In an age when technology and social media have become the center of attention daily, soft skills are increasingly valued by companies. That is why including volunteering – despite being an activity that is carried out without the intention of obtaining benefits of your own – in your CV can make you stand out from other applicants or define you for the position. let us know about that the Volunteer Resume Examples, Skills, Objective.
This is because it shows many qualities in you, such as empathy. This is precisely one of those skills that will give you the ability to properly relate to your work environment. In this way, companies will know that you can feel part of a team and therefore also want the best for the company. However, you must know where and how to put this activity on your CV in the most effective way possible.
The volunteer experience, despite not being a paid job or with a formal employment contract, can be a very useful tool to help us find work. Some candidates, especially recent graduates, volunteer to have something to show on their resumes. Volunteering allows us to show an altruistic and committed image in front of companies, which can make us stand out from other candidates and that we get the job we are applying for.
Many people don’t know how or where to put volunteer work on their resumes. In this article, we explain the importance of placing volunteers on the CV and how to do it correctly.
Keys to preparing a Curriculum Vitae for volunteer work
The volunteer work is unselfish, yes, but that does not mean that the selection process will be different from any other job. The Curriculum Vitae for volunteering is essential to apply for a position of these characteristics. Human Resources managers at charities must ensure that candidates meet every requirement to volunteer. Thus, certain aspects cannot be missing from your CV for volunteering. Pay special attention:
Objectives
The objectives in the curriculum for volunteering are a very good way to let you know before entering the field. Add a small paragraph in which you describe yourself as a professional and indicate the work objectives that are related to the NGO you aspire to.
Academic training
Have you completed a bachelor’s or higher degree that could benefit your volunteer work? Do not hesitate to indicate it. Keep in mind that each volunteer is specialized in a specific area (health, environment, finance, children …) so having specific training in this area is more than recommended.
Complementary training
In the same way as the previous point, having studied a related course or having complementary training in the field is a plus of the most outstanding for your candidacy.
Work experience
Add the jobs that are related to the work you would do in the volunteer job position -especially if they are other experiences as a volunteer, worth the redundancy.
Others
Do you have a good level of language or computer skills that you can incorporate into your volunteer work? Feel free to add them.
Possible references
If you already have volunteer experience and a former superior or colleague has written positive personal references, this is the perfect time to bring it up. Advice? Don’t attach your references right off the bat; make it clear that, if they are interested in reading them, they can request them without any problem. What is clear is that good personal references for volunteering can earn you many points in the selection process.
Why a volunteer?
Volunteering takes you out of your routine, out of your bubble, and places you in a very different one where you will have to develop new skills or polish others as much as possible such as adapting to changes, respect, etc.
Why have volunteer experience?
consciously and responsibly knowing that this is what you want at this point in your life
the hat you are going to give your best in a reality very different from yours helping in a place where you are needed.
It puts you on a platter to discover what makes you vibrate, connect with life and grow as a person.
From then on, anyone who considers hiring you will perceive in you certain values and attitudes towards life that probably differentiate you from the rest.
When you start volunteering, you do it to offer your free time so that others can enjoy a better life. There are a lot of varieties of volunteering, from the labor camps in the poorest countries to volunteering with the elderly in your city, with sick children in hospitals or sports volunteering, to name a few examples, and also a lot from organizations that offer this option. Whatever the type of volunteering you exercise, you acquire a series of knowledge and skills so that you can capture your experience as a volunteer in your CV.
However, many volunteers choose not to include this experience on the resume. As it is an unpaid experience, it can create some confusion, since we cannot consider volunteering as work experience identical to the paid work that we have carried out throughout our professional career, but it has provided us with that experience that can help in the job for which we are writing the curriculum, has provided us with specific skills, has made us evolve personally, etc.
Despite not being paid or having a working relationship, the volunteer experience is one of those traits that can help you get a job. Volunteering could be that wild card that we have so that our resume reaches the recruiter and summons us to a job interview: it is something that, as a general rule, is very well seen by companies, who are faced with a committed worker; It helps you to offer that committed and altruistic image, and it can be the element that differentiates you from other candidates.
Remember that with the curriculum you have to get the recruiter’s attention.
Not everyone has done a volunteer service, and if they have, they do not always include it on their resume, so it can be that element that serves to arouse their interest. At the end of the day, if a lot of resumes pass through the hands of recruiters, and the fact of finding from time to time that of a candidate who has decided to include volunteer experience on his / her resume is still striking, That breaks the monotony of the rest of the resumes.
One of the basic rules when making a curriculum vitae is to adapt it to the job for which we apply, personalize each curriculum according to the job offer to which we respond. In the case of adding your volunteer experience to the curriculum, you cannot ignore this aspect, although perhaps this is one of the points where it is not so relevant.
