Your first job – work experience and applications

Increasingly, it is received wisdom that you will need work experience prior to applying for your first job, and that, particularly in the arts, this will probably have been unpaid. The number of graduates has been rising sharply over the past few years, with employment competition becoming ever tougher, but do you really need to offer yourself as a slave just to get a foot in the door, and how valuable will such experience be considered by others? If you wish to work for nothing, make sure that it is on your terms and for your benefit, perhaps to try out a particular company, or to see if you like a specific area of work. Do not stay too long in this sort of position, a couple of months at most, learn as much as you can, ensure that the situation is to your benefit, View the rest of this article