Addressing Gaps in Experience & Location
Question from IG: I spent the evening job-hunting and below are several openings that I want to apply for. Some of the openings require a security clearance, some require experience that I don’t have and most of them are in another state from me.
How would you suggest that I go about addressing my lack of a security clearance, lack of experience and my location in a cover letter?
My Response:
1. Tell them you plan to relocate to the job location. You can also say when you plan to be in town and available for interviews. This addresses their fear that you will expect them to cover relocation costs. That said. They still may be willing to cover it. If you have friends or family in the area, use their address but ONLY if they are also clearable. In other words, using myself as an example, I would never use most of my step-dad’s family’s addresses cus they all got records.
2. Indicate that you believe you are able to get a clearance. Keep in mind, a lot of bigger companies try to avoid going through the clearance process with someone for the first time. You may be able to get around that by working with a smaller contractor who will request and pay for your clearance. As you know, you can not seek any level of clearance as an individual, private citizen.
*scrolls down and looks at jobs*
Save for maybe Squires Group, Lockheed, and HireIT, the companies aren’t the HUGE consulting companies and may be willing to sponsor you.
3. Try to think of transferable skills that get close to fitting the experiences you don’t have. I have actually added something like ‘Audio Editing’ all of With the types of software I have used for podcasting. I do not mention the podcast. At the time, nobody even knew what podcasts were so they didn’t dig real deep. But with that on there, I was able to gain documented PROFESSIONAL experience with audio production.
Additional Information (If Available)