3 Ways Volunteering Helps to Build Your Resume

3 Ways Volunteering Helps to Build Your Resume 3 Ways Volunteering Helps to Build Your Resume 4Maybe you’re looking to break into a completely new career field. Or perhaps you took a hiatus to raise your kids. Now you’re looking to get a job and your resume is a little, well, thin. You’ll need to pad it up in order to show a prospective boss that you’re the ideal candidate for the job. So instead of bulking up your resume with exaggerations and non-truths (which you should never, ever do!), look for new, safer (read: honest) ways of packing a punch with your resume. The best way to do it? Volunteering. Here are a few benefits of volunteering to build your resume- and help you land a job. It offers you experience. Volunteering can definitely help expose you to hands-on work in areas like project management, sales, managing a team, marketing, accounting, and other job categories. In turn, this can offer you fresh experience to update your resume with. And since nonprofit jobs generally require a lot of work, youll often be given a good amount of responsibility when it comes to helping with a particular project or fundraiser. It broadens your network. When you were a stay-at-home parent, you may have lost touch with some of your closest connections. Or you might be trying to break into a new industry and not know a single soul. It can be hard to regain those connections- or even forge new ones- when you are looking to rekindle your career. Volunteering allows you access to a whole new group of fresh contacts in an industry that you want to build your career in. It gives you perspective. Chances are, when you are volunteering in a job, it is because you are interested in pursuing it professionally. By working in a new position- or even career field- you are getting a chance to see if it is something you truly want to do. In essence, it is a crash course in seeing what your “dream job” might actually be like, and if it is something you’d want to work towards in terms of further studies or professional work. You should look for volunteer opportunities that will blend in with your work-life needs. For example, finding a virtual volunteering job will allow you to work from your home office, rather than heading into an office every day. Readers, have you ever tried volunteering to build your resume? Did it help you get a job? Let us know in the comments section below!