They'll Pay You $85,000 — for Having No Experience
I spent over a decade enforcing the "you need experience" rule. Anthropic just did something I've never seen a company do. Here's exactly what it is, who it's actually for, and how to get picked.
Years ago, I had a CV in front of me that I still think about.
Sharp kid. Fresh out of university. The cover note had this energy you can't fake — the kind where you can tell someone actually wants it, not just needs it. Good projects. Clearly smart. The type of person you'd want on a team.
And I put them in the "no" pile.
Not because they were bad. Because the role said "2+ years of experience," and they had zero. That was the rule. My job was to enforce it.
Here's the part nobody talks about. I didn't even fully agree with the rule. I knew that kid could probably do the job. But I had 300 CVs and a filter, and the filter said no experience, next. So I clicked next.
That's the wall. 🧱
And if you've been job hunting lately, you've been standing on the other side of it.
You know exactly which feeling I mean
You need a job to get experience. You need experience to get the job. Round and round.
You're applicant number 643. The posting's been up four days and already feels gone. You tailor the CV, you write the note, you hit apply, and it drops into a black hole. No reply. Not even a "no." Just… nothing.
And every few weeks a headline tells you AI is coming for entry-level jobs anyway, so why bother.
I want you to sit with something for a second. Be honest. When's the last time someone — anyone — actually opened a door for you instead of pointing at the wall?
Because two days ago, a company did. And almost nobody's clocked it yet.
The thing that made me stop scrolling
You've heard me call Claude "Uncle Claude" — the tool that quietly does your boring job-search grunt work for you. Writes the cover letter. Fixes the CV. Preps your interview answers.
Well. The company behind Claude (Anthropic) just went a step further.
They're not offering to do your job search anymore.
They're offering to put you on payroll. 💸
Anthropic — the company that builds Claude — just launched something called Claude Corps. They're putting $150 million into it. And here's the line that made me read it twice:
They're paying people $85,000 a year — specifically people who don't have experience.
The wall I spent ten years guarding? For 1,000 people, they just knocked a hole straight through it.
Let me explain what this actually is. Slowly. Because it's a lot, and most of the people who'd be perfect for it are going to scroll past thinking "that's not for me." Don't be that person.
What Claude Corps actually is (in plain English)
It's a paid, full-time job for one year. A real salary. Real benefits — health insurance, retirement, paid time off, the lot. You're a proper employee, not a volunteer.
They drop you inside a nonprofit — a food bank, a YMCA, a refugee charity, a small org doing real good with no budget and no tech help — and your job is to use AI to make their work easier. Build the tools. Automate the boring stuff. Then teach the staff to keep it running after you leave.
Real organizations are already lined up to host people. Goodwill. The YMCA. Code for America. Food banks. Refugee services. Hundreds of them across the US.
So you spend a year doing actual work that matters, getting paid $85K to do it, and you walk out the other side with three things you cannot buy:
A year of real, hands-on AI experience on your CV 📄
At least one real project you built start to finish
References — with the Anthropic name attached to them
Think about what that does to the wall. You walked in with "no experience." You walk out with a year of it — on the one thing every employer on earth is suddenly desperate to hire for.
Why a recruiter loses their mind over this
Let me put my recruiter hat back on for a second, because this is the part that genuinely got me.
The skills they train you in — prompt design, building real things with AI, testing and checking AI's work so you can trust it — those are the exact skills companies are fighting over right now. The ones with the five-word job titles and the salaries to match.
Normally? You pay to learn those. A bootcamp. A course. Your own time, your own money.
Here, they pay you. Eighty-five grand. To learn the most in-demand skill on the market, with the most credible name in the room standing behind it.
Quick gut-check. When has anyone ever offered to pay you to learn the thing that makes you more hireable?
Right. That's why this matters.
Now the twist — the one that flips your weakness into the whole point
Most programs like this hunt for the most experienced person in the room. The polished CV. The big-name internships. The candidate who needs it least.
This one does the opposite. And honestly, it's beautiful.
To apply, you have to have less than 2 years of full-time work experience.
Read that again. More than two years and you're out. For once in your life, being early, being "junior," being the one who keeps getting told you're not ready yet — that's the qualification. The wall just became the door.
Here's the rest of who can apply, plain and simple:
You're 18 or older 🎂
No degree required. None. Not a technical one, not any one. It's genuinely fine if you've never written a line of code.
You already use AI in your daily life. Not an expert — just comfortable. You've used Claude or something like it to figure things out.
You've shown up for something you care about — a cause, a community, a problem. Big or small.
You're authorized to work in the US, and you're open to relocating (they help with the cost).
Now — let me save a bunch of you from quietly disqualifying yourselves over nothing. Because I've seen this exact mistake a thousand times.
Internships don't count toward that 2-year limit. Neither do co-ops, research positions, or part-time work you did while you were still in school.
So if you just thought "well, I did two internships and a part-time gig, I'm probably over the line" — you're not. You're exactly who this is for.
I needed you to hear that from someone who's actually read the fine print.
Okay. The honest part. The one that's going to sting for some of you 💛
Honestly, I'm not going to dress this up — because a lot of you reading this are international students, and you deserve the truth more than you deserve a nice headline.
This program is US-only. There is no visa sponsorship. You have to already be authorized to work in the United States.
