When it comes to skilled employment, getting your foot in the door isn’t always an easy thing. In fact, it can be one of the most challenging road blocks on the road to financial and occupational security.

There are a massive range of factors that come in to play both for yourself and your prospective employer before you can secure stable employment in a career. Some of these include the level of education you’ve reached, your previous experience in the field and how these things influence your ability to take on the career path you seek.

The competition is at times overwhelming in fields that require higher learning and experience from their employees, and the expectation of some employers can be confronting when you’re initially trying to break into a career path.

I can remember a handful of times that I’ve stayed up late after being at Uni all day and writing a detailed resume and cover letter, only to send it to an employer and never hear back.

Whilst this will probably be the case at some point in your job search, there are some deadly options out there to help you make the move into a steady career – and a steady paycheque – with more certainty than just a regular application.

Think about internships

Internships can be a valuable and exciting way to get in at the ground level of your chosen career path, in that they provide real world experience that can be used to get a higher paid position in the company you intern for, or simply transferred to the next role you apply for.

An internship has the possibilities of up-skilling you and helping you get a better idea about your ideal career path. Through the process of the internship you will build a greater understanding and relationship to the workplace, and may find that you fit perfectly in the environment – thus allowing you to pursue it further – or perhaps that the pathway isn’t what you expected and readjusting your focus.

The drawbacks, the obvious one at least, is that internships either don’t pay or at least don’t pay very well, depending on where you work and the amount of hours you’re doing. Whilst I’d never suggest that any Mob go out there and work for free… the reality is that sometimes seeing an internship as a long term pay-off is the way to go.

Ideally, you’ll be able to negotiate some remuneration for your time and effort, however in the end your internship can be one of the quickest ways to get into a higher paying role. This is particularly true when there is significant competition for a role, as someone interning, you will be looked on as a strong candidate because you’ve seen first-hand how your workplace functions. This also means you’re in a better position to negotiate your salary once you are offered a position, not only because you’ve shown them how well you work, but also because you’ve been there with co-workers and understand what value the workplace has for its employees.

Internships are far from perfect, and I can admit first-hand that it’s never the best idea to hang around in them for too long without being offered a better position. But if you really have a passion and want to work somewhere, enquire as to whether they have an internship program, and if they do, find the time to try it if only for a few hours each week. You may find yourself in a dream role in no time.

Like every article on TomorrowMoney, this is not personalised financial advice.