The experience/inexperience cycle: who's stuck in it?

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Let's talk about awfulness of the current experience/inexperience cycle with employers.

I've been job hunting for a career job or career internship since 2012 (last career internship was 2011).

I found out I am too inexperienced to get:

1) Unpaid internships in IT and digital marketing (my double bachelors and my masters)
2) Paid internships in IT and digital marketing
3) Many graduate programs through major fortune 500 companies (you need a few years of industry experience).
4)Entry Level IT and digital marketing jobs (these require at least 3 years industry experience, the degrees (sometimes master and Ph.D level), and/or certifications
5) Other levels of IT and digital marketing jobs
6) Volunteer work, including local libraries, Red Cross, etc...

Reasons for not being hired:
1) I don't have the 2-4 years of unbroken Industry experience to get any internships (despite having 3 internships done already)!
2) I don't have the 3-5 years industry experience to get an entry level job!
3) I don't have the desired degree level (masters isn't enough for some)...
4)I was told I need to go through an internship program (but very few internship programs have been hiring since 2010)
5)I'm have the unfortunate luck of not having any industry work experience since 2011 (because no one would hire me).
6)I lack the knowledge of the employers software (well each business uses a different piece of software, and you cannot get a hold of it in school or on the market generally or cheaply)!
7)I lack certain certifications, which are horrible expensive to obtain and many require X amount of industry work hours.
My class schedules at the time were during business hours, thus I didn't get hired (well that was the only time when they were taught).

I am on the other hand too experienced to get:

1)Retail jobs of any sort
2)Food services
3)Other lower end jobs

Reasons:
1) Too smart
2) Too much potential
3) Overqualified
4) Other odd reasons here

Essentially I currently unable to get any jobs without having a direct connection with the employer (which I don't know anyone personally who is hiring).

I also hated it when the person interviewing me, asks why I haven't had industry employment since 2011 and/or why I was unable to get an internship and/or retail for that matter.
Then give me an unpleasant response and look when I tell them, how little jobs were available and the requirement to get them.

I know I shouldn't complain too much, since a good portion of my fellow NT classmates graduating this summer from Masters were in the same boat as me.

For fun, I was looking and applying for a some jobs on Linkedin and I stumbled upon the listing for the Detroit Tigers.
They are (not sure if they filled the position) hiring an intern to work January 2015 - Summer 2015.
Requirement: Bachelors degree in Marketing and/or IT (or related degrees).

Anyone else just overly frustrated over the current job prospects?

Yep!

I was job searching for years. Unfortunately, I had to stay local, I got some good tips, but, they were all for different states.

Then there's the ones that want you to have a weird mix of experience (database expertise, a nursing or other medical background, bachelor's degree (in either field?)) that likely doesn't exist in the real world.
Or the ones that require a bachelors or masters degree, multiple years experience and describe a fairly complex job... and then pay as if you're a supervisor in a fast food restaurant. Um, no... got a family to support and student loans to pay off.
Or the ones that describe the job like it's complex, then, turns out it's data entry or other clerical to support people who do the said complex work.

I've also come across jobs that were a good fit for my skillset, but, was told that I was overqualified and they wouldn't hire me because they were sure I'd quit sooner than someone they had to train.

Finally got hired at a good company with very little applicable experience, due to a personal referral from an old friend (he'd interviewed me a couple times in the past at his companies, but, they (as consultants) couldn't offer the job security I needed, they could only guarantee me like 6 months of work at a time and I need constant employment... I canNOT deal with uncertainty that big.).

Given the response you're getting, maybe you should lie and tell them you've been doing freelancing or training in that time?
(I actually did fill out my resume with freelancing stuff, otherwise it would've looked pretty sparse. lol)

I have my many IT projects that I did with mostly private companies as part of my classes.

I knew the previous dean of my school and he had to end his internship program, because companies weren't hiring college students for internships.

My last interview was for a position with a company in Detroit, that their recruiter sent to me (I had applied for another position).
The head IT guy had the final decision and he wanted an recent college grad with a few years in enterprise software.
The problem is you cannot get access to enterprise software in school due to expensive nature (it literally costs thousands of dollars if not more depending on the software) and you don't get it on internships either due to how protected the software is in a business.

