I don't understand how you're expected to have experience without any employer giving you a chance!
And there's the Catch 22 of the whole thing.
Once upon a time people actually bothered to teach you how to do things that didn't require a hell of a lot of experience to do. For example, can you swing a hammer? And are you fairly competent? Once upon a time you could have gotten a job in construction based on that. For example.
So really what we rely on now is finding a manager who isn't so damned picky. Some managers out there are actually just looking for someone fairly competent - competent enough to learn how to do the job. That's how I got my first, and to date - only, job. The manager who hired me was pretty lax about the whole thing and summed it up as saying she hired me because women generally tend to clean up better... which is the story of how I got stuck working night shift with two guys in their 30's, one with a prison record, and the other who practically bragged about smoking pot and drinking a lot (he showed up to work drunk once, but it was his day off and got called in anyway so it was harder to blame him).
But they were the ones I preferred working with actually. They got fired later and I worked with other people on night shift after that but instead of seeing the same guys almost all the time I was working with 3 different groups depending on the night.
But I got sidetracked, anyway, point is my manager didn't care as much about experience so she gave me a chance. So, it does happen but it's just that people don't want to bother training anyone to actually do the **** job these days.
Stupid? Yes, very. But that's how it is.
I mean there are always exceptions, it's just a matter of finding those exceptions.
Some jobs are so **** pathetically easy a trained monkey could do it, so those kinds of places are going to be a little more likely to show you the ropes because it's easy - but you still have to know the exact process. They can afford to show you what to do because it doesn't require a lot of brain power to do it.
So, yeah, you're right. You have to have experience to get experience. Or rather "how can you get any experience if no one ever hires you so you can get the experience you need" or "you need a job to get experience but you need experience to get the job".
It's a Catch 22, so since that's the norm these days you need to rely on someone who doesn't conform to that notion - someone willing to give someone inexperienced a chance. But it's still a matter of finding them. And, oh, if you try and try and try to find a job people act likes it's your fault because you're not trying hard enough even though it's really just that no one wants to hire you! Of course in my case I'm medically unable to do certain things, like you don't want me working in a fast food place - Subway is one thing but most other places? Yeah, it wouldn't end well.
I'm a liability because I could fall down and hurt myself, and maybe fall asleep on the job, so really that makes me finding any job a royal pain in the ****. I wasn't this bad off while working at Subway but since then my medical conditions have gotten worse, been having more headaches, falling down more, falling asleep at random more, things like that.
So there are certain things I simply can't do, mostly because I can't stand for very long, and most places are really not that willing to let me sit and do a job that most people could do just as easily sitting as they could standing. Like standing somehow equals you're working harder or something? I don't know. Which is why I hate it when people suggest I go to work in food, because I'm really a safety hazard and you have to stand a lot.
If I'm gonna fall, and I will it's inevitable, then I'd rather it be carpeted at least or I'd rather be sitting so I don't fall to the ground.
But I can't seem to find clerical jobs, so at this point I got nothing. Hence, unemployed. Oh well, at least I can sell my jewelery sometimes so that's
something.
I have no advice to offer other than what my dad has always told me... "Interviews are just a matter of who can lie the best". So make something reasonable up, find someone to back you up on it (someone who they can call), and make sure there's no one who can contradict whatever you're saying. I mean I've lied about working for people before, working for people who my mother works with. Cash pay sorta stuff. Less than minimum wage, but it was work.
Because I'm me it hasn't helped much, but at least it makes it seem like I've had some other job than Subway. Point is, lying usually helps provided it's believable. Like say you wanna be a mechanic and you know what you're doing but have no job experience for it, you claim to have worked for a neighbor who was a mechanic (and got paid for it) and he paid you to help him out when he got a few too many cars for him to handle alone. When in truth maybe you just learned because your dad taught you, and you can add that also.
But you'd need someone to pretend to be that neighbor so if they called then they could confirm what you said.
For example, of course, depends on the job really. Best of luck to you though. Sorry if I rambled too much, got a bit sidetracked there. >.>
EDIT: Although I don't have a job so I'm likely not the best person to take advice from.
