How do I get a job with no experience when every job requires experience?

Two things break the loop: manufacture evidence of the work rather than waiting for permission to do it, and get in through people rather than through application portals. **On the experience requirement itself** — apply anyway. Job descriptions are wish lists written by combining every desirable trait; hiring managers routinely hire people who meet 60% of the list. The '2-3 years' on an entry-level posting is frequently boilerplate that the same team ignores. Screening yourself out is doing their job for them, badly. **How to manufacture credible evidence:** 1. **Build things that solve real problems for real people.** A tool your college society actually uses beats any tutorial project, because it comes with users, constraints and a story. This is the closest thing to experience you can create alone. 2. **Do free or cheap work for a small organisation.** A local business, an NGO, a friend's shop. One real client is a reference, a case study and something to talk about for an hour. 3. **Contribute to open source.** Merged pull requests are public evidence you can work in someone else's codebase, follow conventions and take review — which is most of what a junior job actually is. 4. **Freelance one small job**, even underpriced. Now you have professional experience and can say so accurately. 5. **Internships and apprenticeships**, including at small unglamorous companies. They convert at a far higher rate than cold applications. **On getting in through people** — this is the part that changes outcomes most: - Referred candidates are dramatically more likely to be interviewed than portal applicants. Same resume, different pile. - You don't need a network to start one. Message people doing work you find interesting with a specific, genuine question about their work — not 'can you refer me'. Do that consistently and referrals emerge from relationships rather than requests. - Go where hiring managers are: local meetups, communities, conferences, active technical discussion online. **Target smaller companies.** Startups and small firms hire on potential, move fast, and don't have a rigid HR filter. Large companies with formal graduate programmes are the other viable route. The hardest place to break in is a mid-size company hiring 'a junior with experience'. The uncomfortable arithmetic: this takes months and a lot of rejection for almost everyone. The people who get through aren't the most talented — they're the ones who kept building visible evidence while applying, instead of alternating between waiting and despairing.