One of the main concerns for a lot of graduates looking to kickstart their career is that they don’t have any paid work experience, and as a result have nothing to put on their profile!
So if you have been sitting there scratching your head and wondering what to put in your ‘experience section’ then not to worry, you are not on your own and we are here to help!
You may be surprised to learn that you have a lot more ‘experience’ than your first thought, and it doesn’t have to be through a part-time job. There will be numerous times within the past few years where you have picked up valuable skills in a number of areas and employers will be keen to hear all about them!
Your profile is all about selling yourself and highlighting your key skills, so it is important to utilise all your areas of experience. Be sure to pick them apart and think about the responsibilities you held, skills you learnt and value you added.
You might have thought your dissertation was purely useful to secure your degree. However, there is ample opportunity to shout about all the skills you put to use during those hard earned hours spent pouring over your dissertation.
For example, maybe you did a research project, and had to find participants. Skills involved in doing this can transition really well into sales and marketing roles. Flagging people down in your student union to ask people to fill in your survey or be participants in your study (sales), or maybe you used the power of social media to attract participants and gain some feedback (marketing)!
Remember back in year 11 when your teacher told you that you had 2 weeks off school to find yourself a work experience placement? You may have completely forgotten the 2 weeks you spent photocopying in the back of your mum's office, shadowing someone at a hospital, or helping children to read at a nursery - but whatever you did, I am sure you learnt some valuable skills that can transition into a new role. Outline your key responsibilities throughout your placement
You might think travel is the last thing that employers would want to see on your profile, but there are many ways you can showcase the impressive skill set needed to pull off your 2 months backpacking across Asia!
E.g. Researching and planning, budgeting, organisation, pushing outside of your comfort zone, meeting new people ( communication skills), resilience,
Companies LOVE to see extra-curricular activities on profiles, so much so that we have a dedicated extracurricular section for your profiles! It is a great way to showcase your work ethic, interests, hobbies, commitments, personal achievements etc and really helps companies get to know you some more!
If you feel like your work experience section could do with an extra boost, we would encourage you to take your most ‘work-like extra-curricular’ and putting that in your experience section! E.g. The more ‘formal’, positions of responsibilities or any that made the most money! You can read more about extracurricular activities here!