Bring Yourself to the Table! 4 Tips for Landing Yourself Work Experience

Have you ever looked at the shiny, illustrious CV of your peer (or someone even younger than you) and wondered how did they manage to do all that?

As a teenager, it might be hard to imagine how you could actually contribute to the real work that a company does, or how you might even begin to search for an internship when you don’t have the qualifications or experience that most job descriptions ask for.

Don’t underestimate what you bring to the table just because of your age.

While you obviously won’t have the experience someone in the middle of their career might, your unique perspective and the skills native to you as a young person would be valuable to many organisations, especially those seeking to work with or appeal to youth.

That said, there’s no magic bullet for finding a great internship, and some prospective employers might take some convincing that you’re worth investing in — but here are some strategies anyone can adopt that are more than worth a try (and have worked for many of us!):

1. Make friends, not contacts

Whether you meet people by mingling at events or through family friends, remember that they’re people, not contacts. You can broaden your exposure enormously through the people you meet, and learn so much from each person’s story.

As you would with any relationship, take a genuine interest in others and before you think of what they can do for you, try and think of what you can do for them. As the cliché goes, people will remember not what you say but how you made them feel — there are few things more anti-social and off-putting than extractive interactions, and while social capital is immensely valuable, remember that they are built on actual relationships, not transactions.

Hate the idea of small talk? So do we. Networking doesn’t have to look a certain way (i.e. contrived, superficial, and motive-driven). Check out this article about why introverts might actually be better networkers

2. Keep your eyes peeled for opportunities

Can we get an ‘Amen’ for the internet?! 🙏

It’s easier than ever to find out about different opportunities to gain job exposure and connect with companies, especially with different portals specialising in different industries.

Here are some of our favourites:

• Cultjobs: A diversity of creative roles, from internships, to temp jobs, volunteer openings, freelance gigs and full-time positions
• Glints: A broad career portal, popular with growing start-ups, with features for transparency that allow you to track the status of your application and more.
• Wantedly: Similar to Glints, but Wantedly offers the additional option of visiting the organisations you’re curious about, and emphasises showcasing the personality of each company.
• Non-profit Jobs Asia: Job openings, internships and fellowships at non-profits in Singapore and elsewhere in Asia
• Idealist: Voluntary, internship, and full-time opportunities at non-profits and social enterprises across the world.
• Tech in Asia, Startup Jobs Asia, E27: For startup roles not limited to Singapore but spanning Asia.

Don’t see your favourite organisations listed on those portals? In our experience it’s worth a try writing a friendly email to them regardless to see if there’s any way you can get involved. After all, what do you have to lose?

3. Demonstrate your interest

A much over-looked tip! At the age of 18 with an academic background purely specialising in the sciences — how will you prove that you really do have a passion for pastry, or poetry, and aren’t just looking for a way to fill your time?

Show that you mean it! You don’t need an educational qualification as evidence that you love reading, writing, dessert, or myriad other passions — you just need to convince people that you take your interest seriously, not flippantly. It’s easy to include a few lines on your resume about your passions as far as they align with the organisation you’re applying to, but much more meaningful and impactful to show that you’ve invested yourself in them, and this need not be legitimised by an academic institution.

We strongly recommend exposure via volunteering or starting a passion project on the side, not just to prove to others that you walk the talk, but also for yourself to explore an interest and discover if it’s something you’d choose to pursue.

4. Get on LinkedIn

It will only take you half an hour to build a solid profile and save you innumerable hours editing your resume in the future.

Here are some of the perks of being on LinkedIn (and no, this is not an #sp):

• Job listings from pretty much all industries that can be targeted to meet your requirements and interests
• Get to know people working at your dream organisation or in your dream role and gain direct access to their HR
• Update your resume easily and on the go without spending time and effort on formatting and messing around with software
• ‘Stalk’ people who are where you want to be in the future to find out how they got there; alternatively familiarise yourself with the profiles of people working in your dream organisation to get a sense of whether you’d be a good fit
• And so much more!

What’s the best and worst advice you got in your search for a job? What do you wish you knew about finding work as a teen? Share your experience with us in the comments — we’d love to pass along your insights to the youth we work with!

Praxium is a Singaporean social enterprise redesigning education to make it relevant by designing experiences for youth to discover their passion and build pathways. Check out our career discovery programmes for schools and individuals.

Want to get a quick sense of what you’re really interested in or where your aptitude lies? Join us for Learning Day where we blitz through an array of diverse topics, taught informally by regular people passionate about them. It’s the fastest way to know if you’d be able to stomach a diploma, college degree, or career in a certain discipline.

Our newsletter compiles opportunities to get involved at purpose-driven organisations: view our most recent issue and sign up to subscribe here.

Alternatively… write in to intern with us! We’re always on the look out for self-motivated youth who are passionate about education and keen to experience working at a youth organisation cum start-up.