Don't Do This When Changing Jobs! Series: Characteristics of People Who Never Get Hired for Career Changes Without Experience

Hello. I'm Ryo-chan, also known as Ryohei.

I am currently 32 years old. In this era of the 100-year life, I have set a vision to enjoy both work and private life as an active participant for a long time, and eventually to provide a spark that ignites many people.
Recently, I have been summarizing my activities as a career change agent, my own personal experiences, and shares from job placement services on my blog.
In the coming era, due to factors such as the shortening of corporate lifespans and the limitations of the retirement system accompanying the declining birthrate and aging population, I believe that "career change ability"—the ability to change jobs at any time—is required. I believe that contributing to the birth of people who acquire this ability will lead to social contribution, so I am disseminating information to the extent that I can.

I have posted the "Don't Do This When Changing Jobs! Series: How to Answer 'When Can You Start?'". I would be happy if those who are interested would read it as a reference.

This time, I will write about "career changes without experience" . In the content, I will also introduce the corporate perspective on how inexperienced people are viewed by companies.
There are many parts written with a somewhat harsh tone , but this comes from the reality I have felt as someone who has changed jobs six times, and from the experiences I have overcome. And I will state in advance that I am writing this with the hope that even one person will be born who succeeds in a career change without experience .

1. Career changes without experience have a high degree of difficulty

First, to conclude, career changes without experience have high hurdles . As a premise, unlike new graduate recruitment, mid-career recruitment basically requires immediate assets. And companies have the idea that they want to hire people who will be active in the long term. In other words, experienced people have the advantage. In job hunting, you look at job postings from companies that are recruiting and apply, but even if it says [Inexperienced Welcome], if there is an experienced person among the other candidates, they will be prioritized. I also have experience in changing jobs without experience, but my documents rarely passed. In the first place, there are not a few companies that say no to inexperienced people. In the case of joining as a new graduate, skills and experience are on par with peers, but

with mid-career entry, you start from a position where you are behind your peers
, and because you are required to catch up as soon as possible , in most cases, you will need to work desperately. That said, as you experience career changes without experience in your career, there is also the charm of increasing your market value and gaining skills that allow you to be active anywhere, as well as an advantage for future career-up job changes
. From here, I will share the points of "what you shouldn't do" to get a job offer even without experience, as well as corporate evaluation points and countermeasures.

2. Motivation for applying and reasons for changing jobs are naive if they are just "longing" or "vague"

First, regarding the mental aspect, it is dangerous to easily choose a company based on dissatisfaction with your current company or a desire to escape, thinking
" It looks easy to work here if I change jobs here. Oh, the annual income will go up quite a bit! Let's go here ". If you choose a company with that yardstick, those feelings are easy to come out in words during the interview , and even if you manage to join the company, many people will quit again if dissatisfaction or stress arises . Also, when hiring inexperienced people, companies treat it as an investment for 2-3 years and try to recover that recruitment cost after 3 years or more. Therefore, for a company, if you quit within 3 years, they cannot recover the cost. Therefore, you should think that
the hiring criteria for inexperienced people are relatively severe . So, I will touch on "countermeasures" from here.

3. Create reasons for changing jobs and motivation for applying that incorporate your own actual experiences

To conclude, whether you can talk about "interest and motivation for changing jobs that you noticed from your own work experience" is the biggest point. Let's be able to tell your own episodes. Furthermore, you also need to brush it up to a level that can persuade the company. Let's grab "potential hiring" where they think, 'If it's this person, I'd like to hire and raise them, and they will surely become someone who will be active' . No one knows the future, but your own experience is a story that you can talk about as a fact and is easy to make persuasive. For example, in the case of an inexperienced job change from a sales position to a marketing position, in an interview, you can appeal by saying, "While doing sales activities until now, I have researched competitors, best-selling products, and analysis, and have felt the importance of marketing," or "I think I can utilize my sales experience of having heard the voices of raw end-users up close." If you prepare to be able to present your reasons for changing jobs more concretely, the probability of passing the interview will increase. Also, although it is a mental aspect,


"brightness and humility"

is a good impression on the company side. This is because they are concerned about communication and teamwork that makes it easy to grow and build relationships with members of the current company. Negativity, bad-mouthing, and blaming others (blaming someone or something else) have a bad influence on the company, so companies want to avoid such risks. I hope you can win the evaluation that is expected, such as "I want to raise this person" or "Because this person has had this kind of experience until now, they will surely be active in our company too."

4. Increase the number of applications

Finally, you should think that career changes without experience also require patience . It is almost impossible to apply to 10 companies, have 10 documents pass, have 10 interviews, and get 10 job offers. In my gut feeling, for a career change without experience,

it is a good result if 1 out of 10 to 20 companies pass the document screening, and 40% of the number of interviews you attend pass (you pass 2 out of 5 interviews) . (I am by no means excellent, and I am the type who is slow to grasp things, but) Let's increase the number of applications and create opportunities for challenges. Keep doing it until you win, if you win even once, you win

, if you take that kind of approach, you can work positively, and
failures and feedback in interviews (advice and issues from companies and agents) will also increase in value and become an asset to change yourself. I hope that those who want to improve their careers and expand their future fields of activity will use this as a reference and do their best in their job hunting activities.

Next time, I will write about "how to make good use of career change agents" while incorporating my own agent perspective and job seeker perspective.
Look forward to it.