You're looking for experience in your major. You wish you had more time to do some community volunteer work. However, you just can't find enough time in the day to do both—how do you choose?
There are many opportunities for college students (and graduates) to help themselves and help their communities. A volunteer job can provide you with the opportunity to put into practice the theories you have learned in school, and provides a valuable service at the same time. Now is the time to start thinking about applying for an internship over Christmas break or next summer.
How do you turn your volunteer work into "experience?"
Why Volunteer?
A volunteer experience in you field:
Allows you to test your vocational skills in the workplace.
Adds valuable experience to your resume. Employers prize experience in the world of work.
Gives civic-minded students a way to donate skills and services to organizations within their communities.
Gives you a chance to interact in a real working environment—valuable experience that will improve your chances of future success.
Sling Hash: Volunteering in your community can be as simple as dishing up lunch in the local soup kitchen or working with the local Meals-on-Wheels program. If you're a culinary student, it's your opportunity to experience planning a menu, ordering food, preparing food in large quantities, and organizing a kitchen line.
Practice Teach:: As a freshman or sophomore education major, you may not have enough course credits to begin student teaching, but you can volunteer your knowledge to a local literacy program, work with children at a day camp, or teach English as a second language. Each position could add excellent experience for your resume.
The trick is to connect your interests to a volunteer work position.
Business majors can add to their marketing talents by helping to promote a blood drive.
Computer science majors can practice their programming skills by building web sites for youth groups.
Engineering students can lend a hand by building a house for a charitable cause. Brainstorm your interests and abilities with a career counselor at your college or university and get advice on how to add volunteer work to your resume.
There are several methods for adding experience to your resume. The most common is to create a special section of your resume titled "Volunteer Work." Be sure to offer specific information about the new skills that you have developed.
For example,
“Organized and promoted blood drive which collected 75 pints of blood over a two-day event.”—Tells a potential employer what you did and how successful you were at it.
“Constructed house frame following blueprints provided.”—Shows that you know how to read a blue print and you understand the work from the construction end.
“Planned, ordered, and prepared lunch and dinners to serve 350.”—Shows organizational skills and the knowledge required to calculate the needs of bulk food preparation.
Your career services office should be able to help you find a volunteer opportunity if your college or university is near your hometown. If not, contact the local YMCA/YWCA, a blood bank, or any organization whose cause matches your own interests. In addition, there are several web sites that can offer guidance:
Project Sledgehammer—http://www.careervolunteering.org/main.htm
Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship—http://www.clw.org/pub/clw/scoville/index.html
INROADS—http://www.inroads.org/
Internships in Youth Development Agencies—http://www.nydic.org/nydic/
InternshipPrograms.com—http://internships.wetfeet.com/home.asp
The Washington Center—http://www.twc.edu/
Remember to keep track of your volunteer projects, the skills you used to complete them, and quantifiable results. Your supervisor may be willing to be a reference.