In today’s competitive job market, you need to be on top of your game and find an edge that will open doors. That means being prepared with a good resume. When done well, a resume makes you stand out to a potential employer. It must be well written and have a pleasing layout, but the way in which you communicate who you are and the skills you bring to a job are just as important. If you’re an involved citizen who gives hours of volunteer time to a nonprofit, you’ll want to make sure that you include that information on your resume.

One method is to weave your volunteerism into a section of your resume titled “Work Experience.” You may not have been paid for the volunteering, but it was work! Your volunteer role may have come with a job description, which included specific duties. You may have supervised and trained other volunteers and held other highly responsible positions. The key is to translate what you did and what you gained from the volunteer experience into something that can be understood by those in the paid work world.

Before putting pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard, analyze what you learned and gained in your volunteer positions. List everything you did, from answering phones to organizing a community food drive. Once you have your list, choose those experiences and skills that will help you meet your career or job-seeking goals. For example, if you served as a PTA officer or as a member on a board or committee, you probably have management skills and organizational experience. It’s important to be honest and not overstate what you did, but on the other hand, it’s equally important not to be too modest.

There is another advantage to volunteering: it allows you narrow down your job search. “Giving your time as a volunteer not only helps you gain work skills, but it allows you to experiment and see what you might like to pursue as a career,” said Christine Duer, the volunteer services director for Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast. “Before spending money and time for college or advanced training, you spend time as a volunteer and get a sneak preview or taste before pursuing the career at full throttle.

Jessica McQuade is a volunteer who did just that. For almost six months, she volunteered as a customer service representative three days a week at the Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast. As a senior in college, she didn’t have time to work in a paid position, but volunteering offered flexible hours to meet her schedule. Now, a recent business school graduate, she landed a job with a national communications company in Hampton Roads. She found her work in customer service with Girl Scouts was a plus.

RESUME BUILDING TIPS

• When volunteering, make sure you have an updated job description from the organization and take advantage of training opportunities they offer.

• Ask for a reference if the nonprofit will provide one. Having a recommendation from a reputable nonprofit can be a boost.

• Don’t use “volunteer” in the job title. Emphasize the work not the pay. If you were a counselor at a crisis center, use the title “Counselor.” If you were a special events coordinator, use the term “Coordinator.” You want to gain the interest of the reader and then go into details with achievements and the fact you volunteered.

• Include volunteer work dates in chronological order within the work experience section of your resume. Integrate it with your paid work. This will help emphasize the seriousness of your volunteer work. One way to do this is to label the section “Professional Experience” not “Employment History.”

• Make sure that you define your volunteer efforts as full-time and/or ongoing if it was. Most employers assume that volunteer work is sporadic, so you will need to be clear on your volunteer commitment.

• A nice addition to a resume is a “Summary of Skills” section.  There you can list all those skills you gained in your former paid positions and your volunteer roles. Don’t over do it, but hit the important skills that an employer would be most interested in, such as excellent organizational abilities, knowledge of specific software, and public speaking.

And when you find that perfect job, don’t stop volunteering! Continue to be active with groups and with issues you feel passionate about. It’s a win-win situation. You benefit from the contacts and networking with other professionals, along with sharpening your skills—and the nonprofit wins when they can help more people because you care.

Marcy Germanotta is the communications director for the Girl Scout Council of Colonial Coast and is involved in several organizations that focus their work on the improvement of life for girls and women, such as the Friends of Women’s Studies at Old Dominion University, where she has served as a former board president for two terms. She currently holds an appointed position on the Virginia Council on the Status of Women. For more information about volunteering for the Girl Scouts, call 757-548-3778.