Volunteering can make a difference on your resume

If you are a student, junior employee or new to the country I’m sure you are faced with the ongoing challenges of the job search due to lack of work experience. You find yourself in a tough situation since you need experience to get a job, but you need the job to get experience. As such you often hear employers say: “Sorry, but I am looking for someone with more experience”.

A similar challenge faces job seekers new to a country. Even though the applicant may be well qualified with extensive experience the message they get from employers is: “Sorry but you do not have experience in our country.”

This is frustrating to hear for these job seekers, and there are no easy answers. Without recent, related and local experience, getting a job as a junior employee, student or new to a country can be a challenge.

One method to overcome this obstacle is to get involved! By this I mean get involved with your community by joining volunteer organizations, teams, clubs and so on. Volunteering for a local charity while you are looking for work will help you in your job search significantly. For example suppose you wanted to enter into counselling or helping profession, a good place to volunteer would be the emergency shelters, crisis centres, and so on. Volunteering can help your job search in many ways such as:

• Provide an opportunity to develop career related skills and experience.
• Opportunity to network and helps build contacts for job leads.
• Gain local reference from an established organization.
• Improve your resume by addressing the current employment gap and show social responsibility.

So if you are a junior employee, student or new to the country and you are finding it a challenge to find paid work, get involved with your community. Volunteering, joining teams, and clubs, will definitely help your job search. Lastly, you will feel great knowing that you are contributing to your community and making a difference.

Information provided by HR Difference.

Our HR team specializes in providing small and medium sized companies with cost-efficient and customized human resources solutions to meet your need and budget. We also provide custom resume writing and telephone job interview coaching for job seekers.

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