There’s a meme that’s been doing the rounds on social media platforms for quite a bit now, featuring a cute little picture of what looks like some six or seven-year-olds, all dressed in little work overalls and hard hats, seemingly ready for work. The punch-line reads “When the job vacancy requires 20 years of work experience!” This brings to light the funny but sad reality facing many college graduates in that you’re required to already have years of work experience to stand a chance of getting hired, yet you’re fresh out of school, so where on earth are you supposed to get work experience?
Most graduates end up going through apprenticeship programmes and the likes, which may or may not go on to land them that job, but either way, every opportunity to gain experience should be utilised, starting from the period during which you’re still studying actually. It’s possible and simply requires some logical and critical thinking. One way of doing that could be by enrolling in an educational program at an online college where you have the option of earning work experience credits. These colleges acknowledge the value of practical work like volunteer work, military service, etc, that a student gains outside the traditional classroom. So look for online colleges with work experience criteria where you can enrol in a program and get ready for your professional life by gaining experience certification. Ensure that you take advantage of every tool you have at your disposal to create opportunities for yourself and other students, which can easily be credited as work experience.
The best way through which to do this is to get together with other students, even if they’re not from the same faculty as yours, and work on a project which leans towards a business venture. You’d have no problems getting support from the powers that be at your institution of study as this type of initiative is greatly, greatly appreciated. Ideally, you want to create a fully functional business or even a company comprised of students whose contributions to the business fall in line with what they’re completing their studies for.
If you have no interest in starting a business venture after completing your education, you can also look for part-time online jobs. It can help you gain the necessary experience while also saving you the time of commute that you might spend in an onsite job. You can set up a small office in the corner of your room, and invest in necessities accordingly, like an office chair, table, computer system, perhaps a quality internet service, etc. Moreover, you can source furniture items from a company like office monster to get discounts and affordable rates.
As for the business, it could be anything really, as long as it achieves the ultimate goal of any business, which is to enter the market in a functional manner and depict characteristics of one which can really go on to bring in profits. Whatever the main focus of the business venture / composite final year project, any modern day venture of this kind would naturally have the elements of all fields of study. If for example it’s a custom workplace software solution you’re all getting together to create, the financial students can take care of all the financial aspects of the project like commissioning the integration of invoicing software. The marketing students can work on the marketing and advertising portion of the project; the engineering students can work on the design and implementation of the core solution, etc.
The financial sector is one which can be easily targeted for a venture of this nature because unlike other fields like civil engineering perhaps, solutions don’t have to take up too many physical resources. In fact, you could integrate Merchant Account Solutions with other custom-made nodes or complementary solutions in order to create a complete, deployable solution that will have a market.
Put all of that on your CV and it’ll go a long way in making up for any work experience you’ll require once you enter the work space.
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