I also told the recruiter during the phone interview that it was near impossible to get the experience wanted, because of the reasons above.
She was very understanding and loved how honest I when answering the questions.
She really liked me and said I was one of the best interviews she has ever had on the phone.

In October I interviewed with General Motors IT, the Ph.D guy liked me and was understanding and went through something similar.
The other guy I couldn't tell.
They told me GM expects all new hires at entry level to hit the ground running with minimal training.
I also been told from others, it takes months for GM to get back to you on a job.

All these entry level jobs and internships I've been interviewing for, have expected their new hires to know all the stuff without the need of training.

I know like ~45% of all college grads over the past few years are unemployed due to the nature of the job market, according to the government report.

It's just nerve wrecking...

If I were you I would do the following:

Firstly I'd help a non-profit in a digital marketing / website related capacity
- There are numerous non-profits with need with functions that are related in skill in digital marketing - developing their website, helping with direct mailing, crowdfunding, designing.
- For the website development example, once you develop the website, you can optimize the website for SEO, analyze and report on the conversion metrics to the non-profit management, run A/B tests etc; and put all of this on your resume

Next, I would fix up the gap in my resume
- If you did anything you can spin in your past few years as self-employment or volunteering, do that - it is much better being a failed entrepreneur than having not done anything, in the eyes of the employer
- Otherwise you will need to set up the best reply for the question "why I haven't had industry employment since 2011" that you possibly can. Sometimes a company will not hire you because of the gap in experience. But if a company is willing to hire you despite the gap, you will not get passed the interview process unless you provide a satisfactory reply to this question (unfortunately the answer you gave wouldn't usually be considered satisfactory). To give you some perspective - in some types of companies, the question "Why do you want to work in this company/industry" is so important that interviewees will revise their answer to that question multiple times (usually with feedback from mentors), and will practice it again and again to get it pitch perfect. For you, you need your answer for the employment gap to be pitch perfect. You might possibly think that your answer is already the most truthful one, and I'm not telling you to lie, but in many times framing the answer from a different angle or working on your delivery is essential. I would try to get one of your friends who work in a professional capacity to help you practice. I think if you perfect this part, you will no longer get that unpleasant response, and, while you will never love it, you will hopefully no longer hate responding to this question. (The corollary to this is that your resume should also be as optimized and as perfect as it can be, provide this to your professional friends and as them for as much criticism and feedback as they are willing to provide)

Finally, once the top two is set, you should try your hardest to get an unpaid internship and try to ace this one.

After you have that internship, you should have 1. volunteer experience with a non-profit doing digital or IT work 2. an internship at a for-profit company doing digital or IT work 3. and a great explanation for why you have a gap in your resume. 2 and 3 are essential to get a full-time job in your situation (but 1 should also significantly increase your chances as a shows a positive character and something interesting to talk about during interviews); and at this stage, you should be somewhat competitive enough to land a fulltime job.

@Aspinnaker

My first internship was at a local non profit doing some of those things.
My second internship was a at a new local company
My third internship was for my school

I did many IT and digital marketing stuff in these internships.

Since summer of 2011 I've done the following:

Three IT projects for my classes directly for parts of school (they couldn't get any of their regular business partners to give them projects).
Two digital marketing projects.

Then during Masters:
The first term I had one project building an e-commerce solution
The summer term I help build a simulation model and a database
The fall term I did web based analytics project and a web coding course.
Last Winter I built my website.
Then I worked with a former student of my professor help him with his new video hosting site he was trying to launch.
I also had to do a database project using Neo4j, which I had to learn how to code from scratch.

I always talk in details about these projects and what I did on them.
I always talk about I learned In my classes.
I talk about how I was a founding board member of my school's Tedx organization (it was a good amount of work), last year.

I always honestly answer the questions.


I've also been told I am not "perfect" enough and just off enough not to be hired.
I also was told by many that I am too rigid, while other have told me I'm not rigid enough during interviews.

