Put Volunteer Work on Your Resume

When you are looking for a job, your resume gets your foot in the door. It represents you to a potential employer and you want it to stand out from the resumes of the other applicants. One way to capture the interest of an employer is to show that you are an involved citizen — someone who works to make the community a better place to live. In other words, make sure your volunteer work appears on your resume.

It is a common misconception that there is only one “right” way to design a resume. Actually, the most important thing is to present the information in such a way as to document and support your career goal. If you tell a prospective employer that you want a particular job, your resume must prove that you are the right candidate to fill it. Sometimes your paid work history may not be as important as what you have done as a volunteer in demonstrating that you have the necessary job skills.

One approach used by many people is to add a section to their resumes called “Community Service” or “Volunteer Work.” They list the highlights of their volunteering here, to show that they have interests outside of their employment history already described. This is certainly better than ignoring volunteer experience on a resume, but it is not the best way to highlight what you have learned as a volunteer.

Consider integrating your volunteer work into the section of your resume called “Work Experience.” Even if you were not paid a salary and did not consider the volunteering to be “employment,” it certainly was productive work and should count as “experience.” The key is to translate what you gained from the volunteer activity into the language of the paid work world.

Don’t use “volunteer” as a job title. It’s an adjective and alone does not convey the work that you accomplished. So, if you did tutoring, use the title “Tutor.” If you coordinated a project, identify your work accurately as “Project Coordinator.” The fact that you filled this position in an unpaid capacity is part of your description of the work. First grab your prospective employer’s interest with an accurate position title.

Next describe the volunteer work in terms of your achievements, highlighting the skills that you learned and demonstrated. What would be important to the work world about what you did? For example, did you raise $100,000? Did you manage a budget or accomplish goals on schedule? Did you supervise a staff of people? Even if they, too, were volunteers, your success required the ability to be a motivating leader. All these sorts of things impress an employer.

Take the time to analyze what you learned as a volunteer. Did you have the chance to practice public speaking? Write reports, news releases, newsletters? Plan projects, coordinate sub-committees, train others to do the work? Such skills are applicable to just about any setting.

Describe your activities and achievements fully. You do not need to say these were done as a volunteer, though you are of course welcome to do so. If you feel uneasy about representing volunteer work as equivalent to a full-time paid job, you can identify the volunteering as being part-time. Be honest. Don’t overstate what you did. But also be sure to give yourself the credit you deserve.

If you are a student seeking your first real job, being able to show volunteer work on a resume demonstrates that you had interests beyond the classroom. If you are returning to the paid work force after some time away, your volunteer activities prove that you kept yourself sharp and involved. If you want to change career fields, it may be your volunteer work in the new field that tells a prospective employer you’re worth the risk, even if all your paid employment history is in some other field.

Be unapologetic about giving space on your resume to volunteering. Since the whole goal of a resume is to get you an interview, think how more interesting your face-to-face conversation will be when you add all those community activities to show you who really are.

Let your friends and family know your on a job hunt. They should know what kind of job your looking for and have easy access to your resume. This is where a dynamic web resume makes things easy, just make sure your contacts have your link. Send your web resume link to them on facebook or email. This will pay huge dividends. The easier you make it for people to help you the more likely they are to help you.

“Throw it out there.” Bring up your job hunt to people during converstion you never know what might happen. About.com states, “At least 60% – some report even higher statistics – of all jobs are found by networking.” If you meet a new contact, email them the following day saying it was nice meeting them and to keep you in mind if they come across any job opportunities. Then, just add in your web resume link and your all set.

1. What is a Curriculum Vitae?
A curriculum vitae (singular form, noun), meaning “course of (one’s) life, (vee-tie or vi-tee) is a document that gives much more detail than does a resume about your academic and professional accomplishments. Curricula vitae (plural form, noun) are most often used for academic or research positions, whereas resumes are the preferred documents in business and industry.

2. How can a Web Resume CV help you?
First off, you need to look at the problems with a CV. A CV is basically a 20 page document listing out your experiences, education, fieldwork, publications, grants received, awards, and the list goes on… yes for 20 or more pages! So, when you convert your curriculum vitae to a web resume CV your reader does not fall asleep. You are going to list your experience with links to the company or school that you were employed. You are going to link in PDF documents of your publications. This is one of the most exciting things you can do with your web resume CV; you can have your future employer clicking on all your publications and read a little snippet of your work.

