How do I get a job without experience?

Photo by Adetola Afolabi on Unsplash

For better or worse, recruiters index on years of experience more than anything else when they read your resume

Do you have several exciting side projects?
Do you contribute to open-source?
Do you volunteer as a mentor?

While these are objectively good activities, none of it matters as much as that timeline on your LinkedIn profile

So how do you get experience if no one will give you experience?

Easy — Give yourself experience! For < $100 dollars you can hire yourself

1. Choose a business name & register with your state (< $20)
2. Buy a cheap domain (<$20/year)
3. Create a simple website for your business (< $20/month)
4. Update LinkedIn and set this company as your current employer

Why waste time working on side-projects that don’t count in a recruiters mind, when you can build those same projects under the name of a legitimate company and get work experience that you can put on a resume?

Does this really work?

Absolutely! This is how I got started and this is how many others do too

Remember, this is a legitimate business that you’re starting, so you have to treat it like one for it to be successful. You have to:

Make it sound professional

Give your company a name that sounds legitimate and doesn’t include any personal identifiers. For example:

Erik Consulting is bad but
Foobar Consulting is good

And keep the company in the consulting space to open yourself up to contract and freelance opportunities while you wait for a job offer

Make it look professional

This page can double as your portfolio site! Spend some time giving the site a nice theme, but you really only need 3 pages

A Home Page that introduces what services you offer,
A Portfolio Page that showcases your work, and
A Contact Us page for inquiries