Yes, this is the ancient paradox. Established businesses have a demand for ‘experienced’ and skilled workers; young people and people interested in moving to a specific career path seek out ways to obtain the specialist knowledge to begin working in the field, and what do you know, nobody is willing to employ you because you have not proven your skills!

It is a conundrum, an obstacle, a problem. So how do we overcome this matter?

Obviously, it depends on the specifics, what precisely is the field? This is going to give you the clue to move forward. It is futile to attempt to move into certain job positions unless we have addressed the criteria for entry; if you want to be a medical doctor, for example, you can send out a million applications, beautifully written, but you will be rejected unless you have successfully completed a recognized medical degree as a beginning point.

Now this is an obvious example, but it demonstrates something, many jobs require highly specific qualifications and prerequisite education/training as a beginning condition of entry, and you need to prove you have completed it!

OK - we don’t know from your question what area, or job title you are attempting to apply for, we have to assume that you possess the most basic qualifications that would give your applications some ‘authority’ - if you don’t, then you have this task to fulfill.

I’ll give you an example from my own experience of entering a professional field that I had not gained any experience in, prior to engaging with the field - this was ‘IT’ and it was back in 1995.

I was interested in working in the field of ‘IT’, I had a good general educational background with science - but nothing amazing, I had in fact gained a degree in ‘Arts’ which demonstrates an ability to stick with a course and to fulfill the requirements for being awarded a ‘degree’-which is often what employers are interested in, even if the degree may not be directly relevant to the field of work; it means you have a basic level of aptitude for learning.

You can apply the skills of research, focus, comprehension, flexibility of mind, logical reasoning, working with deadlines. There are a whole raft of different personal skills you can translate into different contexts which you acquire by completing education courses-and this is how you must think to sell yourself. There are many people out there who have a prejudice about education, and you must spell it out to them how you can offer these traits and skills . A lack of imagination is very common in the world of both corporate, and work in general.

So, you have to look for opportunity-chances to leverage situations, it is a jungle out there and you have to focus on survival, and getting ahead. Nobody is going to go out of their way to make it easy for you and ‘take a chance’ on you unless you make it attractive for them - unless you minimize the risk, and offer them a damned good reason to hire you, or offer you a training position.

This is what I did in my own situation. I searched for a decent training college, all of these private training businesses have contacts and ‘tentacles’ into the community.

I signed up for a course teaching computer hardware, software and networking - and studied my rear-end off. I rapidly learned about ‘IT’ because I was keen and interested and I kept my eyes peeled for any opportunities to gain work experience.

And one came up-with a local government agency; they always have a demand for ‘HelpDesk’ staff, it has a rapid turn over because it is stressful work, it was back then, and it still is!

Working on a Help Desk or ‘Service Desk’is the best learning opportunity out there, you get to mix with all of the staff in an organisation and you become very popular if you play it right, because you are helping them to make their working life much easier!

I worked for 1 month, no pay - I made a good impression and put a lot of effort into it. A position came up during this month and I got a 6 month contract, full time.

This was how I entered the field, a pretty humble beginning, but it was a start and I was able to develop and grow, I accepted every opportunity to attend courses and add to my skills; I became a highly skilled IT support specialist and worked in the UK & Australia, traveling widely and troubleshooting networks, managing roll outs of new equipment and large projects.

This is what you have to do - look for and take advantage of opportunities to get a foot hold in the area you wish to work in. They are out there, but they don’t fall in your lap, you have to be like a survival expert, act with cunning, stealth and focus and work on your own behalf. Sacrifice going out, postpone pleasures, make the effort to become something different.

If you are genuinely keen you will be prepared to do what it takes, and working for ‘free’ for a short time is an excellent strategy, right away the employer will be impressed with your initiative and enthusiasm, and this is really not as bad as it sounds. We can survive on ‘rations’ and make sure we have rent covered, I guarantee that at some point during your ‘internship’ people will go out of their way to make sure you can stay. Make yourself almost indispensable (nobody is really indispensable), and demonstrate that you really want to work in that position. It works.