How do you get experience if no one will ever give you a job? You do it yourself
We've all felt it at one point or another. You're in a job interview. You've dazzled them with your knowledge of the business and its goals, you've walked them through your strengths and recognized how to humble-brag your way through any weaknesses. Then the question comes...
"Your resume seemed a little light... do you have any previous experience?"
Ugh.
Julius Caesar apparently said that "Experience is the teacher of all things," but he never came out of college looking for work.
While internships can help provide some relevant experience and a window into a professional working environment, they're not always a clean fix for the post grad potential employee. After all, some jobs right in a person's wheelhouse don't have natural internships at a university or its surrounding city or town, leaving options limited.
Not only that, but there's the dreaded "real world" problem of an internship. Some might see them as too limited or too junior. Sure, you may have spent a summer at a business, but were you really just grabbing coffee and making copies?
Regardless of what you want to pursue, consider using your own side hustle to focus on the skills of your preferred field. Aside from putting a few extra bucks in your pocket, your side hustle can provide you with something that can't be bought or sold--real life experience doing the work. You'll walk away with a robust portfolio that covers a wide range of work while also giving you a chance to learn how business works and the tools within it.
Image from The New Yorker cartoon by Peter Steiner, 1993.
Today, almost any service, whether it be graphic design, blog writing, video production, etc., can be offered online through a variety of marketplaces. These marketplaces provide a unique opportunity for the relative newbie in that anyone can create a profile and begin marketing their offerings. Honesty is obviously the best policy, but utilizing the relative anonymity of the web to showcase your talent will give you an opportunity to churn out work and gain credibility.
I myself have done over 3,500 voice overs on Fiverr.com, which has allowed me to build a portfolio covering a variety of styles, topics and formats. What makes Fiverr a bit different than a lot of freelancing sites is its ability to push customers to freelancers instead of creating a bidding format for freelancers to apply for jobs. While ramping up your side hustle will always be time-consuming and take hard work, having potential customers pushed your way gives you a much better chance of making those first few sales and gaining positive reviews.
Your side hustle will also give you a chance to experiment, both learning what resonates with customers (always worth understanding for future opportunities) and also providing you a chance to learn what you like doing. While a graphic designer may love the idea of designing cover art for books and music albums, the idea of doing design for websites or corporate logos may seem like an absolute bore. Learning the ins and outs of a variety of disciplines will provide you with much needed understanding before you invest too heavily in a career path.
The other educational advantage is that in developing your portfolio and building experience, you'll also familiarize yourself with the tools and tricks of the trade. In the world of voice-overs, this can mean everything from microphones to mixing software, and I wouldn't know half as much if I wasn't personally responsible for delivering a quality product to a customer.
Truthfully, Caesar isn't wrong. Cracking the experience code isn't about anything more than just giving yourself an opportunity. We're fortunate enough to have the technology to take advantage of opportunity, especially if you know where to look for it and how to make the most of it.