I know. For some of you that's the sound of a door closing, and I'm sorry. I'm not going to sell you false hope. That's never been what I do here.
But if you're on an F-1 visa, don't walk away yet. OPT counts as work authorization. The catch is that this is a 12-month, in-person placement, and the immigration details around something like that are specific. So before you spend a single evening on the application — talk to your DSO first. Get the real answer for your situation. Don't assume. Immigration paperwork does not forgive assumptions, and I've watched good people learn that the hard way.
And if it turns out this one genuinely isn't open to you? Read the rest of this anyway. Because the prep — the free courses, the project, the way I'm about to teach you to write a job application — none of that is locked behind a visa. That's yours regardless.
This program is a giant flashing sign showing you exactly where hiring is heading. Even if you can't walk through this door, you can still get ready for the ten right behind it.
Take a breath. Let's keep going.
Here's what nobody's telling you: this is a hiring process, not a lottery
A lot of people see "$85K, Anthropic, 1,000 spots" and freeze. They picture some impossible, faceless competition and talk themselves straight out of starting.
So let me demystify it, recruiter to friend. It's just a hiring funnel. You've seen these before:
A short application — a form, plus two short written questions (more on those in a sec)
Two free Anthropic courses you complete and prove you finished
A practical take-home task
A 25-minute conversation
A final round — two short interviews
And then the part I actually love: you interview them. Once you're selected, you talk to two or three host organizations and you get a real say in where you land. You're not cargo getting shipped somewhere. You have a voice in the match.
There's even a kickoff week in San Francisco before you start — travel covered — to get you trained up and ready.
None of that is magic. It's a process. And processes can be prepared for. So let's prepare. 👇
How to actually get picked (this is the part Uncle Claude can't do for you)
Here's the deal. Most people will treat this like a raffle ticket — fill the form, cross fingers, hope. You're going to treat it like the hiring decision it actually is. Here's where I'd put your energy, in order.
First — the two required courses. Do them now, but don't kid yourself.
You have to complete AI Fluency and Claude 101 (both free, both online) and prove it. Non-negotiable — no proof, no application.
But here's the recruiter truth: everyone serious will have these. They're the entry ticket, not your edge. So knock them out early, grab the certificates, and don't think you've done the hard part. You haven't.
Then — the two written questions. Let me decode what they're really asking.
The first asks about a time you made a real difference for a community you're part of. Notice it doesn't say "a huge cause." A neighborhood. A school. A team. Tutoring one kid counts. Volunteering at one shelter counts. They literally give you a list of what qualifies, and it's broad. They're not testing how impressive you are. They're testing one thing: do you actually show up for people? So tell a real story, and tell it clean — what was broken, what you did, what changed because of it. A number helps. A fake-impressive answer hurts.
The second asks about a time something went wrong, and what you do differently now. This one trips everyone up. Please don't hand them the "my biggest weakness is I just care too much" nonsense — recruiters can smell a fake failure from across the room, and it reads as someone who can't be honest with themselves. Give them a real mistake. The point isn't the mistake. It's whether you learned, and whether you can be coached. That's the whole signal: are you someone who grows?
And the one move that beats every certificate on earth: build one tiny real thing.
This is the step almost nobody does. It's also the only one that actually separates you.
Go find a local nonprofit. Your temple, your mosque, your church. An animal shelter. A food bank. Anywhere. And use the free version of Claude to fix one annoying job for them. Their volunteer reply emails. Their donor thank-you notes. A little FAQ bot for their website.
Then put a number on it: "Took a small charity's weekly volunteer emails from a 4-hour slog down to about 30 minutes."
Why does this win? The whole filter is "comfortable working with AI." A certificate says you watched videos. A project says you can do the job. From my side of the table, the candidate who built something real jumps straight past the 200 people who only have certificates. Every single time.
And here's the kicker — the application itself asks whether you've built a tool that uses Claude, and gives you a box to drop a link to it. They're not asking you to tell them you can do the work. They're asking you to show them.
So be honest with yourself for a sec. When's the last time you built something — instead of just applying to things?
That's the gap. Close it, and you stop being applicant 800. You become the one they remember.
The part that matters most: this has a timer ⏳
I'll keep this simple, because it's the one thing you can't put off.
The first group — about 100 people — starts in October. Applications for it close July 17.
There are more cohorts coming in 2027. But the first one is the smallest and the least crowded it will ever be. Right now, most people haven't even heard this thing exists. That's your window. It does not stay open.
Everything you need is sitting on the official Claude Corps page at https://www.anthropic.com/claude-corps/fellow — go read it like it's the job description, because it basically is.
So here's where I'll leave you
The wall is real. I know, because I used to stand on top of it and tell people they weren't ready.
You didn't build that wall. But for years you've been the one paying for it — the rejections, the silence, the "come back when you've got experience."
And now, for the first time I can remember, a company is walking up to the people on the wrong side of it and handing them the exact keys everyone else has to pay for. No degree. No experience. Just show up, be real, and prove you're willing to learn.
The worst thing you can do is decide it's "not for you" and scroll on. Because you don't get to make that call from the "no" pile anymore.
You're the one holding the pen now. ✍️
So go write your name down.
If this helped, do this for me:
Follow me @jabezivanj — I share job search strategies that actually work, from someone who sat helping 3000+ jobseekers land their dream job.
Peace.