I'm also been told both that I am too experienced and not experienced enough to hold volunteer positions.
When I'm told it's due to being over qualified, it's because the chances of me sticking around is slim.
When I'm told it's a lack of experience, it's because volunteering at a non profit is different that working at a private business.

I keep getting conflicting responses.


Believe me I've applied to volunteer positions as well.

I was given the opportunities to move across the country for a few internships, but I couldn't afford to move that far away and pay for room and board on $9 hour.

I was offered a $12/hour job many states away, though I had to pay for the relocation with no guarantee of continued employment.

Yes I have done everything that I could do that was suggested to me.

Almost a third of my graduating masters class was unemployed and had been unemployed for over a two years.
Another third was underemployed, in non career/degree related jobs.

So I'm not the only one caught in this horrible cycle.

Yeah, I encountered that expectation, too. It's just not realistic.

I think my first professional job, it took me two years before I was really operating at peak, with a good handle on all aspects of my job. Even my current job, it was nearly a year before I felt competent operating independently.

In the case with GM, they send you to an 8 week paid course to teach you GM culture and history!

8 weeks? No matter they take awhile to decide on a hire. The most I've ever gotten was two days of orientation.

It sucks to be inexperienced. You're stuck in a Catch-22. In order to gain experience, you have to get your foot in the door. But the only way, most of the time, to get your foot in the door is to have experience.

I experienced that when I first started working.

Yeah that's what they told me at the interview.

This was more of a case of the job market collapsing in on its self.

For the past few years the country has been essentially in a hiring freeze.
I've known plenty of people who were laid off that had lots of trouble finding new jobs.

There does seem to be an infuriating anti-sweet-spot of too little experience for some jobs and too much for the rest. I fell into that temporarily due to having a Master's from an extremely prestigious university (so unskilled places put my application in the bin), but places who like that enough to look carefully would see that the dates mean it was clearly a failed PhD (so places wanting good graduates also put it in the bin, even when they would normally like a Master's). Fortunately I did manage to find somewhere eventually. Friends who have done arts PhDs report similar problems - arts subjects are really not in demand, but PhD makes you overqualified for non-academic work.

I was stuck in the lack of experience rut for a while but I was able to add three years of working experience on to my resume by temping. Temping can give you a variety of work experience and help you get your foot in the door at some companies. Not to say temping doesn't have it's issues. You have to work for less pay, job assignments aren't always guaranteed, and you do not receive any benefits. But if you can get past the temping period and be hired on through the company, it can pay off. The reason getting work experience through a temp agency is the easiest way to do it is because usually temp jobs are much easier to get then regular permanent jobs and the job requirements for them aren't ridiculous. More and more companies are turning to temp agencies for employees that way they can screen candidates out better and be able to use them for a few months before they decide if they are the right employee for them. Trust me, you are better off not looking for work in the retail/food service industry. You would be better off getting work experience in something administrative which is a field many temp agencies specialize in and many of them work with college grads.

Funny enough many jobs now require a masters degree, especially in the IT field.
I only went into the masters program due to the job market being practically non existent.

@Homer_Bob.

Today's job market is still reeling from the great recession.
Most entry level work was wiped out along with internships and jobs held by people 50+.
Most jobs now want "industry Experience" instead of general work experience, which makes it all harder.
Temp work is also hard to find as well these days.

I could go through a state program, but I fear I'd be marked limited my career options.

That doesn't surprise me, but my point was that if you look at my CV, there's 3 or 4 years between my undergrad and MSc with nothing else accounting for that time, so clearly I failed a PhD. That makes me far less appealing than someone who set out to do an MSc and succeeded in the normal timeframe. Employers can afford to be very fussy about that.

Ah, well I don't have that problem specifically.
For the past few years, if you tried to get an internship, you were expected to have a few years of industry experience under your belt.
That's what killed me.
It still is that way currently until the market fully recovers.

Like I posted in this thread, the Detroit Tigers require a bachelor's degree for their interns.

So in my case and at least 45% (according to the government) of college grads are unemployed or have been unemployed for over a year if not more.
This has to do with a combination of the job market and the insane demands by employers.