3. CV versus Resume
Both CVs and resumes introduce you to the reader. Whereas a CV is comprehensive, a resume is brief. Both promotional documents include information about skills, experience, accomplishments, and education. Both CVs and resumes detail your credentials for obtaining funding or a job interview. A CV can be compared with a videotape that you produced over the years, while a resume can be likened to a snapshot.
In general, a person who has obtained a master’s degree or a doctorate and has published papers uses a CV, especially if applying for a position in a research and development (R&D) organization or for an academic position.

This is just one great example of how you can make your web resume dynamic. Another example, Jonathan Koop has one of the most dynamic resumes that we have made. On his “Education and Accolades” section he has two great awards that he wanted highlighted. He was featured in a Worcester Telegram and Gazette article and also on Pulse Magazine’s 27 to Watch. We simply went to the website of the publication and converted the articles to PDF form and linked them to his resume. On an old-school paper resume Jonathan would have just listed these two great accomplishments, but on his dynamic web resume Jonathan shows his potential employer how special he is! Take a look at Jonathan Koops Dynamic Web Resume. Using PDF documents on your resume has endless possibilities. If you browse through our examples you will see other applications of this. One of my favorites is putting writing or work examples on PDFs and linking them to a resume. It just makes things so much easier for the employer they do not have to email or call you for extra information because it is all right there at their finger tips. That is the goal of your web resume, to make it as easy as possible for someone to offer you an interview or job.

Never hesitate to contact Dynamic Web Resume with any questions, comments, or suggestions. We are a start-up company and have been making Web Resume for two years now. All of our resumes are edited and reviewed by a resume writing professional. Always check back to our web resume examples page to see the new examples that we have posted! Copyright 2010 – Dynamic Web Resume created by Grover Enterprises.

A deeper look into the statistics of employment will show you how important it is to keep an up to date resume. The Bureau of Labor Statistics states that baby boomers help an average of 10.8 jobs between the ages of 18-42. Having a strong and up to date web resume will help you make these 10 job changes all in the right direction, up and with more money!

Employees from the age of 18-22 experience the highest job turn-over rate. 72% of jobs will be over within a year and 94% within 5 years. These results are startling! Most people especially in this age range apply to their next job with the same resume as the first. How do you expect to move up in the business world without compounding your experience and education?

Yes, the above example deals with a very volatile age group. However, the statistics do not get much better. By 35 people expect to have security and a steady job, but the numbers are not looking to secure. The age group of 38-42 shows high employment turnover as well. 31% of jobs last less than a year and 65% are over within 5 years. Who do you want to be? The 38 year old getting a new job because he is moving up the latter to more money and power or the 38 year old moving horizontally with stagnant wages.

My solution to this problem is to first off get your web resume from Dynamic Web Resume. Then, keep it up to date! Set an appointment in your datebook every 3-6 months. Spend an hour revising and updating your resume. You never know when you are going to need your resume. Think about your mindset during a tough time. Your 40 years old 3 years into a great job and you’re axed due to cutbacks because of the economy. Every emotion in the world is flowing through your head… Car bills, children’s tuition, and a mortgage. How are you going to be able to sit down and express the great work you have done over the past 3 years? Keeping your resume up to date will help you turn setbacks into unexpected surprises!

For more information please visit Dynamic Web Resume. For great resume examples please visit our web resume examples page. Any more information related to this article can be directed to Don Grover at Donny@DynamicWebResume.com.

Now that we have strongly disproved the reasons against putting a picture on your resume let’s review the benefits. First, I feel that providing a headshot on your resume compounds your personal professionalism. A small smile and friendly face will make any employer comfortable about bringing you in for an interview or hiring you. The comfort of the employer is your number one goal in developing your resume they must feel comfortable about your education, experience, skills, and ultimately you. Secondly, we are not all beggars here. You do not want to work in a workplace that does not like you. If you are trying to hide your race, age, or gender in your resume because a certain job opportunity only hires a certain gender or race. Do you really want to work there? Is that particular company producing at 100% when they are not hiring the best people for the job? These types of business practices are very detrimental to a company in the long run. You do not want to invest your trust, time, and experience into a company that is not making the right decisions.

Thank you for reviewing this article from Dynamic Web Resume. Click here to see many examples of web resumes with a picture in the cover letter. For more information please email us at Donny@DynamicWebResume.com.