Volunteering – A Great Way To Build New Skills And Enhance Your Resume

iStock | Roman Yaroshchuk

A great way to follow your bliss is to volunteer for an organization or cause. There are great non-profits, NGOs, schools, and groups doing important and meaningful work in everything from human rights to the arts. Hospitals, schools, libraries, churches, and charitable foundations are just a few of the places that are always seeking volunteers. 

Interning and volunteering are not the same things. Yes, the salaries are the same – zero – but that is where the similarities end. An internship is a specific career-oriented position to accelerate your professional goals. Volunteering is a choice you make to help others. While most internships are unpaid, they are part of a journey whose goal is money. Volunteering's overall goal is to aid the less fortunate or further a universal cause.  

For example, nobody cares about your Wall Street internship except your parents. It's boring to 99% of the human (and animal) population and says nothing about you except that you most likely sleep at the office. But if you spend your weekends volunteering to register voters, delivering meals to seniors, or teaching underprivileged kids how to code, it says a lot about your true self - the self that isn't readily apparent on a resume.

Here is the great news. There are ancillary advantages to being a good person. While good works are often their own reward, volunteering your time for an objectively noble cause has a halo effect.

Volunteering is an opportunity for self-enrichment. It’s worth exploring whether or not there are volunteer opportunities near you that speak to your passions. Take the example of a museum docent. Perhaps you're an accountant with a passion for art. Unless you do the books for Christie's, chances are there's not a lot of art going on in Accounts Payable. You can connect with that passion by sharing your love and knowledge of art with others. Volunteering adds dimensions to your life and gives you a more balanced perspective. Once you've spent time conducting art therapy for terminally ill children, dealing with your difficult supervisor will seem like a walk in the park.

Volunteering is an opportunity to learn new skills without being graded. Every experience teaches you new skills. Regardless of your proficiency and success in your chosen field, volunteering means collaborating with different personality types than you may be used to, performing new and unfamiliar tasks, and being in an environment with criteria for success that is dramatically different from a professional workplace. You can operate outside your comfort zone with the comfort of knowing there's no performance review. Organizations are always grateful for volunteers. Help out and learn stress-free. 

Volunteering is an opportunity to enhance your resume. For some inexplicable reason, the Volunteer section of a resume is at the bottom. It should be at the top. Volunteer roles give the reader a window into who you are instead of what you've done. More great news. Those new skills you learned are great conversations during a job interview. Let's say you honed your event management and development skills by throwing fundraisers for a local children's charity. That experience and those transferable skills make you a more well-rounded candidate and differentiate you from others.

Bonus tip: Consider your volunteer work on the same level as your "real" work. It's meaningful, and the skills you learn are just as vital. Track your progress just like you (should) do at your job. On your resume, highlight your volunteer accomplishments the same way as your professional ones. Yes, recruiters and hiring managers get excited when they see you increased overall revenue by 25%. Everybody loves money. Helping feed 500 families a month who are food insecure is not too shabby either. Flaunt it.

Ready to change the world? You can start here.

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Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching is a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, career coaching services, and outplacement services. You can email us at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or reach us via the website, www.insidercs.com.

Fill that Hole in your Resume!

Candidates often find themselves between jobs. Layoffs, family leave, or whatever the reason. Thus, it’s not unusual for job seekers to have what’s known as a "hole" on their resume, or a “gap” in employment.

In employers’ terms, that time is unaccounted. Without proper context, an employer might imagine that you’re spending your time on the couch eating bonbons and watching Roseanne reruns.

The point here is not to advise you how to hide such gaps on your resume. Rather, how do you really use that time effectively so that you don't have a hole?

Okay, let’s paint a picture.

You and your employer have parted ways, leaving you unemployed.

Yes, it sucks. You’ve indulged in the obligatory week of self-pity and doubt.

Now, shake it off! We’re going to make some lemonade out of these lemons.

You now have an abundance of a resource which was in seriously short supply. I refer to time.

Here are some suggestions on ways you can close that pending gap on your resume, by keeping busy with meaningful activities. Fill the hole!

• Assuming you know what type of position you would like pursue, devote a standing portion of every day to your job hunt. Block the time on your calendar when you will check job listings, apply to jobs, send out resumes, visit an outplacement center (assuming your prior employer gave you that benefit). Routine will reinforce in your mind that searching for a job is a job in itself. Consider dressing in business attire to put yourself in the mindset.

• Find temporary, part-time work to keep busy. A few years ago, I left a recruitment position without another job in hand (the position and I were a poor fit for each other). Through my network, I came across a part-time opportunity with a staffing firm. We were able to come to an arrangement where I was able to work a flexible schedule. They allowed me to interview for full-time jobs on an as-needed basis, and at the same time, I kept my skills sharp. Plus, after taking the ego hit of being unemployed, I was able to rebuild my confidence and demonstrate to potential employers that my skills and I were still in demand.

• Volunteer. Do you have a favorite cause? Skills you can share? Consider volunteering with a charitable cause close to your heart. In the nonprofit world, dollars are tight – and giving freely of your time a few hours a week can ease a substantial burden. A benefit in addition to adding some karma to your account, is that you can pick and choose the work you wish to contribute. Are you an accountant, and your church could use some help installing QuickBooks? Or does the local food pantry need help boxing meals? Or can you provide extra assistance in some other area of your expertise?

Obviously, if the hole in your résumé is in your past, try to think back of how you spent that time. If you used it working in an unrelated field or volunteering, account for that time on your résumé as such.

Oh - in case you were wondering, full-time parenting counts as work. Take your credit where it's due.

Scott Singer is the President and Founder of Insider Career Strategies Resume Writing & Career Coaching, a firm dedicated to guiding job seekers and companies through the job search and hiring process. He is a Human Resources professional and staffing expert with almost two decades of in-house corporate HR and staffing firm experience, and is a Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) and Certified Professional Career Coach (CPCC).

Insider Career Strategies provides resume writing, LinkedIn profile development, and career coaching services, including a free resume review. You can email Scott Singer at scott.singer@insidercs.com, or via the website, www.insidercs.com.