No education, no experience, need a job!

[danny.thomas747]

Hey, my story may sound a bit strange, but after the age of 8 I never studied. I don’t mean I went to school and didn’t focus. No! I didn’t even attend school due to several reasons and things happening in the family. I’m 24 now and haven’t studied or gone back to school since then. I’m just hoping I could get some job and start building myself up. Most jobs require a CV, but if I have no education or work experience, what could I possibly write in a CV? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[dowie]

Well what have you done for those 16 years?

 

[danny.thomas747]

Music was my life. Started playing piano at the age of 6 and picked up guitar some years later. Went on to write and record songs in my little home studio, etc. I helped out in a lot of different ways at my local church, e.g. as a musician, writing scripts for Sunday school performances and plays, organising and directing musicians for events, etc. I was also part of music projects where we produced 5 or 6 music albums in 2014-2019 in which I was very much involved in singing, music, and editing.

 

[Randomface74]

Great video about CVs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qkf5JY0yxo8
Long, but you'll get a 10x better CV for 2 hours of your time.

 

[danny.thomas747]

Thanks for that billy!

Any other ideas and suggestions from anyone will be much appreciated

 

[Garp]

It's going to be hard, no doubt, but it will be a lot easier if you can get some schooling done. There are a number of sixth form colleges and universities that offer GCSE courses for adults, often in the evening. You'll find it a lot easier to get your foot in the door of a job that you'd actually want if you have your GCSEs in English and Maths. Many entry level jobs see those as bare minimums, including many apprenticeship options.

 

[dowie]

^^^ this - try and rectify your education situation unless you're happy to stick with low skilled work or pick a path that doesn't require it. I mean what sort of work are you looking to get - at this level plenty of it doesn't require more than a basic CV, you can presumably still stack shelves in Tesco or work in the kitchen of some pub or cafe or wait tables or work in a fast food place or deliver stuff on a bike or carry stuff around on a building site... Any of those things might be a stepping stone to something better like training as a chef of some sort of getting some sort of building trade etc..

Maybe speak to your local college or look into apprentiships. Perhaps check out GCSE alternatives, might be a quicker option if whatever path you might want to follow doesn't have a hard requirement re: GCSEs etc..

 

[Gray2233]

It's going to be hard, no doubt, but it will be a lot easier if you can get some schooling done. There are a number of sixth form colleges and universities that offer GCSE courses for adults, often in the evening. You'll find it a lot easier to get your foot in the door of a job that you'd actually want if you have your GCSEs in English and Maths. Many entry level jobs see those as bare minimums, including many apprenticeship options.

Key Skills for English and Maths is another option, I think the level 2 courses are on par with C grade GCSE's and they can be completed within the space of a couple of months.

There's a lot of places offering apprenticeships for adults in various sectors now, and from what I understand the government is looking to increase those options. It's a good time for an adult or someone with little education to enter into a field of work where they'll be trained up/retrained in whichever sector they're interested in. Of course most if not all of these would be dependent on a minimum GCSE C grade English or Maths or equivalent. The bonus here is, in many cases you'll walk straight into a job at the end of your apprenticeship.

^^^ this - try and rectify your education situation unless you're happy to stick with low skilled work or pick a path that doesn't require it. I mean what sort of work are you looking to get - at this level plenty of it doesn't require more than a basic CV, you can presumably still stack shelves in Tesco or work in the kitchen of some pub or cafe or wait tables or work in a fast food place or deliver stuff on a bike or carry stuff around on a building site... Any of those things might be a stepping stone to something better like training as a chef of some sort of getting some sort of building trade etc....

There's absolutely tons of warehousing related work going right now, mostly picking and packing stuff for the likes of Amazon. It's not great work but it is a living and something that could be done while obtaining the necessary qualifications to move on. It's always easier to find work if you're in work, or at at the least can show that you're being very proactive.

 

[SideWinder]

@danny.thomas747 - If i could go back in time, i would spend more time looking at apprenticeships or even unpaid internships to basically get that entry level experience.

I would also (this depends on how your mind works!) look at learning a tech skill eg coding.

@Gray2233 has a good point about warehouse work. Mate of mine started in a warehouse and moved into stock control at a large tech firm in their head office.

 

[Conanius]

I think an apprentice scheme is what you need. Clearly you have skills as you can use a web forum and type a post coherently. The catch may well be entry criteria, but speak to the apprentice scheme co-ordinators as there are all sorts of government schemes to get you going.

We used QA at my old employer and they were genuinely really helpful - and often recommended us people who didn't meet the entry criteria but they saw promise with. Those people did extra courses alongside their apprentice scheme.