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/1 "2002-03-24T03:06:27Z")
Is it possible to ever break the No Job/No Experience vicious cycle? Such narrow-minded thinking! Now, I’m not just talking about the college graduate looking for an entry level job. I’m talking about experienced individuals who know how to apply themselves and work with dogged perseverance. I mean, I wouldn’t be applying for a job if I didn’t think I could do the job! What is it with businessmen that they see no worth in a person’s ablilities? Do you know what a resume is telling you? A resume IS NOT JUST about experience, damn it! It shows I have brain in my head, I’m hard working, and I would apply myself equally hard to promote YOUR needs. Especially where one has experience in a parallel endeavor, it is still so damn impossible to break this mold and “stigma” the businessmen have created. “What have you done for me lately?” Are we really at the mercy of the business majors? Yeah, the same ones who goofed off all through college on Daddy’s money. The same ones who wouldn’t know the meaning of hard work. Are they really this short-sighted? What would happen if they opened their eyes, for once? And, how do these same business majors have the audacity to show their face in church on Sunday as if to put up some front at what good Christians they are? - Jinx If the people lead, the leaders will follow… ---
**Author:** ![heptapod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@heptapod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/heptapod)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/2 "2002-03-24T04:16:51Z")
Go on the internet. Find a resume that matches what you know. “Borrow” the resume. Mail it out to employers. Hilarity, and a paycheck, ensues. ---
**Author:** ![Obvious\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Obvious\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obvious_Guy)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/3 "2002-03-24T04:43:38Z")
I’m pretty much in the same boat you are. The whole interview process is a load of crap, people put up this false front. It doesnt reflect on how good a worker you are. And yea, they should give people more chances to prove themselves. ---
**Author:** ![TVeblen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4bbf92/32.png) [@TVeblen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVeblen)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/4 "2002-03-24T07:42:46Z")
A good resume shows a track record for both ability to learn AND willingness to apply work to needs. Flexibility of brain and will. Nothing more, nothing less. “I already know this, learned this on-the-fly and _applied_ it all…and that’s just a sample. Let me run and fly with with what YOU need.” There are damned few jobs that are skill-specific. If you’re going for one, put in the study and pay your dues. (And there are still more dues to pay.) Otherwise, never underestimate applicable track records. The only thing that matters is the raw ability to learn and APPLY what’s learned–and that’s called experience. As a very frustrated employer, here’s pure gold: I don’t know your biz but have proven I can learn. I can and WANT to apply what I’ve learned. Let me learn your biz and I’ll give you fair work for fair wages and treatment. I don’t expect to start at the top. I don’t expect to like eveyone I work with or every task I’m given. Give me a fair chance and I’ll give equal value. Teach me but don’t expect to hold me back if my work is marketable elsewhere. I’m sorry…didn’t mean to derail or deride the OP. Just approaching it from the other side of the table. (And most _good_ people are totally humble about what employers are dying for.) **Jinx** , if ever in your life you’ve worked hard, learned _anything_ and absorbed it anyway…if you **can get along with other people** , you’re so far ahead of the game. “Experience” just means the track record for putting your energies toward someone else’s end. Veb ---
**Author:** ![Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/ebca7d/32.png) [@Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Violet)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/5 "2002-03-24T21:42:57Z")
Life in general just isn’t fair. Look at the age discrimination cases in the news. Now those people often have tons of experience & presumably can do the jobs, but some businesses want younger people even if they don’t have the experience. ---
**Author:** ![Magickly\_Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magickly\_Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magickly_Delicious)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2002, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/6 "2002-03-24T21:53:41Z")
Well, I sort of have the same problem. I’m told the best way to get out of it is to try to apply your experiences to show that yeah, even though you never worked in that field before, this is how I did before and it will apply here. For example, no I never worked before in marketing, but I was secretary of fill-in-the-blank club in school and successfully got out the word about our event through radio, TV, newspaper, and word-of-mouth and we had standing-room-only attendance. It sounds like being creative is an extremely important life skill. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/7 "2002-03-25T00:35:30Z")
Most people I know avoided it by having their parents’ friends help them get their first jobs. Good for them. It took me years to break out of that problem. My first “real” job came after I had been volunteering at a place for a few months. Once I started meeting people in the field they figured out I was smart and competent the job offers started rolling in. The fact is, most jobs are given to people the employer already knows. They don’t care that much about your talents and experiences. ---
