Osmose

Huge disclaimer upfront: I am a software engineer and my knowledge is skewed towards that industry. I'm not an employment expert.

Having said that, I'm assuming you think the main issue with your applications is the gap of experience relative to your age. Keep in mind it could be other factors: which jobs you're applying to and what systems you're using to find them are important things to consider and change up. If you're pretty much just looking at job boards online, consider calling local places and asking how to submit an application directly. They'll almost certainly point you some website, but applying directly to Safeway's careers portal is a very different thing with different success rates vs the flood of folks on every job board.

But let's tackle the experience problem. What do you do if you have nothing to put on a resume and need to write one?

Well, you go and do things that can be put on a resume.

Here's my actual biggest most powerful thing to say about resume writing:
THERE ARE NO RULES FOR WHAT YOU CAN PUT IN A RESUME

Resumes are a document you're using to convince someone to hire you. Following a preset format is only useful insofar as it helps you convince them. If you are applying for a bike courier position and you won a local bike race, put it in! Maybe it'll help! Who cares that it wasn't for a job? It's not like the blank space that would be there if it was missing is more convincing.

So, given a more expansive view of what is "allowed" on a resume, here's some things you can do to pad it out:

• Volunteering always looks good, and more populated areas have volunteer opportunities available (some high schools require volunteer hours for graduation). They can also be a way to interact with other people and perhaps even mention you're looking for a job if you meet the right person.
  • Tech-specific volunteering often takes the form of open source contributions, and you can do them even if you're not a developer. Bug reports and replication and translations were the two biggest areas for contributions to Mozilla by far, and lots of folks put that work on their resumes.
• Side projects, ideally but not necessarily related to the job. Art projects, woodworking, major house improvements, anything that shows that you are capable of being productive in some capacity. Do you maintain some plants at a community garden? It counts.
• Crappy online jobs are still jobs, I know several people whose resumes started out as contract writers for online content farms. LLMs are making that harder but work's work.
• Community college, even if you just sign up for a single class and don't have a degree, is definitely worth mentioning.
• Self-employment of ANY kind. Do you take commissions for art or music or sewing or carving or anything? Cat sit for your friends? My very first resumes included work I did at the golf course my parents worked at, but all I did was wash carts and park them for a few hours for $15 under the table from the bag boy when it was busy.

This isn't exhaustive but my point is that, if you have no better leads from friends or family and can't afford school, do anything that might convince someone you can work and throw it in. Hope that helps!

...also one more thing. I'm pretty sure you aren't doing this but just in case you are, don't put your age on your resume.

If you say you were self employed, you may have to have show sort of tax document or similar record so you can show that you actually did it amd arent just padding out an empty spot. I didn't file taxes for a few years because I had a long, long jobless streak and not enough income to NEED to file, but I was making and selling crafts to scrape through - but without tax docs to show this it didnt help me much. multiple jobs I applied for, I would be makkng progress but then they would ask about this period and it seemed to stall me out each time.