Volunteer Experience On Your Resume
I think most of us agree that your resume is the single most important marketing tool you have for your job search. Even if you have an in on a position, HR will probably still insist on having a resume on file. If you don’t have a lot of formal experience, are just out of school, have been out of work for a while (more than ~6 months), or are returning to work after an extended absence to care for family (and volunteer experience can be one of the most important things you focus on during this time) then this content becomes super important.
If you have great experience and want to round yourself out as a person and show your abilities via your efforts to give back, there are still a few basic rules to keep in mind. Volunteer experience really needs to have the same impact as your work history — content. Just putting the name of an organization really wastes space. Make sure you indicate what your volunteer experience consists of. Just putting “Abe’s Shelter” doesn’t tell the reader anything and is incomplete. “Abe’s Homeless Shelter — donations coordinator” tells the story. We know now that it is a homeless shelter (vs. an animal rescue) and what your role was.
When you are trying to translate your volunteer experience to professional parlance, the first thing to do is look at the organization as a whole. What industry “niche” would it occupy? Think education, health care, IT, finance, etc. Once you have determined the industry, try looking at similar private entities. Use the filter feature by industry on Indeed, Monster, ZipRecruiter, or CareerBuilder and type in a keyword or two associated with your position. For example, if you were the treasurer for your running club, look up other non-profit entities such as the Red Cross and then type in “budget” as a key word. See what comes up, and decide if the verbiage in the job description can be used to help build a framework for you to build a description for yourself.
The rules for converting your volunteer experience to “corporate speak” are no different. Let’s take the treasurer example. How much money did you handle? Did you track expenditures and payments? Was there an increase in the positive balance during your tenure? Did you track capital expenditures, or perhaps there was a fund-raising drive while you were on the board? All of these can be important points to highlight on your resume, especially if you are unemployed and this is the majority of “work” you are doing.
Let’s say you provide professional services and have chosen to do some pro-bono work. If this is the case, treat it as you would any other client project. If at all possible, it is always advisable to do volunteer work that is in line with your professional talents. (For example right now I volunteer for the FB “Free Resume Review” Group as a moderator and a reviewer.)
Volunteering during a tough economy is a very viable way to improve your existing professional skills as well as build new ones. Just remember that they *are* professional skills that can help you transition smoothly.
(I also have an older blog on making sure you aren’t including personal/volunteer content that may be detrimental to your professional search, and what sorts of activities employers look at favorably.)
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Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.
