When You Need Experience to Get Experience

It's a problem many new graduates and those looking to switch careers face: you need experience to get a job, but you can't land a job without experience. Quite the dilemma.

From unpaid internships to exaggerated facts and padding resumes, people handle this quandary in a variety of ways and most of them do manage to end up plodding along happily in their chosen fields. I found one particularly creative approach to dealing with 'need experience to get experience' in this article over at Harvard Business -- the basic idea is to find a business or colleague in your area that needs something but doesn't have the resources to make it happen, check your pride at the door, and strike up a bargain where you offer your help in exchange for the experience.

Believe me, it makes more sense in the article so pop over and give it a read, then pop on back and tell us what you think: is it a realistic option for people?