**Author:** ![Niobium\_Knight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@Niobium\_Knight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Niobium_Knight)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/8 "2002-03-25T00:43:31Z")
Interviews suck. there’s so many stupid, “trendy” questions they ask nowadays which really are complete bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![Niobium\_Knight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc8723/32.png) [@Niobium\_Knight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Niobium_Knight)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/9 "2002-03-25T00:43:31Z")
Interviews suck. there’s so many stupid, “trendy” questions they ask nowadays which really are complete bullshit. ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/10 "2002-03-25T03:34:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Niobium Knight \* > \*\*Interviews suck. there’s so many stupid, “trendy” questions they ask nowadays which really are complete bullshit. \*\* Can you provide some examples? I’m curious. I was so damn nervous at my last interview (December 2000) I can’t even remember what the questions were. Nonetheless, I still got the job. ---
**Author:** ![Broken\_Doll](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bbce88/32.png) [@Broken\_Doll](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broken_Doll)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/11 "2002-03-25T03:58:54Z")
I’m in the exact same position! I graduated from high school in November and have applied for so many jobs. Yet only been to two interviews, both of which didn’t land me a job. Not only do I not have any experience, but I’m 19. This means that people don’t want to hire me because they have to pay me proper wage, yet I have no experience, which means they have to train me, which costs even more money. It’s all starting to make me horribly depressed. ---
**Author:** ![justwannano](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ab992/32.png) [@justwannano](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justwannano)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/12 "2002-03-25T05:09:28Z")
I agree with everyone except broken doll. You are the person employers are looking for. You are young and if you are agressive enough you have the world by the tail. Convince the person doing the hiring you want to work for them.They don’t mind training someone they can use. Here in the states training employees has become a joke. In order to get a job you must be trained. No matter how much experience you have.You are started in some menial task until the task is finished and then you are layed off. Then they complain there aren’t enough qualified people. Of course if there aren’t enough qualified people we must need more teachers,and more federal money for training the “unqualified” workforce. Oh yeah more employment agencies too because there are jobs out there and they are trained to find the perfect employee for that job.(see above ) Sorry for the rant ---
**Author:** ![rjung](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/45deac/32.png) [@rjung](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjung)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/13 "2002-03-25T08:01:24Z")
Having conducted some interviews myself, I’ll confess that half the time I was just asking random questions to get a feel for the candidate’s personality (the other half were technical questions to plumb field-specific knowledge). Dunno about “trendy” questions, but I believe there are situations where you won’t get a job simply because you don’t seem to fit into a company’s “culture.” ---
**Author:** ![JubilationTCornpone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee59a6/32.png) [@JubilationTCornpone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JubilationTCornpone)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 8:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/14 "2002-03-25T08:22:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Violet \* > \*\*Life in general just isn’t fair. Look at the age discrimination cases in the news. Now those people often have tons of experience & presumably can do the jobs, but some businesses want younger people even if they don’t have the experience. \*\* Actually, I think there are few genuine cases of age discrimination. I suspect that in most cases, the applicants aren’t precluded simply because they’re _old_. Rather, I suspect that they’re usually precluded because of their salary requirements, or because their skills are less up-to-date. ---
**Author:** ![zut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zut/32/2875_2.png) [@zut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zut)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/15 "2002-03-25T13:43:48Z")
I don’t do much hiring work, other than occasional informal discussions on potential candidates, but here’s a thought: If I saw someone with a ton of “experience in a parallel endeavor” apply for a position, my first reaction would be, “this guy can’t get a position in his ‘parallel endeavor’ field, so he’s applying with us. Like as not, if we hire him, he’ll quit as soon as another position in his original field opens up.” So why should we hire him in the first place? So I think that you have to answer two questions: 1) Why are you leaving your old “parallel endeavor”, and why do you want to work for us? (subtext: convince me you won’t up and quit in two months.) 2) Why is your previous experience applicable in this position? (subtext: convince me you can do the job.) NB: I am currently doing R&D work in alternate fuels engines and advanced powertrains. I _used to_ (before getting my degree) do research on smart material actuator vibrations. Not a lot of similarity. However, my current boss believes in hiring people with a broad range of backgrounds. Additaionlly, I was able to point out, quite truthfully, why I thought “alternate fuels engines and advanced powertrains” were interesting and exciting things to work on, _and_ how I’d been building up a set of skills in my previous work that were directly applicable to this R&D work. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/16 "2002-03-25T13:49:47Z")
