10 Advantages of Volunteering While Still Waiting For a Job
10 Advantages of Volunteering While Still Waiting For a Job. In this competitive world, you have to find ways to be ahead of your peers. One way to do that is to boost your CV by volunteering. Find out how this noble gesture can be of value while you are still waiting for employment.
You Have Something Productive To Do
Volunteering is a great way to minimize a gap in your resume. Volunteering just a few hours a week shows employers that you aren’t content with sitting on your couch, and gives you recent professional experiences to talk about in interviews.
2. Your Skills Get Polished
If you have an interest or hobby that you’ve never pursued formally, volunteering can help you gain on-the-job experience that you can potentially leverage into a paid opportunity in the future. As long as you are clear with the organization about your skill level and any limitations, you can hone your talents while providing a much-needed service.
3. It Looks Good On Your CV
If there’s one point that you can’t refute, it’s that volunteer work looks great on your resume. After all, when’s the last time you heard someone complain about a person being too helpful and community-minded? Probably never.
4. You Become More Professional
By volunteering you can improve how you communicate with colleagues and supervisors, work as part of a team, stay organized, meet deadlines, and much more. And depending on your specific role, you may even learn more advanced management skills like how to juggle multiple priorities and delegate to other volunteers.
5. You Learn More About Yourself
Beyond company size, volunteering is also an effective way to discover other important tidbits about how you function. Do you like working independently, or as part of a team? Do you enjoy getting your hands dirty, or do you prefer to do the coordination and administrative tasks? Does working with a certain type of organization make you feel especially inspired and fulfilled?
6. Lets You Try Out a New Career
With volunteering there isn’t as much risk to your resume and reputation as there is with accepting a paid, full-time job and then quitting a few months later if you don’t like it. As long as you uphold your end of the commitment to the organization, you can see first-hand what it would be like to work in that field and then decide if it’s something you’d like to pursue down the road.
7. It Presents an Opportunity to Network
Volunteering is an easy and completely natural way to meet some new connections in your area. Volunteer opportunities have a pretty friendly, low-pressure environment. This means that you can have genuine, engaging conversations with people who share your interests—without that awkward air of expectations.
8. It Helps You Determine Your Career Goals
Donating your time to volunteer is also a great way to gather information and find out a little bit more about what exactly you’re looking for in regards to your career. Perhaps you’ve always worked for a large company and are curious about what life is like with a smaller nonprofit. Or, maybe you’re itching to find out a little bit more about what it’s like to work in a startup environment.
9. Demonstrate That You’re a Risk Taker
Volunteering can force you to step outside of your comfort zone, especially if you’re working away from home or performing tasks that are new to you. Employers will likely be impressed by your ability to rise to a challenge and (hopefully) persevere.
10. It Makes You More Confident
An expanded network. Increased knowledge. Improved skills. They all help you to present yourself as a more impressive and well-rounded candidate. And, strolling into an interview feeling qualified and competent? Well, it’s a pretty nice boost to your confidence.
