It’s an amazingly calm phrase, “entering the job market”. If they wanted to make it more accurate, they’d say, “catapulted into the job market” or “sentenced to the job market”.

That’s exactly how it feels sometimes. As you stagger from interview to interview, emailing CV after CV and staring into an abyss of dole hand-outs and rejection letters, it’s difficult not to feel like you’re being sentenced to a lifetime of unemployment doom.

You are Sisyphus, pushing a CV-shaped rock up a hill, only to see it pushed back down again by a cackling, mad-eyed employer.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. If you’re looking for an intuitive way into the market, there are apprenticeships and jobs available to those willing to hit the bottom of the ladder with gusto.

Here are just a few of your options.

The building trade

“Get a trade, son, and you’ll go far,” sang rock band The View, and they were bang on the money. A route into a trade can be a job for life if you attack the industry with full-force.

Indeed, hard work is your friend in this industry. You’ll have to attend trade courses, including a PAT testing course, and others to gain your full licence and accreditation.

After this, the building world is your oyster. If you can scrape enough shrapnel together, you could go into business for yourself and build up a list of reliable clients who’ll keep you in the pink for many years to come.

The entrepreneurial route

Arguably harder than carpet bombing businesses with CVs, trying to beat your own path can be long, arduous and difficult. But if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, it can also be endlessly rewarding.

First up, think of a great idea, something you reckon could key into a niche market.  Then, you have to figure out how you could effectively market this product to your desired demographic. All this comes before you can seek out funding.

The best entrepreneurs have their fingers in many pies, and you should follow suit. If one product fails, 10 more can stand in their place.

Gain a mentor

Even if you’re a young buck who feels confident in the job market, nothing beats having a mentor to guide you through the pitfalls of life, be they business-related or personal.

But how do you find that guidance? Thanks to social networking platforms like LinkedIn, the process is actually a cinch. All you have to do is connect with a professional who inspires you, drop them a line and see how they reply.

So many of us are just groping in the dark where the job market is concerned, and few realise that they don’t have to tackle it alone. So, find guidance and you’ll put fewer feet wrong.