I’m looking for a job this summer. I’m a biochemistry major looking to work in the field of organic chemistry. Most jobs I’ve looked for require at least a BSc, if not a master’s degree. I don’t expect to land the masters jobs, but concerning a BSc, I have all but one possible Organic Chem course at the undergrad level, and the last course I’m signed up for in the fall (this course, along with another, is 100% optional). Essentially, they have taught me everything they will teach at the undergrad level, and yet people still want to see a BS© piece of paper. I tell them I want to do my masters in the field, and that I’m only a year and a half away from graduating (finishing in 3.5 rather than 4 years, even though if I pushed it, I could have finished in 3). I’m a good student, a hard worker, and i’m willing to learn or brush up on whatever it is that I don’t know 100%. But if only I had that piece of paper. I’d be hired in a day… ---
**Author:** ![justwannano](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ab992/32.png) [@justwannano](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/justwannano)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2002, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/17 "2002-03-25T16:25:24Z")
[quotezut] If I saw someone with a ton of “experience in a parallel endeavor” apply for a position, my first reaction would be, “this guy can’t get a position in his ‘parallel endeavor’ field, so he’s applying with us. Like as not, if we hire him, he’ll quit as soon as another position in his original field opens up.” So why should we hire him in the first place? [/quote] See there is the thing. He sees the resemblence. It is close enough to his old job that he knows he is qualified. There are literally dozens of reasons for not going back to your old field.The most prominent being “I’m just tired of the same old bs”. So why not start up again in something that might be more exciting,have better rewards,let you come home at night,Not be so challenging,of course you can’t tell the personnel manager that. It seems to me that not enough people see the “parallell endevor” connection. Oh for the days when you could sit down with a real personnel manager that actually knows what it takes to do the job. ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/18 "2002-03-26T04:21:44Z")
I forget which baseball manager said this, but: “If experience was so damned important, we’d never have a man on the moon.” ---
**Author:** ![super\_head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@super\_head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/super_head)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/19 "2002-03-26T13:33:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jinx \* > What is it with businessmen that they see no worth in a person’s ablilities? Do you know what a resume is telling you? A resume IS NOT JUST about experience, damn it! It shows I have brain in my head, I’m hard working, and I would apply myself equally hard to promote YOUR needs. I suppose it would really depend on the type of position. If I’m hiring someone for specialized knowledge, and their resume demonstrates that they have successfully applied such knowledge, I’m probably going to pick them over someone who just assures me that they have a brain and can work hard. If I’m hiring someone for data entry, well, pretty much anyone can do that to one degree or another (assuming they have eyes and hands). Why would I want to train someone when I can get someone who already knows their stuff and see instant returns? Just a thought. > [@](#): > > Are we really at the mercy of the business majors? Yeah, the same ones who goofed off all through college on Daddy’s money. Perhaps it’s your attitude that’s the problem? I was a business major. I went through college on a full National Merit Scholar Presidential Scholarship. I graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Management, concentration in World Business/Western Europe, and a minor in Spanish. I’d hardly say I goofed - so, maybe it’s your superiority complex that they’re detecting? > [@](#): > > The same ones who wouldn’t know the meaning of hard work. Are they really this short-sighted? What would happen if they opened their eyes, for once? Hmmm, I’m in the office at 6am. I’ll be here until probably 6pm. I’m orchestrating a complete redesign of a global sales force, from process to policy. And I don’t know the meaning of hard work? Again, check that attitude, bub. > [@](#): > > And, how do these same business majors have the audacity to show their face in church on Sunday as if to put up some front at what good Christians they are? I don’t. I’m atheist. And having read your post, I don’t think the real problem is with the businesses, but with the applicant. ---
**Author:** ![Payne\_N.Diaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b77776/32.png) [@Payne\_N.Diaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Payne_N.Diaz)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2002, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794/20 "2002-03-26T15:38:27Z")
The problem that I have faced with the whole “parallel endeavour” thing is that I can’t even get an interview in order to explain why I think I can do the job. People just look at my resume, see that I don’t have five years experience in exactly what they are looking for, and round-file it. (I have a BA in anthropology and an associate’s in accounting, with some grad school, for what it’s worth–nothing.) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-job-no-experience-catch-22/99794.md?page=2)