The Age Old Question

Comes down to experience, when it should come down to credibility. With so many out of work right now and in a few months a whole new crop of talented college seniors ready to take on the world and enter the workforce. The question becomes, how do I get a job that says I need 5 years experience when I only have 2 years experience. Or better yet, you just graduated, maybe you have a great internship or two that puts a solid name on your resume but you don’t have any real experience. Where do you start? Doesn’t everyone say at some point “Well if no one is going to hire me, then how can I get the experience I need?”

How about starting a blog? What if you wanted to get into advertising and you started blogging about trends you see occurring in the advertising space. Then you went out and started reading all the industry blogs you could find and keeping up to date with what industry insiders are talking about. But, on top of just reading the posts, you left a few comments with your thoughts and maybe, just maybe, you linked back to your blog for more analysis. You know, you started participating in the conversation that is going on everyday online about very topic that interests you as a career path.

Soon, over time, you are going to build up readers, contacts, insights, and best of all, experience in the very field you want to work in without ever having a job. How many hiring managers would love to hire someone who has a year or two of insightful posts about the job and position before they even start? I am guessing more than a few.

What if you decided to do a couple case studies on a few brands or ad campaigns that you liked or disliked? Say you pretended you were in charge and figured out what you would change about a campaign, what impact that change would have on the bottom line. Would it mean increased sales? Lower customer acquisition cost? A boost to the company's website traffic?

So you want to get started in finance? Instead of following the market passively and CNBC watching all day, blog about it. Start a portfolio online. Track it. Make it public. Write about your trading strategy. Enter in the CNBC Portfolio contest and blog about the trades you make and why you made them. Apple just released their earnings report? Great news! Provide your take and insight into the past quarter by reviewing their earnings statement and provide your analysis as to what you believe is going to happen to the stock moving forward.

What happens is once you start participating in the conversation you start to make  a name for yourself as someone who “gets it” and an “Up and comer.” No matter what industry you want to work in or you currently work in, by blogging and participating in the conversation you are going to gain valuable experience, contacts, insights into your profession, and you will learn how to market a product (your blog and yourself) Now, when you apply for that high profile marketing job, or finance job, you can direct people to your blog along with your resume to truly stand out and gain a leg up.

When done properly you begin to gain credibility. Which I think in a lot of cases counts for far more than experience.

Be proactive. Become active in your career ahead of time and take charge. Who knows maybe you won’t even need to apply. Maybe an industry insider decides to offer you a position after reading thru your insightful posts. Don’t believe me? Union Square Ventures has hired employees in the past who have done exactly what I described.

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