Many of us have a hard time saying no when asked to volunteer, whether it’s at our house of worship or our kid’s school. Now, no one’s saying you should overcommit yourself to the point where you’re pulling your hair out. But it turns out that volunteering can be good for your career as well as your soul.
Here’s How It Works…
In a volunteer gig you get to learn new skills. Plus, when you’re working for free, you have more flexibility about learning as you go and not having to worry about how your performance might affect a promotion. And here’s the best part: When you find yourself on the job market, your volunteer experience—and the skills you’ve learned from it—give you an edge in a few ways.
· Companies value their employees’ service to the community. Showing that you give back is a bonus and gives you something to talk about in an interview.
· You can highlight skills and talents you may not have had the chance to develop in a paying job. Your background may be in sales but, for example, if you spent a few years volunteering as a webmaster for a good cause, this shows you’re tech-savvy, too.
· Your experience allows you to network in new and different ways. The person standing next to you at the soup kitchen may be hiring in the near future.
Putting It on Paper
The trick is to frame your volunteer work on your résumé in a way that appeals to a potential employer. Slapping on a subhead called “service” or “volunteering” at the end of your résumé probably doesn’t do you any justice. Instead, consider reorganizing your résumé to highlight your abilities rather than your jobs in reverse chronological order.
So if you volunteered as a board member of your daughter’s preschool or you were a committee chair for a local charity, you could list those both under the heading of “Leadership.” Add in the words “pro bono” after those gigs. It sounds richer than “volunteer.” If you held similar leadership positions in the corporate world, you can put those under that heading, too.
Finally, whenever possible, quantify your volunteer experience, such as how much money you raised for your church or how many people you served with an outreach program. This is sure to impress the person reading your résumé and help it float to the top of the “to interview” pile—and that’s a big step in a tough economy!
Dress Up a Plain Suit
