"This is an entry level position. But we require 5+ years of experience."

This is what I deal with too :/

Same here. It's ridiculous!

With the continually rising minimum wage it has gotten to expensive to hire inexperienced individuals. Hiring a new employee has always been the expensive for companies. Now it is even worse given the amount it will cost to pay the employee during training. Furthermore increased wages has meant companies trim down the number of employees to complete the same job. This has resulted in laid off employees. With companies having the option of an employee with past experience so less training so less hiring cost, or the employee with zero experience so max hiring costs. They will usually choose the employee with experience. The one way around this is to take the initiative to apply despite not meeting qualifications and try to wow their socks off on how you know you can do the job despite no experience. But this will be an uphill climb as its not easy to wow them and so you will have to try many many times for success.

I know the feeling all too well =/ While I'm still studying for my upcoming career right now since I need to pass their exams first

Just as a side note, your NS counts as work experience. But do note that even though they SAID they need minimum work requirememt, just send anyway, there's no harm in doing it

The job listings are a false flag. They are not actually trying to hiring anyone, at least not from America. They want to hire foreign workers and bring them over here with H1B visas. However, the laws for these visas require the companies to attempt to fill the position with American workers and prove that no American workers qualified for the position.

So they make a bullshit job posting asking for 5 years of experience in a field that has only existed for three, asking for degrees that are not relevant to the job,and more bullshit. Then they show the feds that "see look here! No Americans qualify for the job. So let us bring in Mr. China and Mrs. India to do the job at half the salary.

Besides the H1B thing (iirc that's mostly a US tech sector issue), listing requirements that are near impossible to meet is legal CYA as well. Basically it grants them the ability to turn down pretty much anyone they want to while putting "not qualified" as the official reason. That could be anything from completely benign (e.g. they legit don't think the guy would be a good fit, but he's also 60 and they don't want to risk a frivolous age discrimination lawsuit), to completely screwed up (e.g. owners are a bunch of racists). Then if they find someone they do want, they just waive the requirement. Alternatively, it can also be because they have an internal candidate already in mind, but are legally required to publicly post the opening for x amount of days in order to "determine that there's no other qualified candidate" or somesuch.

Its like you need a job to get experience, but you need experience to get a job.

Those are the only kinds of jobs in this city...

Check around for internships in your chosen field. When I was first starting out, EVERYTHING required prior experience, so I started looking for internships to gain at least some practical experience. Even though they're low-pay and short term, Internships often lead to full positions and at the very least gain you valuable experience you can put on your resume to apply for better jobs in the future.