How do you get your foot in the door in an industry if no one will hire you for an entry level job in that industry without prior industry experience?

When someone is looking for a career or a career change and they are asked "What would you like to do?", it seems like a stupid question because you can't just get any entry level job you want. Companies filter out any applicants who aren't already doing that job, or who haven't worked in their industry. If you are past college age you can't get an internship.

So what is someone supposed to do to get started in a career?

Jobadvisor

This is a genuinely frustrating catch-22, and you're right that the standard advice ("just apply!") often ignores the reality of how hiring actually works. Here are the most practical ways people actually break through it:

Build proof of work before you have the title

The most reliable way to bypass the experience filter is to have done the work even if no one paid you for it yet. This looks different by field:

• Tech/software: Build projects, put them on GitHub, write about what you built
• Marketing/writing: Start a blog, newsletter, or do spec work (unsolicited sample campaigns for real brands)
• Finance/accounting: Get certifications (CFA, CPA exams) that signal competence independent of employment
• Design: Build a portfolio with real or fictional clients
• Data/analytics: Do public datasets on Kaggle, publish findings

The goal is to have something concrete to point to that answers the employer's real question: can this person actually do the job?

Transfer your existing experience laterally

Companies are much more open to hiring someone adjacent than someone completely external. A few paths:

• Get hired at a target company in a role you're already qualified for, then transfer internally. Internal transfers face far less scrutiny than outside hires.
• Get hired at a vendor or supplier to your target industry. If you want to work in pharmaceuticals, working at a consulting firm that serves pharma gets you industry knowledge and contacts.
• Find the version of your current skills that overlaps with the target field. Former teachers often move into instructional design or corporate training. Nurses move into healthcare IT or medical writing.

Target smaller companies and startups

Large companies use applicant tracking systems and rigid filters. Small companies often hire the person who shows up with energy and relevant skills, regardless of their exact background. A 10-person company needs someone who can do things, not someone who checks boxes. This is a much better place to break in, and you can move to a larger company once you have the title on your resume.

Use your network to get around the filter entirely

Most job postings are screened by HR or software before a hiring manager sees them. A referral or a direct conversation with the actual hiring manager bypasses that completely. This means:

• Reaching out directly to people doing the job you want on LinkedIn — not asking for a job, asking for a 20-minute conversation about how they got there
• Finding communities (subreddits, Slack groups, Discord servers, professional associations) where people in that field hang out and becoming a known, helpful presence
• Being specific: "I'm trying to break into UX research and I'd love to hear how you made the transition" gets responses. "Do you know of any openings?" does not.

Consider the stepping stone rather than the destination

Rather than trying to land the exact role you want, ask: what job would hire me today that is one step closer to where I want to be? The path is rarely direct. Someone who wants to be a product manager might start in customer support at a tech company, then move to a QA or operations role, then make the jump. Each move is smaller and more achievable than trying to leap from outside the industry directly to the destination role.

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The honest summary is that the hiring system is genuinely broken for career changers and the advice to "just apply" is mostly useless. The people who break through typically do it by either making the experience real before they're paid for it, or by getting close enough to the target that the next step is small. It takes longer than it should, but those are the levers that actually work.

My employer just posted the same role I’m in for a brand new office and the base pay is higher than I make currently. Is there anything I can do?

I have been with this company for years and worked my way from the bottom. I had my review and argued that I needed more after finding out someone who had left with no experience was making more than me, among other issues I had to deal with after starting. He said he’d think about this and get back to me a month ago

Now we are opening a new office and the same position is currently is being posted with a starting base range that’s 20k higher than what I make now.

Not long after seeing this, my boss called me and said he thought it over and I have been making great progress and that he was going to give me a 3k top up. I then again argued my position and all the extra I have been doing, then brought up the new position and the pay range. He said it was wrong and that he wasn’t going to pay the person starting that at all. Is there anything I can do about this?

Jobadvisor

This is a frustrating situation, and it's actually quite common — it's called compensation compression, where longer-tenured employees end up earning less than new hires for the same work. Here's what you can do:

Document everything first

Before your next conversation, build your case on paper: your tenure, your progression, specific responsibilities you've taken on, the extra work you've been doing, and the posted salary range (screenshot it if you can). If the posting is still live, that's evidence.

Push back on the "it's wrong" claim

If your boss says the posted range is incorrect, ask him to clarify in writing what the actual range is. Companies don't accidentally post salary ranges — HR sets those. His claim may be true, or it may be a deflection. Either way, getting clarity is useful.

Request a formal conversation with HR

You've been going back and forth with your manager for months with little result. It may be time to go above him — not as a complaint, but as a professional inquiry. You can frame it as wanting to understand the compensation structure for your role and how the new office posting aligns with your current grade. HR often has more authority to actually adjust base pay than a direct manager does.

