3 ways to sell yourself - even if you don’t have relevant work experience.

It’s the worst-case scenario…

You’re sitting in a conference room across a dude in a navy-blue Tom Ford-like blazer who’s sporting a name tag with “senior manager” on it.

He’s taking meticulous notes with his fancy pen and slowly you start to get the feeling that this interview is turning into more of an interrogation than anything.  

He then goes on to ask you a question you were dreading not to hear.

“Do you have experience with, (insert the most technically difficult subject that sounds like Martians made it up or something)?”

And you sit there with your throat feeling tight.

You try to keep a straight face because you don’t want him to catch on to the fact that you have no idea what the heck he even said.

Seconds pass and you can’t take it anymore; the awkward pause became way too excruciating.

“No”, you blurt.

Next thing you know, the interview ended 10 minutes earlier than expected and you’re walking out the front door feeling defeated.

This, my friend, is the frustrating part of the job hunt.

Not knowing how to sell yourself when you need to do it the most.

So, to make sure a situation like this doesn’t happen to you, I’ve created this article that’ll show you 3 ways to sell yourself even if you don’t have relevant work experience.

Saying “no” is the worst thing you can ever do

Here’s the thing, the worst answer you can give during an interview when they ask you if you have certain experience is a “no”.

It’s like walking up to a McDonald’s cashier, asking them for a junior chicken, they reply with “yes for sure, also, do you want free fries with that?” and you give them a hard nope.

Ok, maybe that wasn’t the best example, but when you say no you’re missing the opportunity to sell other parts of yourself that might make the hiring manager actually consider you for the role.

Let me give you a personal example.

Very recently, during an interview, the CEO asked me if I had experience with a bunch of email marketing software, of which, I only had experience with one.

Now, I could have replied with “nope” and then proceeded to hang up the call and go cry in my bed - but I didn’t.

Instead, here’s what I replied with:

“So, I want to be very transparent with you. I don’t have experience with XYZ email marketing software, but I do have experience with XYZ software. And, from my experience what I tend to notice is that most email marketing software’s are very similar in nature when it comes to segmentations, tags, and sequences. So, hypothetically, if you put me in front of a software that I don’t know, I’d be confidently able to pick up on how to use the software within minutes.”

I ended up getting the job.

Remember, never say “no”.

Instead, when the interviewer asks you about something you don’t have a clue about, try to redirect the point of conversation to other areas where you do have similar experience in.

And remember - never, ever, say no.

Mindset over everything

So, check it out, I used to work in the recruiting space and I conducted, like, thousands and thousands of interviews over the phone.

Yeah, you can imagine my throat was constantly dried up like a desert by the end of every shift.

But through this experience, I learned one of the most critical things about the interview process that a lot of job hunting articles you might find on The Muse or Forbes won’t mention.

An interview is a great way of understanding someone’s mindset.

I remember, when I was doing a ton of telephone interviews, I would interview candidates who didn’t necessarily have the required skills for the role.

But, something about how they talked, something about their energy, and something about their hyper growth-oriented mindset really pulled a heartstring in me.

And because of that, I would send them to the next stage of the interview process.

Let me give you an example.

I was interviewing people for call center positions at a very notable bank and I was on a telephone interview with this candidate, a fresh grad, who had no customer service experience.

Typically, in this scenario, I would have declined him because I didn’t see any customer service experience in his resume, but I thought, hey, what the heck, may as well hear what he’s got to say.

And let me tell you, this candidate blew me away.

During the interview, I asked him a simple question: tell me about a time you overcame an obstacle.

Here’s a bullet-point summary of what he said:

• He needed to get a 90 percent average during his last semester to get his degree because he did poorly in his previous 3 years
• The reason? Mental cognition disability
• Plus, he was working 2 general labor jobs after school to pay for rent and school debt
• He felt helpless because he didn’t believe he could get a 90 percent average with all those factors playing against him
• He had an epiphany one night after a talk he had with his dad and at that exact moment he decided that his life was his responsibility - he didn’t want to give up
• He went on to wake up super early to study for his courses, he worked extra hard at work, and when his friends would go out partying – he would be hitting the books
• The result: graduated with a 95 percent average and also got promoted to supervisor at work for his exceptional work ethic

Ok, so when I heard that story, I swear, I had to take a second to wipe the tears off my face.

It was just so inspiring.

It moved me in a way where I knew if I put him in that call center role I had complete trust that he would be extremely coachable to the point where his growth-oriented mindset and work ethic would completely make up for the lack of customer service experience.

On the other end of the spectrum, I’ve been on interview calls with candidates who clearly had the customer service experience I was looking for but when I was on the phone with them, they just felt so, blah.

