Volunteering is an opportunity for many job candidates to acquire skills after college or to revitalize a career that has become stale. The decision to spend a few months working for free may be a difficult one, but if it is feasible, it’s one that you should consider if you find yourself in either predicament.
By volunteering, you get the chance you need to acquire new skills, gain valuable experience, build a professional network in your chosen field, and demonstrate your employability. It can also be personally rewarding if you choose to volunteer with an organization that is aligned with causes that matter to you.
If You Are Just Starting Out
Attention philosophy and literature majors, we meet countless recent college graduates just like you with a broad-based liberal arts education that can be a valuable career. Unfortunately, some degree programs don’t provide the practical skills needed to hit the ground running after college, and gaining traction as a graduate can prove difficult. In this case, a well-selected volunteering opportunity can help you to close your skills gap in order to qualify within six months for a good entry-level position. You may be able to use your public speaking or second language skills to secure a volunteer position that can help you develop computer software proficiencies, sales and customer service skills, or other proficiencies.
If you have limited work and internship experience, volunteering can be the platform you need to demonstrate in-demand soft skills including a strong work ethic, dependability, a positive attitude, self-motivation, and a team orientation, as well as long-term leadership potential. Furthermore, in a volunteering role, you may have opportunities to contribute to a team and work on projects that can develop specific skills and enhance your resume. In such a collaborative environment, you can gain valuable exposure to a variety of business functions and you may form career connections that can help you develop critical work and project management skills.
If you excel in your volunteering role, you may get leads on upcoming job openings for which you are actively demonstrating your talents and professionalism. Nonprofits and other employers frequently bring in volunteers to groom for entry level positions because they prefer known quantities, even over outside candidates with slightly more skills or experience. Given that your aspiration is to work your way into a paid position, it’s a good idea to tell organizations that you hope to be considered for a paying job after six months. Your assertiveness should be taken as a welcome sign of long-term interest in the field and company, and of your willingness to outperform expectations in a volunteering role. That said, be prepared to work hard, which can be difficult without the motivation of a regular payday.
If You Are Planning a Career Pivot
If you are experiencing some doubts about the career path you have taken, volunteering can be a valuable opportunity to reverse course without going back to school. It can also provide a way to take a new industry or function for a test run. In your predicament, you don’t need to acquire soft skills; you have already developed these capabilities. What you need are specific skills and experiences for the function or industry that you would like to pivot toward. You may also need to reinvigorate your passion for work if going too far down your present path has made your daily tasks seem stale and unfulfilling.
Once you have selected a new industry and/or function, your next step is to target specific organizations in the area to find out if they have a volunteering program and/or specific positions available. Be straightforward about the expertise you would like to apply, the skills you would like to develop, and your reasons for pursuing a volunteer opportunity. Keep looking until you find an opportunity that aligns with your objectives.
Where to Find Volunteer Opportunities
LinkedIn is a terrific source for volunteer jobs. Once you click the link, select “Dallas, Texas” which often has well over 1,000 job opportunities in this metropolitan area. These jobs are often with nonprofits, but there are also plenty of opportunities with corporations and government organizations.
If you are particularly interested in a nonprofit, VolunteerMatch is the largest volunteer network in the nonprofit world, with the most volunteers, nonprofits, and opportunities to make a difference. The site has connected 14 million volunteers with work at 121K nonprofits, and currently seeks 3.8 million volunteers worldwide. You can search for opportunities by state and by city. There are many opportunities available now in Dallas, Plano, Arlington, and other cities in the Metroplex.
You can also contact your chamber of commerce to see if there are any locally-based volunteer opportunities. Consider directly approaching organizations that routinely look for volunteers, including museums, libraries, parks and recreation departments, and local service organizations like the Lions Club and United Way of Dallas. If you are interested in government and politics, political campaigns need people with diverse skills and organizational capabilities, and this can be a springboard to many opportunities.
When you apply as a volunteer through any of these channels, you may go through an employment process similar to a paid position, with an application, interview, and screening. Use this process to brush up on your skills as a job candidate. Once hired, approach every day as an opportunity to present yourself as a consummate and ambitious professional. Great volunteers develop compelling resumes, a professional network, and opportunities to kickstart or revitalize their careers.