201
Volunteering is something that comes up for almost every professional in career transition!
The term volunteer may have lowly connotations, but these positions can play an important role in your career, and you shouldn't downplay them in your resume, social profile or conversations.
Sometimes when you're making a career pivot, volunteer experience is the only thing that will get you in the door.
Showcase your skills and leadership by adding those volunteer positions as separate positions in your resume and LinkedIn Experience section. There is a volunteer category on LinkedIN, but using that puts them at the bottom, and at ArcVida we think they should be concurrent with your paid positions at the time.
Ron Rapatalo, ArcVida’s cohort leader and a full-time recruiter of educational leaders recommends, "Spend time expanding your Linkedin summary and headline. And, If you've built new skills by volunteering you need to show:
1) how you built these skills
2) how you fit into the organization
3) what the impact of using these skills are
and
4) how they'll transfer to your next role. "
Here's a link to read the full blog post with advice from Anna Hunter, Ron Rapatalo. and Colleen DelVecchio: https://arcvida.com/Blog/Post/showcasing-volunteer-experience-to-level-up-in-your-career
<3 this post if you know that volunteering to make your world a better place has a lot more benefits than just leveling up in your career!
#LevelUp #Volunteering #ResumeAdvice #LinkedinTips #CareerTips
Hi Elissa,
Thanks for this great tip to move the Volunteer position up within the Experience section. I tried this but it placed it as my first role under Experience. I would prefer to have it positioned somewhere else, can you advise on how to move it?
https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/83317/rearranging-information-on-your-profile?lang=en
Thanks for the tips. I did not realize until I read your post that there is an option to capture volunteer experiences on LinkedIn. I am going to check and update my profile soon. Thanks again.