How to gain professional experience

Professional experience helps connect what you’ve learnt in the classroom with ‘real world’ workplace experience.

It’s an opportunity to build your employability, your skills, establish professional connections and decide the right career for you.

Additionally, you need to be able to demonstrate relevant previous experience or the suitability of your skills to most positions.

When you enter the job market as someone looking for your first job, your school results, a strong reference from a teacher and a good attitude in an interview is a start. But if you’re looking to transition into an industry more aligned with your future career aspirations, you'll need to develop your resume and gain some valuable experience.

Benefit of gaining professional workplace experience

• Expand your knowledge and professional skills, put theory into practice in a professional setting.

• Develop your resume to increase your employability.

• Develop transferable skills like teamwork, problem solving, and communication.

• Establish a network of professional contacts.

Relevant experience can mean a range of things. When we think about working, we can think about needing two main types of skills:

• Hard skills - raw technical and industry skills and knowledge that may have come from study or professional affiliation.

• Soft skills - personal attributes and experience you may have gained from several places.

For example, studying accounting at high school or at university will give you the hard skills needed to work in accounting.

At the same time, you may have also become good at time management or had to work in a team. These are soft skills and are applicable across all industries! Good school reports and references from teachers can also demonstrate your soft skills and your suitability for further employment.

Professional experience can be:

• Unpaid (volunteering, placement, and internships) or paid.

• Short or long-term.

• In person, online, or hybrid.

Depending on what type of experience you want, it can also be at different kinds of workplaces – like not-for-profits, social enterprises, government and businesses.

Internships

Internships or placements are a great way to gain relevant industry experience because often you’ll have a direct liaison at your workplace that is available to guide you and who you can turn to for advice.

It also means you’ve made a relevant industry connection that you can list on your resume as a reference for your next job application!

Volunteering

Shows dedication to your local community and builds transferable skills like problem solving or working with others.

Allows you to build professional networks and mentors and develop both hard and soft skills.

You can find volunteering opportunities in several places such as through school careers counsellors, friends, or by searching on Google!

It’s a good idea to pick volunteering opportunities that interest you. For example, if you’re passionate about animal welfare you may want to volunteer at your local animal rescue. Or, if you play sport, you could volunteer for your sporting club.

Mentorship

A mentor is someone more established in their career, who shares their own knowledge and skills with you to help with your development.

They may be able to look over a job application for you, help you learn a new skill or support you in reaching out to organisations for opportunities.

Potential mentors may be a university tutor or lecturer, an existing professional connection or even someone met through specific mentoring websites.

Student clubs

Don’t discount the student experience! If you’ve ever taken on a leadership role while at school or university, it’s likely you’ve developed some key, transferrable soft skills that would be relevant to many industries.

Experiences like running events, recruitment, running a committee or working within school and university systems are all things that may set you apart.

On your resume, list the student club, how long you were involved, and the details of any core activities you did. Include your most impressive stats (such as if you increased membership by 25% or sold 30% more tickets for an event) to impress an employer.

1. Enhancv. (n.d). Cover Letter VS. Resume –What's The Difference? https://enhancv.com/blog/difference-between-cover-letter-and-resume/

2. Indeed. (3 February 2023). 10 Tips for Gaining Experience To Advance Your Career. https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/gaining-experience

3. Indeed. (26 May 2023). How To Make a Resume. https://au.indeed.com/career-advice/resumes-cover-letters/how-to-make-a-resume

4. Seek. (14 November 2023). What is a resume? The essentials you need to know. https://www.seek.com.au/career-advice/article/what-is-a-resume

5. Volunteering Victoria. (2023). Benefits of Volunteering. https://www.volunteeringvictoria.org.au/volunteer-benefits-and-stories/