Volunteering Your Way to a Job

With thousands of new graduates entering the job market over the summer, those who haven’t yet found a post will be starting to get a little despondent, especially as Christmas approaches. Whether you are a new graduate or simply looking for a career change, it may be time to reassess your strategy.

If you find you can’t get a job because you haven’t got the right experience and you can’t get the experience because you can’t get the right job, it may be time for a radical rethink.

If you are stuck in a Catch-22 situation, one alternative approach is to think about volunteering. This has a couple of big advantages – it will get you both the valuable experience you so desperately need and it will get you a reference. Not having a good reference in a relevant field can be a sticking point if you are just out of college or have been out of the workforce for some time.

Your immediate reaction could be that you can’t possibly work for nothing, but it may be that you can’t afford not to! Obviously, everyone needs to eat and pay the bills and so if you don’t have savings or someone to support you, you can take a temporary job and organize your voluntary work to fit around it.

Before deciding where to volunteer, ask yourself: want do I to get out of the experience – and what have I got to put into it?

One of the best places to start is in an organization which will help you acquire specific skills or the experience which you need to get into your ideal career. So you might think about offering to volunteer for the company which would be your ideal employer, a strategy which can work well if this happens to be a charity or non profit organization.

Working as a volunteer in some cases is a pathway to a job, but please don’t assume this will automatically happen. Even if they don’t offer to put you on the payroll, you’ll still gain masses of relevant experience and when you start applying for jobs, you’ll have that all important and highly relevant reference.

You could think about volunteering in a completely different area, which will still give you the skills you need for your chosen career. Don’t forget that “soft skills” – things like communication skills and teamwork, can be developed in many different jobs. So start by sitting down and making a list of the skills you most need to acquire or improve. You can then focus on these when you are looking at possible volunteering opportunities.

Let’s have a look at a couple of examples or how you might develop some soft skills by volunteering in your spare time. Could you help out in a youth club, or teach a sport or another of your hobbies to disadvantaged or disabled children? Could you help out at an old folks’ home? These are all options which will improve those soft skills and they can easily be fitted in to your usual schedule if you are working or studying. You can simply volunteer at a time that suits you for example weekends or an evening once or twice a week.

If you really feel stuck in a rut and don’t have any commitments to keep you at home, you might want to think about doing something which is not only really challenging, but also radically different from what you are used to. Some examples of this would be: a few months in a third world country, where you might be working on a disaster relief or environmental project, or you could end up teaching or building a school or hospital in a country which is much poorer than your own.

There are many projects in which help is urgently needed and you stand to gain a great deal. This sort of experience is good for anyone, as it gives an expanded view of the world, as well as teaching your resourcefulness and practical skills. If you happen to be a high flyer, it could help you take off by proving and enhancing some of your leadership qualities; things like problem solving, working under pressure and taking risks.

And you don’t have to go abroad to find people who need your help. If this is too expensive for you, consider a few months helping on a major project in your own country, but away from home to give you a broader experience.

If you feel you are in a rut – low paying job, no job, boring job – or just want a change, volunteering could be the step to start you out in a new direction.

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