Name the number you want

Rather than arguing broadly, go in with a specific ask. Based on what you've shared, something like "I'm looking to bring my base to [X], which aligns with what the company is posting for this same role" is harder to dismiss than a general grievance.

Consider what leverage you have

Your real leverage here is that you're experienced, you know the company, and replacing you would cost them significantly. If you're willing to, it may be worth quietly exploring what the market looks like for your role externally — not as a bluff, but so you genuinely know your options. If you get an offer, that becomes a concrete conversation.

The 3k offer is telling

The fact that he came back with $3k after a month of thinking suggests he knows you have a point but is testing whether you'll accept the minimum. That's a negotiating position, not a final answer.

The bottom line: you have a legitimate case. The key is shifting the conversation from "I feel underpaid" to "the company's own posted rate for my role confirms I'm underpaid — let's fix that."

Work is easier when you just ignore all your coworkers and do your job- headphones in ignore any questions

am I just an asshole? everytime I help or assist a coworker with anything they threw me under the bus.

no I just headphones in throw Netflix on do my job ignore everyone else, ignore requests for help etc

I have subordinates and I basically leave them alone now if they can’t do I trained them to do after 6 weeks of trayfor an easy job then that’s on them.

Jobadvisor

That doesn't make you an asshole — it makes you someone who got burned and adapted. That's a pretty human response.

But it's worth being honest with yourself about a few things:

What's probably working:

• You're protecting your energy and output
• You stopped being exploited by people who took credit or shifted blame
• You have clearer boundaries now

What might be worth examining:

The subordinate piece is the trickier one. "Leave them alone and if they fail, that's on them" is different from protecting yourself from peers who betrayed you. Those are two separate situations — one is self-preservation, the other is leadership (or the absence of it).

If your direct reports struggle and fail, that does reflect on you as a manager, regardless of the training you gave. Six weeks of training doesn't cover everything, and people need ongoing support to do their best work. Checking out from them entirely is a different thing than putting headphones in around backstabbing coworkers.

The real question isn't "am I an asshole" — it's:

• Are the people who burned you still burning you, or are you now punishing everyone around you for what a few people did?
• Is your current mode sustainable, or is it quiet resentment that's going to eat at you?

You adapted to a bad situation. That's fair. Just make sure the adaptation actually fits the current situation, not just the one that hurt you.

Started adding a one-line "context" note to my resume gaps and my response rate went up noticeably

I had two gaps in my work history , one was about 7 months, one was 4. Both had real reasons behind them but they just showed up as empty space on the resume and I'm pretty sure that was killing me in the screening phase. I wasn't getting past the ATS or whoever does the first pass.

What I started doing is adding a single italicized line under the gap period, something like "Career pause - family caregiving" or "Relocation period, transitioned from [city] to [city]." Nothing elaborate, no explanation, just one short phrase that tells the reader this wasn't me sitting on my couch for half a year. I was skeptical it would do anything but I had nothing to lose at that point.

The difference was pretty clear within like two weeks. More first-round calls, and nobody has asked about the gaps in interviews, not once. I think recruiters just want to see that you're not hiding something. A one-line note apparently satisfies that completely. Probably obvious in hindsight but it took me four months of bad results to try it.

Jobadvisor

That's a genuinely useful insight, and the mechanism makes a lot of sense. Recruiters doing a first pass are pattern-matching for red flags, and an unexplained gap is an automatic one — not because they assume the worst, but because they can't assume anything at all. A single phrase converts it from a question mark into a closed item, and closed items don't block you.

The fact that nobody's asked about the gaps in interviews is probably the most telling part. It suggests the note isn't drawing attention to them — it's actually reducing the attention they'd otherwise get. Which is counterintuitive if your instinct is "don't mention it and hope they don't notice."

A few things that probably make your approach work specifically:

The framing is neutral and professional. "Career pause - family caregiving" doesn't over-explain or apologize. It's the same register as the rest of a resume. Something like "I took time off to care for a sick parent and it was a very difficult period" would do the opposite — it creates an emotional awkwardness that a screener doesn't know how to handle.

It's in the right place. Putting it inline with the timeline means someone scanning chronologically hits it exactly when the gap would've registered. A cover letter note or a parenthetical at the end of your last job description would be easier to miss.

One line signals confidence. If you'd written a paragraph, it would read as defensive. One line reads as a person who has nothing to hide and didn't feel the need to explain themselves at length.

The four months of bad results before trying it is probably pretty common — most resume advice is "don't leave gaps unexplained" but nobody really specifies how to explain them without it feeling awkward. Turns out the answer is just: barely.