Volunteer work not related to career

[Anonymous]

Can it help your career to do volunteer work not related to your profession? I am interested in enrolling in 40+ hours of training in order to volunteer with an organizations that help abused women. Just curious if this could be marketable if I work in an unrelated field.

[Anonymous]

Yes. People are impressed I've been volunteering for over ten years. It has absolutely nothing to do with my industry at all. I've never tried to market it. But when it's come up, people are always impressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes. People are impressed I've been volunteering for over ten years. It has absolutely nothing to do with my industry at all. I've never tried to market it. But when it's come up, people are always impressed.

What is your volunteer work?

[Anonymous]

Yes. I believe the experience can help you build transferable skills. I serve on the board of our neighborhood swim and tennis club - volunteer role. Serving on the board has given me exposure to some new areas (e.g., long-term planning, personnel issues, contracts) and helped me build skills in other areas (e.g., conflict resolution, budgeting, marketing, etc.). It opens your world, gives you different perspective, and helps you expand your network. The downside is the time commitment. Only so many hours in a week.

[Anonymous]

Sure - networking, skill building. Just make it small on the bottom of your resume. Certified Volunteer for Women’s Shelter…

I’ve seen some weird resumes that highlight interests: puppies, skateboarding, knitting, Qanon, Aryan Guard etc…

Time and place…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. People are impressed I've been volunteering for over ten years. It has absolutely nothing to do with my industry at all. I've never tried to market it. But when it's come up, people are always impressed.

What is your volunteer work?

At a farmer's market.

[Anonymous]

Yes, my volunteer work was only tangentially related to my field, but it was good experience on my resume as I transitioned from SAHM back to my original field.

[Anonymous]

Sure: it may be good for networking, it shows commitment, and you might get some transferable skills in management, organization, fundraising, logistics, dealing with people, etc.

[Anonymous]

It depends what the volunteer activity involves. Oftentimes volunteering involves essentially clerical work, or light manual labor, or something which is not very taxing intellectually like working in a food pantry - just unpaid labor. While maybe great from a social welfare/doing good perspective, such activity is probably essentially useless as a substantive professional qualification. Volunteering in more professional capacities may translate better to professional paid employment.

[Anonymous]

Volunteering where you supervise and coordinate other volunteers is always a good thing to have in your portfolio. If you can spin it as "management experience", even better.