Experience > Education?

[citizen22]

I'm Currently going into my 3rd year accounting at the UofA and I've been looking for work since March. This is a little ridiculous in that since March and over 460 resume/cover letters sent out, have I seen the inside of two interviewing rooms. I've gone from applying in strictly accounting to general office positions (everything office related). Everyone who I end up calling back tells me that they are looking for at least 6 months experience for consideration...

Where do you get the experience in the first place? I figured I would have a job come the end of my exams, but never would I have imagined being unemployed almost two months after the fact.

What is making me very frustrated is how they are requiring experience in all general office roles: filing, reception, customer service... I mean, forget data entry - I just want my bloody foot in the door for coop.

Any suggestions?

[typoprone]

Volunteer work

[LeetViet]

Post your resume and cover letter for critique.

[enginear]

460 Applications?

Please tell me you're not sending out generic cover letters and resumes.

Tailor your resume and cover letter for each position you're applying for - you'll get much better results.

[at1212b]

Don't worry.. the magic resume/cover letter number is 1000, so you're almost there.

[aac85]

460? you must be doing something wrong man...

if i were you, i'd go to a temp acctg agency. a friend started off this way and ended up doing data entry work for a couple of summers. but it paid off when he graduated and landed with an articling position.

dont be down....the first office job is always the toughest. just aim at admin/clerical roles. those are the BEST you can hope for since you dont have enough advanced acctg courses to apply to public firms...

[Churo1]

To answer your original question, yes experience is better than education. Wait till you land your first related job, you will see there is a big difference between the work and academic world. Obviously companies prefer people with professional experience, they are more reliable.

[the_fm]

well, education is useless without experience but if one wants to move up (Director, VP, etc.), education is needed

anyway, yes, experience > education when it comes to the "dirty" work

[Churo1]

well, education is useless without experience but if one wants to move up (Director, VP, etc.), education is needed

anyway, yes, experience > education when it comes to the "dirty" work

I was referring to a professional job where post secondary education is needed. Never said anything about not being educated. It's basically the only thing you have to work with as a new grad. However, once you choose an industry, you will see experience matters. And it's not always the most educated who gets the best job and promotions.

[citizen22]

thank you so much.
You actually gave me that 'hope' that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, as opposed to the feeling of behing at the back of the line at the soup kitchen...

My resume is VERY generic, but there is not a lot that I can put on there considering I don't have much to offer, at least I don't think that I do.

[isarobotirl]

http://employment.alberta.ca/4337.html

Go into one of these offices and ask for help you obviously need it. Also you may want to go into your school's career centre and ask for help there too. Or if perhaps you initially got help on your resume through that career centre definitely go to the aforementioned link. You are technically paying for these services anyways so may as well use them, these people should be able to tell you what you are doing wrong (Your rate of interviews/resumes sent is less then 1%, seriously after the first 100 sent you should have been going for help).