How to List Volunteer Work on Your Resume

When you include volunteer work on your resume you showcase to employers a whole suite of skills and evidence that not only can you do a job well but you also care deeply about people. Compared to paid work, volunteer work shows that you have values that go beyond money to prove that you could be a great asset to a team that values culture. Anyone can have an impressive work experience section that highlights their competence, but it takes a unique person to have an impressive volunteer section that shows your ability to connect with people on a human level. In this post, we'll share why you should list volunteer experience on your resume and how to list volunteer work on your resume.

Why You Should List Volunteer Experience on Your Resume

1. Highlights skills

When you include volunteer experience on your resume you highlight both hard and soft skills that can help you land the roles you apply for. Soft skills like leadership, initiative, or passion can all demonstrate you'd be a good fit for a job. After all, most people are fighting for volunteer opportunities since they're unpaid. However, unpaid roles can help you develop skills so you can eventually land a paid role, such as a leadership role in your career. Transferable skills like leadership could be learned in a volunteer position to prepare you for a full-time leadership role later in your career. It's also a great way to show hard skills learned as well. For example, accounting, marketing, sales, fundraising, event planning can all be done in volunteer positions. Then, once you develop those hard skills, you could apply to a full-time role for those roles on LinkedIn because you've developed those skills.

2. Shows compassion

Hiring managers don't only want to hire smart people, they also want to hire good people. The kind of people that treat people with kindness. The kind of people that lift each other up and boost morale. The kind of people who will make work a fun and rewarding place. People who volunteer are often more compassionate than others. They tend to go above and beyond for others. They're not the type of people who are only doing it for the money, they do it because they have heart. The ability to help the less fortunate shows that you have the capacity to love people regardless of what they can provide for you. Having volunteer work on your resume reminds hiring managers that you're human first, before any job title.

3. Helps pad out your resume with limited experience

Volunteer work on a resume is a great asset for new graduates and career changers. As long as the experience is relevant to the job, you can easily land a role even if you have fewer achievements. You can make your volunteer section a separate section or have it replace your work experience depending on how much relevant experience you have. The format doesn't matter as much. Still, it's an effective way to showcase that you're worth hiring. The skills and lessons you learn from working in volunteer positions are valuable. You could also use references from volunteer positions to help you land paying jobs. So, when you include volunteer work experience, you could help elevate your career, even if you weren't paid for your work.

4. Helps you land roles at social cause companies

A non-profit organization will likely look at volunteer work favorably. You can tailor your volunteer experiences on your resume to help you attract roles at similar companies. For example, you might volunteer in a healthcare organization to land a healthcare position. Or you might volunteer for an eco-friendly charity to work at an eco-friendly company. Or you might join a company that has set volunteer days that employees can take. Maybe you find a company that has a big philanthropy program that you could work in as a public relations specialist. There are so many ways to tie in volunteer work on a resume to help you attract roles at good companies that care about people. You don't have to work in volunteer roles at social cause companies. However, adding volunteer work could easily show how much of a culture fit you are. So, be sure to get those volunteer hours in.

5. Helps fill employment gaps on your resume

Volunteer experience can be used to fill employment gaps on a resume. In the event of a layoff, family leave, or any other gap, you could add some volunteer experience to your resume to help you get back out into the workforce. It helps show that someone still thinks you're a worthy candidate for the job market. Plus, volunteer work may help you gain the skills needed to re-enter the workforce. Volunteering does count as work experience, even if it's unpaid as you still gain knowledge, experience, and skills from it. And most employers will consider it when you list it on your resume. If you left the workforce to raise a family, you could re-enter the workforce by taking on some volunteer positions to help you regain necessary skills to get back to work.

When Not to List Volunteer Experience

Sometimes volunteer experience doesn't make sense on your resume. For example, if you were a volunteer for an organization more than five years ago, you probably don't want to include that volunteer work on your resume. Also, if your volunteer work isn't relevant to the role you're applying for, avoid adding it in. If you have to choose between volunteer experience or work experience on your resume, always choose relevant work experience. The volunteer experience shouldn't be the focus of your resume, unless you have no work experience.

How to List Volunteer Work On Your Resume with Huntr

1. Fill out details like you would a job description

Like your work experience on a resume, you would complete sections around the name of the charity, your job title, your responsibilities, the dates you were a volunteer at the organization and so on. Like you would on your work experience portion of your resume, you want your first bullet point to be your biggest accomplishment there. Your volunteer experience should still sell you as a candidate in the job search. Just because it's volunteer work on resume doesn't mean that you don't highlight your accomplishments or skills. Your volunteer work section should showcase how competent you are and the great results you've achieved in your role. Always choose to write achievements over responsibilities.

2. Separate volunteer work from professional work

Your volunteer work should be separate from your professional work experience. If you aren't being paid for a job, you should clarify that as it'll be seen differently. That doesn't mean that having volunteer experience isn't important or valuable, but traditional work experience will always be the preference for potential employers. So, you'll want your work experience to be the focal point if you have some. Your volunteer work should be labeled "volunteer experience" on your resume. Your work experience shouldn't include volunteer experience when you're applying for a job.

3. Use AI to help you craft your description

When it comes to your volunteering, you might want to pick skills you've developed in your role to help you craft your volunteering accomplishments. You'll find common skills volunteers in similar roles develop allowing you to make tweaks and edits to relevant experience you might've gained. If you were on the fundraising committee and helped raise $150,000, that's a notable achievement to share to someone who's considering to employ you. You can't use AI as is, you'll still need to add in your own unique resume accomplishments.

Conclusion

If you've done a ton of volunteer work, you should consider listing it on your resume. Not only do you get to show off some skills, you could also show hiring managers what kind of person you really are. If you're currently thinking about adding volunteer experience to your resume, you can use Huntr's AI resume builder to help you craft bullet points using a little help from AI. To start building your resume, sign up for Huntr today.