Over qualified, Under experienced
So you’ve got your degree. In fact. You smashed your degree. Graduating with top honours and confidence in your career path, but University is over and you need to pick up some work to start paying those bills you’ve heard so much about. Before you know it, years have passed and you’re successful in a career that you actually didn't mean to find yourself in. So now you want to refocus on what you set out to do.
This is the exact situation one of our clients found themselves in, achieving a top grade at a good university and had spent loads of time supplementing this with qualifications to improve their knowledge. However, they had not actually taken a step into the field they had been studying for. Their standard of living was now beyond what an entry level position would pay, and they were far too qualified for entry level, yet the lack of experience was holding them back.
How did we seek to resolve this issue? It all starts with the CV. Before we could put pen to paper though, we needed to get a good grasp on what roles our client was looking for, and if possible advise on changing up their search criteria to find a role that would suit their qualifications but also take into account the lack of experience.
Once we had come to an agreement on what the CV needed to achieve we were able to set about re-writing the document to appeal to these new criteria. The first step was to really emphasise the client’s educational achievements, we put these front and centre of the CV and spoke at length and in detail in the personal statement about what specific qualifications had been secured, and what skills the client could prove they possessed. We then picked up on any relevant experience from other, unrelated, work experience to show that this client also had significant transferable skills that could be applied. This also helped to make the CV unique and interesting to read, and combine this with the focus on education we ensured that this application could not be ignored and the candidate was definitely worth an interview at least.
After only two revisions of the initial CV draft done by Kenny Refresh we were then able to add a Cover Letter to the CV, once again focusing on the strengths and mitigating the weaker area of experience. Happily our client was able to go from repeated disappointments in the job market, to a successful interview only a few weeks after utilising the CV and Cover Letter we had written with them!
A lack of experience should never be seen as a barrier to the career path you have, especially if you have the qualifications to back your skills up with!
