Alternatives to traditional work experience

egrizzly

Those who have experience work extremely hard at getting hired.

Since some are not so lucky and have not been hired to obtain experience I was inspired for this post. To keep things interesting share other alternatives that you have used to replace experience, especially those particular items that you have placed on your resume. Here are a couple I've discussed with interviewing managers.

- using labs from various real world scenarios I demonstrated implementation, configuration, and troubleshooting of x, y, z technology
- volunteering at non-profits (for no pay) to demonstrate teamwork, leadership, and implementation of x, y, z technologies.

I'm sure that their are more of course so feel free to share, discuss, ask questions of your own.

linuxlover

Are you asking this for yourself because I don't believe that a CCNA, MCSE can't land a job? Volunteer, intern, run your own projects - alternative to official work experience.

petedude

Also, depends on how you're "selling" what experience you have in interviews. Try to phrase the experience you DO have as being LIKE the technology they have, where possible.

As some examples. . .If you haven't worked with SCCM, have you worked with Altiris, LANDesk, Puppet? If you're not a guru on Symantec anti-virus tools, have you worked with Trend Micro or Kapersky? So, they used WordPerfect Office at your last gig-- are you able to sell someone on that suite being Office compatible?

egrizzly

Hello Petedude,

I actually have a full time job but this is strictly for alternative ways of gaining job experience. For instance, volunteering with a charity for an unpaid position that you would like to hold in the future is not a bad idea. Very key thing is that when taking on positions, do not focus on the job title but instead look at the job descriptions. As you become comfortable in one particular skill move on to the next.