Volunteering as a Career Development Strategy

Previously published in the Times Beacon Record Newspapers, Employment Section, August 30, 2007

by Laura Smith Dunaief

Recently, a former colleague notified me that he is taking a new job as an event planner for a major lobbying organization in DC.  I cheered for him, not just because it is a great opportunity, but because I know he worked very hard to get it.

Event planning is not part of a traditional career path for a human resources representative, a role in which he has spent most of his life.  Rather, it’s the career he decided several years ago to pursue.

After doing research into what it takes to get a well-paying job as an event planner – lots of experience doing it – he decided that he needed to find a way to get that, without giving up his good income for a starvation-wage job in an entry-level position.  He came upon a masterful solution: volunteer as an event planner for non-profit organizations in his spare time.

He, and many like him, are discovering that non-profits and other volunteer organizations provide a tremendous training ground for traditional paying jobs. Volunteer organizations are starved for dedicated and motivated workers to take on roles as far-flung as project management, logistics coordination, event planning, and plain old supervision of other volunteers. Thus, they are often willing to allow those with little experience to roll up their sleeves and test their mettle.

This provides an opportunity for people, like my former colleague, who want to try out a new career and earn their stripes, and for those who cannot convince their employers to allow them to take on management responsibility in their current jobs.

And for those of you who already volunteer, I challenge you to look at your volunteer experiences in a new light. What skills are you developing that will help with your career? Is this something you can highlight on your resume? Suddenly, coaching the little league team, organizing the walk-a-thon, or cleaning up the beach can take on new dimensions.

A word of caution for those of you who are considering this approach: make sure you follow through.  The fabulous referrals and networking contacts you muster from volunteer organizations are the same as those from a paying company, if you treat it as a paying job. 

Don’t overcommit, and don’t offer to take on responsibility that you can’t execute. If you’d like to try your hand at something that’s completely new to you, ask if you can assist someone with more experience for a while. And if you find yourself in trouble, time-wise or skill-wise, ask for help. Leaving them high and dry when they’re counting on you will cause your efforts to backfire.

So, now you’re plugging along, developing new skills and wowing your fellow volunteers with your dedication and skill. How do you get this onto your resume?

First, consider it a “real” job. Lift your volunteer work out of the obscurity of the “personal” section of your resume and integrate it with your paying jobs. Then, just like any other job, consider your accomplishments and build them into your resume.

For example, if you coordinated the planning of an annual fundraising event, ask yourself some key questions.

• How many volunteers did you supervise?

• How did you market the event?

• Did you solicit corporate sponsors?

• What about venue or vendor contracts?

• Ultimately, what was the result?

• How much money did you raise?

• How many people attended?

• How did this compare to previous years’ results?

Be honest, just as you would with any job. It’s fairly transparent to prospective employers when people overstate their efforts.

Remember that every volunteer organization and experience is different. Look for those that feed both your passion and your career development needs, and you’ll find a win-win situation. And you will do some good along the way.

Laura Smith Dunaief is a principal of LASD Resource Development, which provides individual career coaching and corporate training and development programs.

Comments

[Jill Roy Jolley]

Taken together with the "manners" article and the "work journal" article, this piece really ties it together. I am of an older generation that tended to stay put in jobs whether they really got you excited or not. One thing I really admire about the newer working generations, my 25 year old son and his friends for example, is that they try lots of jobs, move around when they realize that they don't like what they are doing and keep trying to find the career that gets them fired up !