Volunteer work can be beneficial when building a resume. For many, it is a way to develop and showcase skills, as well as fill in employment gaps. You may feel unclear about how to put volunteer work on your resume or whether to include it at all. Read on to learn more about how to handle non-paid experience on your resume when applying for jobs.
Step One: Evaluate Your Volunteer Experience
Volunteer experience can give your resume a strong boost. It helps show hiring managers your soft skills like collaboration or a service mindset. If the actual work and duties overlap with the types of responsibilities you seek in your next job, it can be a central part of your qualification.
You may be hesitant to include volunteer experience on your resume, especially if you’ve been told to omit non-paid roles and keep the focus on your professional experience. Also, you might wonder if it’s somehow wrong to take credit for this work on your resume and use it to advance your career. Isn’t the whole point of volunteering to give back to your community and not expect anything in return?
It’s a fair question. The best answer comes from reminding yourself of the primary purpose of a resume: to give a hiring manager a clear and complete picture of your qualifications. If you leave it out, you won’t give the hiring manager a complete understanding of your background and if they should invite you to interview. Do them (and yourself) a favor by adding your volunteer experience.
Consider the organization you served, how you contributed, and how often. If you participated in a one-time walkathon to raise funds several years ago, that may be omitted. However, if you participated in such an event every year for the past five years, raised a considerable amount of funds, and are applying to a full-time role for that organization, then it is significant.
Step Two: Assess Where To Include Your Volunteer Experience on Your Resume
Depending on your overall work history, you have two options: combining your non-paid with your paid experience or having a separate section exclusively devoted to volunteering.
Blend volunteer experience with your professional experience if it helps fill a gap in your recent work history. For example, say were not working from 2021 to 2023 but were a mentor in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program during this time. Mentioning this in between your regular job descriptions gives the hiring manager a better understanding of your activities during this break in employment.
EXAMPLE
EXPERIENCE
Washington Medical Center, Washington, D.C.
Medical Assistant, May 2023 – present
- Schedule all patient appointments for a high-volume pediatrics office with six full-time physicians and two nurse practitioners, handling up to 40 appointments per day
- Interface effectively with diverse patient populations, communicate with empathy and understanding, and contribute to a 95% patient satisfaction rating for the practice
- Obtain patient vitals, including blood pressure, temperature, and diagnostic information, and maintain medical records using electronic health records (EHR) software
Big Brothers Big Sisters, Washington, D.C.
Mentor, May 2020 – present
- Connect with one youth weekly to discuss academic and personal issues
- Provide resources, guidance, and support
- Serve as a role model and introduce the mentee to other professionals in the field of education based on her interests
Maryland Medical Center, Potomac, MD
Medical Coordinator, March 2018 – March 2020
- Managed patient appointments and scheduling for a physician’s office with over 120 active patients, which included maintaining electronic medical records (EMR)
- Collected patient insurance information and authorized services, provided information on co-pays to new patients, and interfaced with insurance agencies to resolve issues
Additionally, you can combine the two types of experience if the total of years of professional work is lower than your target job calls for. For example, you might apply for a web design job that requires four years of experience. You only have three years of professional web design experience, but you also spent a year doing part-time volunteer web design experience at a local nonprofit. In this case, it is best to combine the two sections.
Doing so will help the hiring manager see that while your work history may be limited, your overall web design experience is more comparable to their needs. In a case such as this, having a related experience section and including both (in reverse chronological order) would be the best strategy. Lastly, you can choose to delineate if the role was volunteer or not.
EXAMPLE
Related Experience
Brooklyn Youth Sports, Brooklyn, NY
Web Designer (Volunteer), June 2023 – present
- Provide support to senior web designer and collaborate with front-end developers to design quality websites for newly created youth sports association
- Create strong visual assets, conduct wireframing, and define user experience (UX) design in accordance with user-centered design principles
- Perform graphic design activities to support a major overhaul of an underperforming website and collaborate effectively with back-end developers
Excel Web Solutions, New York, NY
Web Designer, April 2020-April 2023
- Executed front-end development projects for small and medium-sized businesses, including user interface (UI) design, UX design, wireframing, and graphic design
- Spearheaded initiatives to enhance the responsiveness of UI and collaborated with UX writers to improve user engagement
If neither of the above two scenarios applies to you, have your volunteer experience be its own section appearing below your professional experience section (similar to the other ancillary resume sections, like education or certifications).
EXAMPLE
Professional Experience
Front Desk Agent, Hotel Marriot, New York, NY October 2021 – present
- Manage and resolve guest issues for a high-end hotel with over 250 rooms and 15 conference rooms, communicate with empathy to determine solutions quickly, and achieve a guest satisfaction score of over 92%
- Perform the hotel booking schedule, coordinate with guests to reschedule hotel stays, and generate a 25% increase in hotel rewards membership sales
- Collaborate with cross-functional teams across hotel departments to communicate issues with rooms and amenities and ensure timely resolutions
Volunteer Experience
ASPCA, Bronx, NY June 2020 – present
You can simply list the extra information about your duties so the hiring manager has more details on your experience, or you may add bullet points.
- Clean cages and ensure animals have water and food as needed
- Answer phone, email, and in-person inquiries about available animals and fostering
Step Three: Analyze Your Role
To generate the proper amount of detail for any given volunteer job, brainstorm valuable skills you gained, tasks you handled, and what you learned. Then remove any points that don’t overlap with the types of duties or projects you expect to take on in your next job. For example, say your participation in Big Brothers Big Sisters gave you a tremendous mentoring experience. But if you don’t wish to mentor others in your next job, take out any points that relate to that area.
Don’t worry if this step leaves you with just a few points about the volunteer job — or none at all. All that means is the volunteer work in question happens to be unrelated to your job search. Still, give the basic details (position title, organization, location, and start and end dates) to help hiring managers get a sense of your overall community engagement and how you spend your time.
If this exercise leaves you with a lengthy description of your volunteer experience, that is okay too. The point of a resume is to show your relevant qualifications, regardless of where or how you gained them. As long as the volunteer details you provide all speak strongly to your job search goals, they have a rightful place in your finished document.
Frequently Asked Questions About How To Put Volunteer Experience on a Resume
How far back should I go when listing volunteer experience on my resume? -
Focus on recent volunteer experiences, ideally, those you participated in within the past five to 10 years. However, if an older volunteer role was particularly significant or relevant to your career goals, you can include it.
Can I include volunteer work from non-professional settings, such as religious or political organizations?-
Yes. Volunteer work from a variety of settings can be included as long as it demonstrates relevant skills or experiences. Just be mindful of how much detail you provide, especially if the volunteer work is in a highly personal or potentially sensitive area.
How do employers view volunteer work on a resume?-
Employers often view volunteer work positively, as it shows initiative, community engagement, and a willingness to contribute beyond paid responsibilities. If the volunteer work aligns with the job's required skills, it can be a strong advantage. When applying for a role in the nonprofit industry, it is strongly recommended.
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