Recently I was a young person. I still talk to some young people. In doing both of those things, I know that there are a lot of young people who are worried about starting a business or applying for jobs because they either don’t have experience or aren’t qualified for a particular position.
So, should you seek work you’re not qualified for?
Here’s the short answer so you can get on with your day: Yes.
What?!
There are obviously caveats to the above… don’t try open heart surgery on your cat because it’s coughing up fur balls or anything, but generally you’re not going to be ideal for whatever it is you end up doing anyway.
Qualifications are massively overpriced overrated.
Experience is something you get on the job.
If you see a job advert for a junior/trainee X with three years’ experience and think; “Huh? How can you be a trainee with X years’ experience?” then you’re in the same boat as most other people – and most people with a brain cell.
The job advert is stupid in reality, and you should ignore it. Apply anyway.
It’s their job to reject you. It’s your job to apply.
History Lesson
It’s World War II. People all over the world are dying in the most horrific and arbitrary ways. Kids that are younger than you are now are pretending to be older so that they too can get the chance to die.
This glorious approach to human resources means that there are plenty of jobs to be filled. Want to be a pilot? A field medic? Drive a tank? Shoot the bad guys? The job is yours.
As far as on the job training, it’s either “point your weapon and pull the trigger,” “do what your boss says” or if you’re looking at one of the more technical occupations, it’s a basic five day weekend seminar with many reminders not to kill yourself or your team mates on the job.
This seems pretty flippant for something horrific, but the point is that not too long ago the general attitude to qualifications and experience was “they’re great but if we don’t have anyone to do it, guess we’d better fill the role some other way.”
When it comes to your skills, experience and vocation in life, you should feel exactly the same way.
Modern Day
This is the best time in history as far as acquiring skills and qualifications goes.
When you see a job advert that says, “experience in javacsript not necessary but desired” what do you think you should do?
If your answer is to say “I don’t know any Javascript guess this job’s not for me” then you’ve got the wrong answer.
If your answer is “I’ll go on Google, type “free javascript for beginners course” and then do enough this afternoon to make it sound like I know what I’m talking about” then give yourself a cookie.
You can get many qualifications for practically no cost to the extent you could fill a CV with enough courses to make it look like you literally know everything.
As far as “knowing the material” goes: grab a notepad, write notes on the courses you find until you have enough talking points to get through a half an hour conversation.
For experience: create five projects of your own. It doesn’t matter if they’re good or not, nor what job you’re trying to do. If you’re applying for copywriting positions, just write some articles and put them in the dark recesses of your computer folders.
It doesn’t matter how good or polished they are because in an interview, nobody is going to see them. They’re going to ask you about your experience though, and you’ll be able to legitimately say, “Well it’s funny I just finished writing an article on 17th Century bareknuckle fighting” or “I just wrote a paper on the future of electronic engineering and it was about X, Y and Z.”
After You Land The Job/Start The Business
Here’s the real truth; most people hate their jobs, don’t put in all that much effort and can’t wait to get home at 5.45PM after a terrible commute home.
It doesn’t take much to excel in most jobs. Pay attention, do your homework and generally be efficient enough that you’re not the person who everyone says, “look at that clueless/lazy idiot.”
Now, assuming you’re a freelancer, the job is a little trickier because you have to self-motivate more than that. But here’s truth about that. It’s oft-repeated on this blog but not so common in the real world:
Most freelancers are useless too. They can’t self-motivate. They aren’t professional. Some deliver unfinished material. Many deliver material late or not at all. Too many have “artistic temperaments” which seems to be a code word for having a huge ego and not doing anything to support it.
You don’t need to be a genius to be a freelancer.
Now, for starting a business… you need to self-motivate because nobody is going to help you. But you don’t need to be an expert nor do you need fifty years’ experience of something-or-other before you can start.
You need a clear business plan and the will to bring that plan into reality. If you have that, you’re honestly better off than 99% of people who’ll try to start a business.
Final Thoughts
Nobody can do their job before they start. If they can, then they’re aiming downwards.
Think about qualifications and experience not as a set of commandments you have to measure up to, but more a set of guidelines for proof-of-concept.
“Can you write a computer program?”
Don’t try and create the next Microsoft Word. Google “how to write a computer program” and then create a simple executable file that tells you the time or something. It’ll take a couple of hours and it’s proof of concept. You can do that.
Now, most of your competition, whether you’re starting a business, getting a job or anything in between, can’t do half the things you think they can. Providing you’re a well put together person, you can do better than they can.
And you can always learn as you go along. Very few things are outside possibility if you put the work in.