How to get viable experience for your new career path

Everyone’s heard the familiar lament: If you need experience to get hired, how do you get the experience? It’s a momentum-killing puzzle for any job seeker, let alone for career-changers.

In this monthly series we’ve been looking at different challenges you’ll need to manage if you leave one career path for another. Aside from choosing your direction, perhaps no other task will be as important as gaining experience in the new field.

This exposure will not only build skills and knowledge, but it will also provide valuable information about the work itself. The first benefit could help you enter the field at a higher level, while the second might guide you in choosing the specific area you’d prefer.

Here are ways to gain needed experience as you move forward on your career-change path.

Leverage current work. You may think your current job is as far from the new field as you can get, but in truth there are almost always overlaps between any two occupations — or at least, there’s the opportunity to create overlap.

Take, for example, an over-the-road trucker who has been studying communications online while waiting for loads at different terminals. Can this person write articles for the transit company’s newsletter? Or start an employee page on the company website? Perhaps the driver could create safe-driving tools, to be used later as work samples in interviews.

If this person were making a less dramatic switch — say from driving to being a dispatcher, or perhaps the logistics coordinator — he or she might ask for cross-training or the opportunity to use unpaid time to job shadow or apprentice in the role.

Whatever the career paths in question, a lot depends on the workplace and on the worker’s willingness to let others know about the pending career change. But if those factors line up, the in-house route can be the smoothest way to learn tasks relevant to a new career.

Work part-time in the new field. If your schedule allows, a part-time job might be the perfect way to gain experience. Parttime roles are usually easier to land than full-time and are often closer to entry level. They also provide an advantage for later job search: You may have access to internal leads and a built-in network to help you land the full-time job you eventually seek.

As a pro tip, remember that part-time work adjacent to your desired career can also be helpful. For example, if you’re training to become a physician’s assistant, you won’t likely be hired in that role until you’ve completed required coursework or testing. But you can still gain benefit (and points with later employers) if you pick up hours as a clinic receptionist or another position exposing you to medical documentation, patient service and other aspects of health care professions.

Enroll in training with an internship. Speaking of required coursework — some fields are only open to those who have completed an approved training program. If this includes your new career, be sure your training program provides at least one internship. Even if the profession doesn’t require this extra element, it’s one of the best ways to transition from student to employee when entering a new field.

Build your own work experience. This route has become easier than ever in our world of side hustles and instant entrepreneurs. For example, the truck driver changing to communications could start a blog or newsletter on any topic. Or, he or she could volunteer to do that for a nonprofit or startup company. Becoming a self-employed consultant is another option that could result in testimonials and work samples — as well as pocket money.

One caution if you choose this pathway to gaining experience: It’s easy to lose momentum if you don’t find a project to dive into. Give yourself just a month or two for your gig to bear fruit and then switch to a different option on this list.

Remember the goal is the experience, and you want to get that one way or the other so you can move forward with your larger goal of changing careers.