Like, it felt as if they weren’t excited about things, they didn’t care to learn, and their answers to the interview questions were simple one-liners that had no enthusiasm behind it.

I just couldn’t.

Needless to say, those candidates didn’t make it to the next round.

So, the takeaway here?

In your everyday life, work to constantly be the best version of yourself, work hard to overcome life challenges, always keep learning and growing – and I promise you, it’ll show in your interview.

If you don’t have work experience, freakin’ create it yourself

Let me give you a personal example of what I mean.

I was working in the recruiting space, but I knew I wanted to get into digital marketing.

So, I quit.

Just like that.

I didn’t have any previous marketing work experience, I didn’t study marketing, and I didn’t know anyone working in marketing that I could use as a referral.

But what I did have was this:

I had a side hustle that allowed me to develop a skillset called copywriting (basically, I knew how to put together words in a way that sells).

2 weeks later, I ended up getting a Marketing Assistant position at one of the fastest-growing digital marketing agencies in Canada.

How?

I made an entire Youtube video where I rewrote one of their company’s landing page.

Then, I sent it to a manager working in the agency (who’s now a great mentor figure of mine) and he was impressed enough to book me in for an interview.

The rest was history.

Now, I’m not trying to say this to bloat about myself or anything like that.

But what I am saying is that you need to literally develop a tangible skillset to make yourself valuable, and you can’t wait for your job to give it to you.

You gotta go out there alone, by yourself, and develop it.

Let me give you another example.

I recently had an interview where the CEO and a manager pulled me to a table, whipped out a piece of paper and pen, and laid them out in front of me.

They told me to draw out an email nurture sequence that hooked prospects through a lead magnet and nurtured them to the point where they wanted to buy.

Then, I was required to do a mini-presentation explaining why I chose to do what I did.

Here’s the thing, in my previous jobs I was never told how email marketing works.

I never worked with email marketing platforms before in a professional work environment type of thing.

But I was still able to create a killer email nurture sequence that sold my expertise so well to the point where, after I was hired, the manager told me that that they were so impressed with what I showed them that they had complete trust I would absolutely kill the role.

But how did I know so much about email marketing when I never worked on email marketing campaigns before in a job?

Well, it’s because I learned it outside of my typical 9-5.

I hope you’re starting to notice a pattern here.

The takeaway is this:

If you don’t have relevant work experience, go out and create it.

This can be done in a couple of ways:

•  Volunteering with an organization
• Working for an expert figure for free
• Attending bootcamps
• Doing a side hustle

Listen to this…

I have a friend; his name is Ahmad.

There’s this company Ahmad wanted to get a job in - it’s a very popular company that creates Youtube videos which have gone viral.

I was hanging out with him the other day and he told me about an event planner job posting they had open which he was really interested in, but, he didn’t feel like he was qualified.

He went on to tell me a couple of reasons why.

First, the person who previously held the role had, like, 10K Instagram followers, all these notable achievements, and a ton of other stuff.

Plus, considering the salary, he mentioned he really didn’t feel like he was qualified.

But that didn’t stop him there.

He ended up directly reaching out to the CEO of the company on LinkedIn, asked if his company would do a partnership event in Toronto with him where he would manage all the logistics and everything involved to make it happen.

The CEO thought about it for a bit, then gave him a yes.

How wild is that?

Remember, don’t let a lack of work experience hold you back.

If you don’t feel like you’re qualified for the role because you lack certain skill sets – go out there and furiously create it yourself.

Period.

Conclusion

Listen, when I was in university as a student club president, I had to visit the bank to do some club finance stuff.

I was in a fancy office shut off from the public talking to a fancy financial advisor.

She was jotting things down on her computer, very slowly.

I was studying her the whole time to see what she was up to.

Minutes passed, then 10 minutes passed, then another 10 minutes passed.

At this point, I studied her screen long enough to know exactly what she needed to do.

I started to get insanely furious on the inside because all she had to do was click here, then there, and then, ta-dah! I’d be out of her office in no time.

I almost felt like grabbing her keyboard away and start doing her job for her.

And it was then I was hit with a huge epiphany that continues to fuel me to this day. I may be a university student with no formal work experience, but because I’m coachable and willing to learn I can take her fancy “financial advisor” job and do it better than her.

I realized that job descriptions don’t define me.

It’s my willingness to learn and constantly improve myself is what really matters.

So, friend, if you’re reading this, I want you to know – don’t let any formal piece of paper define whether or not you’re good for a job. Take a jump, throw yourself off a cliff, and learn your way out of it.

Don’t wait, just go.