college job hunt - "you need experience"

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

that's what i keep hearing from every paper.

how the hell am I supposed to get experience if no one will give me a chance?!?

i guess my masters isn't worth the paper it's printed on

[mark414]

1. you need experience =

you should work for us for free as an intern

[ashmanonar]

2. i hate that rationale.

i never understood that. even trying to get a job during high school: " you need more experience". but if i haven't had a job befvore, how the fuck am i supposed to get experience?!

[trotsky]

3. Was in the same boat 11 years ago.

I broke out of the cycle by joining a temp agency. My first placement was my last - they liked me so much they hired me.

I don't know what field you're in, and whether temping is possible, but think along those lines. Just look for an opportunity to display your skills.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

5. journalism

jnot to brag, but i know i've got the skills, have a masters, and a background in self-publishing

but it's not enough yet

[trotsky]

7. That's the thing.

I knew my skills were there, you know yours are too. But having also been in the employer's position, if I had two resumes in front of me and one had even a year of experience while the other did not, all other things being equal, I'd take the experienced one.

It's not fair, but it's what you gotta do from the employer's POV. Can you freelance? Apply at a really small newspaper?

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

8. it is a small newspaper

and i was hoping a masters made up for the lack of working straight out of undergrad

i've seen this paper's writers. i can write circles around them

[Writer]

15. What school?

[greekspeak]

12. I do not trust temp agencies

When my step brother was young, he had to get a job. He went to a temp agency, and basically did jobs for places like the city dump and a wood product manufacturer that OSHA need to investigate. Another friend of mine did jobs at manufacturing plants. The temp agencies pay a fraction of what workers that would hold those jobs permanantly would make.

[punpirate]

4. Internship...

... paid, or unpaid, may be the only to generate experience.

Cheers.

[amazona]

6. unpaid internships being required as experience....hmmm...

Seems like a way to disqualify people who "are not of our class."

Most real people gotta eat and can't be Lady Bountiful donating their time for nothing because their rich daddy can keep them.

It's getting ugly out there, isn't it?

[punpirate]

9. Yup, it is...

... don't know where your degrees are from, but I'll bet your classmates who could afford it are in internships now.

Your only other options, I think, are to, first, look for a really crummy paper out in the sticks that pays badly and makes you write the obituaries and pick up the police logs for $6-7/hr, or, second, try for a government service job as a public relations officer, something along those lines, which would pay better, but you'd have to put up with a fair amount of bureaucratic BS (although not much more than at a really small, shitty paper--I've talked to some our local reporters and they're either desperate for work or are just out of school looking to do the same thing you are--get a little experience and move on).

Good luck with it.

Cheers.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

11. just applied for the pr officer thing earlier today

unfortunately, wv is notoriously slow processing these things

[punpirate]

14. Another possibility is to...

... talk to the local paper about working as a stringer for a per story price. Alternately, send your resume to AP and say you're available as a local stringer, and see about their rates. You end up footing the costs of your meals and gas, but that might get you some exposure and some experience.

If the local paper says, "sure," start with the things no one else on the paper wants to do. Go to city council meetings and get the feel of who the movers and shakers are and then bore down on them for stories.

Cheers.

[Nikia]

10. I missed out on several unpaid summer internships

Because I had to work for money to come up with my part of tuition during the summer. Our college didn't start offering internships for credit in my department until my senior yeat, which I found out about too late. I eventually got my experience by getting a seasonal position starting at under $8.00/hour for the first 30 days.
Now with four and a half years of experience, I seem to be either overqualified or underqualified. They have a lot of older people staying in the career longer and people applying with lots of experience, who were laid off, for the upper positions. For the parallel positions that I apply for, they want to pay low wages, less than I am getting now.

[kiraboo]

13. Try being a soon-to-be 42-year-old mother of three with a

psychology degree and an ancient history in Purchasing. I get to hear again and again how "the office environment has changed dramatically," like I'm not going to be able to understand how to use a copy machine or something. Meanwhile, I'm temping full-time as an accounting clerk and have been asked to stay on (as a temp) indefinitely because I "fit in really well". As long as I don't ask for benefits and a decent salary, that is. I hear you, though, and wish you the best of luck. Something will come up.

[Mrs. Venation]

16. Are You Within Commuting Distance of Washington, DC?

Your graduate degree would probably help in Washington. You might look for positions in the Executive Branch agencies' Public Affairs offices.