Likely, the volunteer work you have carried out does not have much to do with your training, the sector you work in, or where you are looking for a job, but it is still important to add it to your CV.
Within volunteering, we will highlight those skills or capacities that you have provided us and that can help us to carry out that job we choose. If you have participated in several volunteer activities, you can dedicate a specific chapter to this section of the curriculum, although there is also the option of including it along with the work experience. The format is the same, and you will have to indicate questions about the type of volunteering or add the specific functions performed or what it has contributed to you – later we will talk about how to name volunteering.
The structure of the volunteer experience
Whether you use a separate section or include your volunteer work within your work experience, here is a list of the necessary information to include when writing about your volunteer experience, also in the correct order in which they are all organized. the details.
- Your volunteer role/title, organization, start and end dates ( dates must include month and year. You can also put the dates before the job title ).
- Brief description of the organization with its purpose or mission.
- Description of the responsibilities, the impact you had with the group during your time in office, and the achievements you achieved or your contribution to the organization. ( If you used specific skills for the job or some technology to carry out the responsibilities, and that these are some of those required for the position in question, this is the best space to mention them. It is even recommended that a bullet format outline your responsibilities and accomplishments in such a way that they are more readable. )
- If you haven’t mentioned your accomplishments yet, or you just want to emphasize the importance of everyone, end the section by mentioning your great accomplishments during each volunteer experience. ( Don’t forget to use numbers to measure your success .)
Examples
No matter where you decide to incorporate your volunteer work into your resume, it will improve whether you do it within the work experience section, in an additional experience section, or a separate community service section. Here are some sample volunteer job descriptions that can help you write your volunteer job descriptions.
Volunteer experience – Example 1:
Fundraising Advisor | The Happiness Foundation | June 2016 – December 2016
The Happiness Foundation is a popular educational movement of social promotion which promotes the education of young students who come from excluded and low-income sectors, to promote their personal development and social participation in young people. As a fundraising advisor, my mission was to create and develop fundraising strategies and visibility strategies for The Happiness Foundation office in Quito, Ecuador.
- More than $ 2,000 was raised through events and workshops with shareholders over 6 months.
- Contributions to the foundation were increased by over 30% in 4 months.
- I assisted in the creation of a long-term fundraising strategy that was implemented over 9 months.
Volunteer experience – Example 2:
English teacher | The Bernstein Literacy Coalition | April 2017 – January 2018
The Bernstein Literacy Coalition provides volunteer tutors who are experts in teaching English as a volunteer, to instruct adults 17 years of age and older, who do not attend public school, to measure the English proficiency of students from the ninth grade or their school performance.
- I did a 16-hour Teaching training program based on pedagogical and cultural awareness practices.
- I prepared weekly lessons based on the textbook “Compelling Conversations”.
- I instructed two adult students in English as a Second Language during three one-hour weekly sessions, with a fundamental focus on Vocabulary, Reading Comprehension, and conversational skills.
Volunteer experience – Example 3:
Webmaster | Angels’ Animal Rescue | July 2015 – Currently
Angels’ Animal Rescue (AAR) is a local non-profit organization dedicated to providing low-cost neuter services for pets and veterinary medical assistance to save the lives of animals in precarious conditions that can hardly survive. I completed my volunteer work managing the AAR website.
- Supervision of the operation and technical maintenance of the website: including links, menus, back-ups, the email management system, WordPress and the update of other programs, the domain of the website and the server, the architecture, and the maintenance of the website.
- Maintenance of the website and the AAR server using programming languages such as HTML / CSS, XML, basic SQL, and Javascript.
- Monitoring and analysis of website performance (such as traffic, conversions) using Google Analytics and proposals for new content based on relevant keywords.
- Creation of a monthly newsletter and in charge of communications via email with fellow volunteers and owners of adopted pets.
- Proactive update of calendars, events, and other online functionalities such as the main website and other reference pages.
Resume example
Mary K 123 30. USA / 608 77 88
ACADEMIC TRAINING
– Diploma of Secondary Education
WORK EXPERIENCE
– From January 2015 to May 2016, Volunteer inpatient care at the “General Hospital of Bahia”, helping health personnel in administrative matters. – From September 2014 to January 2015. Volunteer assistant at the clinic of Physiotherapy “Muscle Good”, attending to the needs of patients.- From February 2013 to September 2014. Volunteer assistant in administrative tasks of the “Central Hospital for Neurological Diseases”, in face-to-face and telephone care and administrative support.
LANGUAGES
– French. native level.- English. academic level B2.
