Posts Tagged ‘Voluntary Work’
Voluntary Work Can Enhance Your CV
Historically people who did voluntary work has to endure something of a bad reputation as being ‘do gooders’ or people who wanted to interfere, but those days are certainly long gone. Now employers positively value people who take on voluntary work, because they feel that volunteering shows that people have not just a sense of community pride, but that they are willing to give something back to the community and learn new skills and have new experiences.
So if an employer wants to employ someone and is torn between two ideal candidates, s/he is more likely to give the position to the person who spends their Saturdays working as part of a team planting woodlands or restoring dry stone walls (or similar) rather than the person who lists their main out of hours hobby or interest as being retail therapy. Everyone can shop, but not everyone can work as part of a team, or show that they have leadership skills, through leading a Brownie Pack etc.
The volunteering does not have to be too demanding, but it should be something that is an interest for you. It need not be related to your career, but you need to review your CV once you have started voluntary work and actively show how the skills that you have acquired as a volunteer can be transferred into the workplace. So you use volunteering to actively jazz up your CV, which is a win - win situation for everyone.
You may think that if your are temping then whether or not you volunteer is irrelevant, but again, a recruitment agency will value any voluntary work that you do and will perhaps encourage you to transfer the skills learned into securing new temping positions, so effectively you cant lose out and you may meet some great new friends along the way.