Every job wants “experience,” but how do you get experience if no one hires you? Feels like a scam, right? 
Example: A friend of mine applied to 20+ jobs, got rejected everywhere, then finally landed an internship at a small local company. The pay wasn’t great, but after a couple months he had something real to put on his resume — and suddenly other places actually started responding to him.
It made me realize that sometimes the first job isn’t about the money at all, it’s just about getting that first line of experience. Curious how other people here managed to break into their first job when they basically had nothing on their resume.
Honestly, I padded my resume with every random thing I could spin as “experience” — helping a friend with their blog? Content strategy. Babysitting? Time management & conflict resolution 
Then I cold-applied to a bunch of small companies and startups instead of big brands.
Smaller places usually care more about whether you seem reliable and willing to learn than about perfect resumes. I also added a short portfolio with examples of what I’d done (even tiny projects). That helped way more than just sending a plain CV.
Volunteering worked for me. I helped organize a local event, put that on my resume as “project coordination,” and suddenly recruiters started replying. Just gotta frame it right.
What worked for me: I started doing tiny freelance gigs on Fiverr and helped friends with their side projects. Didn’t pay much, but it filled up my resume with real tasks. One recruiter told me, “At least you actually tried to do the work somewhere.”
Even small things count — managing a social page for a club, helping with a local event, building a simple website, tutoring someone, etc. When you list those with clear results (like “managed Instagram page that grew from 0 to 300 followers” or “helped organize a 50-person event”), it suddenly looks like real experience instead of “nothing.”