APTITUDES
– Excellent relationships with patients, with special skills for work in the Attention service within health environments – Explanation of the admission process to both patients and their families – Supervision of the waiting area of patients for Management of the volume of the same and the resolution of the excessive waits.- Optimal Management of inventory and diverse administrative questions.- Expert in the confidentiality of the data of the patients.- Support of an administrative nature and Management of the office.- Telephone attention and face-to-face in clinical and hospital services, to determine the true needs of patients and serve as their first contact with the center.- Accompaniment of patients during their admission or in all the necessary procedures within a hospital center.- Transportation of patients in wheelchairs or stretchers when necessary to carry out certain tests or given their health status.
The 7 qualities that an international volunteer experience gives you
Confidence in yourself
Do you feel capable of doing what you want, even if it is alone?
Test yourself. It is allowed to make mistakes, what counts is trying.
Believing in yourself, finding the means, and taking the step shows your ability to pursue your dreams and to break down the barriers that are placed in front of you.
That is probably something you will never forget.
Courage
You have decided to go, alone or with someone, to an unknown place to help unknown people and to live another reality, probably harder than in your own country.
Every decision like this empowers you and makes you a master of your life.
Proactivity
You have been able to react to an inner stimulus that told you that you had to do something, and you have done it.
Staying at home thinking about how bad everything is, how difficult it is to work on your thing, is the easiest and most comfortable …
But also the most frustrating thing and, from my point of view, it ends up leaving you with an aftertaste of the half-lived life.
React to what your interior is telling you. The social injustices, the lack of information, the disappearance of species, whatever.
Remember that your resume is not just your collection of academic titles.
Resolution capacity
You decide your travel, you learn and you start to work more and more fluently. Little by little, you see yourself making decisions about what to do in situations that arise and that you would never have considered before.
You start to have experiences and resources that make you one of a kind (professionally speaking).
Who does not want on their staff someone who knows how to solve the challenges that arise?
Self-knowledge
Travel favors those moments of reflection and connection with ourselves.
If, in addition, the purpose of your trip is to improve the quality of life of others, such as volunteering,
I assure you that you will have many of those moments where something inside you is stirred. In those moments you consider yourself new perspectives and values that you had never thought of.
Do you see the value that this has for you as a professional?
See if it is important that self-knowledge and coaching are two areas that are increasingly being worked on within the work teams themselves. With your volunteering you have the opportunity to explore how you react, what are your strengths and weaknesses, your old beliefs, and your new ones.
360º vision
In your volunteer experience, you will have the opportunity to develop a new, broader vision of things.
A privileged perspective that those who have stayed within their comfort zone do not know.
Human values, political situations, points of view …
It is the incalculable value of talking and sharing moments with people from a different environment than yours.
Respect and multicultural teamwork
Nowadays, having experience in working with people from other countries is an incredible value for your professional profile. And not just because of the language.
Learn to deal with those differences and with diverse opinions that are surely generated in a work environment because they will not go unnoticed.
3 Reasons why you should volunteer
Volunteering is one of the best decisions you can make just when you are about to finish your university studies or, once you have finished them.
What benefits can you get from volunteering? Here are the most important ones:
Test your knowledge
Although it is not a financially paid job, your knowledge in certain areas must be employed. Therefore, being a volunteer allows you to have greater confidence in yourself and to realize everything that you have learned.
This positions you as a professional ready to enter the job market with the best possible preparation.
Create ties
By volunteering, the people with whom you carry out this activity become part of your primary network of contacts. This is very important since they are professionals who may eventually contact you for paid work.
In addition, you learn to consolidate relationships by obtaining a common goal. For this reason, teamwork is one of the great virtues of volunteering.
Be an agent of change
Modifying the environment of the less favored sectors is one of the benefits obtained when doing volunteer work. This modifies your way of thinking like a professional and allows you to create awareness regarding others, an issue that many companies value, especially, in which the values of their employees are an indispensable requirement.
What skills does volunteering bring?
Teamwork
Motivation
Honesty
Helpful feats
Social and interpersonal skills
Passion
Good physical skills
Functional Skills
- Preparation of legal and administrative reports
- Communication with clients
- Organization and planning of teamwork
Conclusion
Can’t write Bullet Points about your volunteering? No problem. Write an “Additional Activities” section and add your volunteering there. I give you an example:
Additional activities:
- Weekly collaborator with different local soccer teams to give motivational talks on sports psychology.
- Volunteer organizing the local art exhibition of the city.
- Writer and volunteer contributor to articles in the official press of the city council.
How about having this profile in your next interview for a position you want?
Indeed, you will not always be able to put all these things on your CV or Linkedin; some of them, and others that do not appear on the list, will be intrinsic to your attitude, to your way of expressing yourself, reacting, and interacting with others. But you should not ignore them or stop giving them importance for that.
