How Volunteering Can Improve Your Career

If you want to be more employable, having some volunteering experience is a great way to go about it.

But why does it make you more employable?

Being able to boast a comprehensive set of employment skills is one of the key weapons in the arsenal of someone setting out on a career path, and adding volunteering – particularly in the industry in which you’re looking to work – is a great way to boost your credentials and appeal to prospective employers.

Having volunteering experience on your CV helps you become more employable by showcasing not only your skills within a particular field but also your compassion and thought for others, two great qualities hiring managers search for in a potential employee.

Other reasons volunteering can boost your employment skills include:

• Network building

• Skill expansion

• Trying out without job hopping.

Offering to work for free in an area in which you one day hope to build a profession can help you to meet professionals and prospective employers or partners in the right area – even if the people you encounter directly aren’t able to offer you something in the future, their network of contacts can be available to you once you’ve worked alongside them.

Expanding your skills with voluntary work is invaluable as it enables you to learn “on the job” without seeming amateur or accident prone in a professional setting. Many voluntary organisations are in desperate need of all the help they can get, so you’re likely to discover a great deal (new skills, techniques and software) about your chosen profession in a short amount of time.

Working in a voluntary capacity is also a great chance for you to test the water in your chosen career, to make sure you’re entering the right area, that it suits your capabilities, and perhaps highlighting areas you might need to concentrate on improving.

Research shows boost to employment skills

Online recruitment organisation Seek’s volunteer arm SeekVolunteer reports a growing respect and preference for employees demonstrating a history in volunteering.

SeekVolunteer Manager Amanda Robinson says: “Our experience is that volunteering really is a career selling point… research found that 69% of people say it shows the type of person they really are and 68% believe it shows an employer that they can roll up their sleeves.”

Volunteering Australia is the main body for volunteering work in Australia, and is, therefore, a great place to start looking for suitable roles.

 Whether you’re studying your Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care or to become a Nursing Assistant or Payroll Officer, you’ll almost certainly be able to find voluntary work – either here in Australia or anywhere around the world – in which you can learn more about your chosen profession and meet like-minded people working in the industry you’re looking at going into.

How do I start? There’s no need to wait – you can start studying and volunteering today. Call Foundation Education right now on 1300 616 197 and enquire about our range of courses within your preferred industry.

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