Original post by threeportdriftThat's because people are equating 'experience' with 'experience of working in a professional job with the same job title' which patently isn't the case. Employers know that for entry level jobs, applicants will not have direct, professional experience. What they are looking for is people who can make the best case for transferable, relevant experience. So applicants need to learn to read job adverts very carefully, look at the language used, and then work out how they can use that language in their applications, and demonstrate the necessary skills, even if taken from very different circumstances. It's about evidence of transferable skills and experience. if it wasn't, then nobody would ever get that first job!
Not true, but nevertheless, there is rarely any need to look unemployed for any great period of time. When you see unemployment on the horizon, sign up for an evening class - one that can take a realistic amount of additional study, and find a voluntary role that is more than one morning a week. Throw yourself into both, make sure you are gaining workplace skills, and put that in your CV.
Why are you disagreeing, you clearly know zip about employment - or are you just in a fixed, contrary mindset? You almost certainly aren't in a position to get a 20k job in a top 100 company anyway, so get realistic. If the top 100 companies recruit 50 new graduates a year, then there are only 5,000 places a year - probably a vast over-estimate. There will be that many people that have achieved work experience, internships etc and have much more relevant experience (even if transferred from different areas) than many. So make sure your aim is realistic.
However, volunteer in a sector or a role where you can get relevant experience - look at your own personal profile and make the experience fit. If you've sailed through life in a nice comfortable home-counties, private school, Russell Group 2.1 lifestyle with a degree in engineering, then working as a bin man for 4 months before applying for a role in a construction company, waste management, anything where the ground level work is hard and physical can be spun into a great boost to a CV.
What you are not going to get is employers queueing up to give £20k jobs to grey, middle of the road, generic applications that don't seem to have made any effort to understand what the specific job is and compete to get it.