Leveraging Volunteer Work On Your Resume

By: Beth Slagle, Esquire

Altruistic reasons aside, being a do-gooder can boost your resume in big ways. Showing employers or prospective employers that you’re involved in volunteer efforts is an indicator of your willingness to give back to the community and may give you the opportunity to demonstrate a skill set that you haven’t yet been able to showcase to your employer. Also, giving your time to others speaks volumes about the type of person you are. A big thumbs up for volunteerism all around.

So how do you leverage your do-gooder efforts on a resume?

Changing Careers/Re-Entering The Workforce

If you are looking to change careers or are re-entering the workforce, place the work related volunteer efforts front and center on your resume, but definitely note that the work is non-paid volunteer experience. You don’t want to misrepresent the status of the position to your prospective employer, but just because you weren’t compensated for your work doesn’t mean that you don’t have the skill set for the job for which you’re applying.

Lateral Move or Advancement

When you’re seeking a position in the same industry for which your skill set is already established, placing volunteer efforts on your resume is also important, but it shouldn’t be overemphasized. Your do gooder efforts should be placed in a separate section on your resume and appropriately labeled as such. Also, detailing every single nonprofit that you’ve ever volunteered for is unnecessary and at times is distracting. Focus on the nonprofits for which you have volunteered a significant amount of time as well as the more recent efforts.

Don’t Expose Yourself

Identifying volunteer efforts on your resume and to prospective employers speaks volumes about you as a person. However, if the nonprofit is controversial in nature, has religious or political over or undertones, you are automatically aligning yourself with that cause such that it may be off putting to the interviewer if their beliefs aren’t in line with yours. Additionally, your employer or prospective employer’s philosophy may be adverse to the very thing that you’re promoting. As such, voicing your do-gooding efforts may just be the thing that doesn’t get you hired. As a cautionary note, just be careful about placing volunteer efforts on your resume if the organization is controversial in nature.

Do As Your Employer Does

If you have your sights set on a particular employer, doing a little bit of research as to whether and how much your prospective employer focuses on volunteer efforts will pay off in the long run. Also, finding out which causes the employer has embraced will put you ahead of the crowd if you’re already putting in hours at the employer’s favorite organization.

References

Don’t forget about asking individuals you’ve worked with at nonprofits for favorable references. They can be your best advocates in providing solid and valuable references.

So, all those hours you put in on weekends and evenings as part of your do-gooder efforts CAN pay off.  Have your volunteer time benefit you by putting those efforts on your resume and letting employers and prospects know that you’re altruistic, community oriented and have valuable skills that they just might not know about.

Beth Slagle, Esquire – Attorney – Meyer, Unkovic & Scott and BizChicks Founder/CEO bas@muslaw.com or beth.slagle@bizchicks.org or 412.456.2890