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Becoming a Charity or Church Volunteer: 5 Keys to Your SuccessWhy do I urge all job searchers to become charity or church volunteers, or to somehow make a significant volunteer contribution to their community? What does volunteering have to do with finding a job? Let me explain ...
Hello, my name is Eric Weir, an employment counsellor with many years experience helping clients from all walks of life. Welcome to my Volunteer Benefits Hub Page. My strongest urge to create this website came from wanting to share my two all-time favourite job search tools with everyone out there who is feverishly looking for a new job. Resumes? Cover letters? Interview skills? No - none of these. They’re all important, but they don’t hold a candle to these other two. In fact, these two things make your resume, cover letter and interview skills much less important than they otherwise would be. I most want to tell you about the benefits of networking and especially what is, within the context of job searching and career development, a sub-topic of networking: charity volunteer work such as becoming a church volunteer. How to Get the Most Out of Your Volunteer Work Before sharing my huge list of volunteer benefits with you, I’m going to provide you with some guidelines for how to get the most out of your church volunteer experience from a job search and career development standpoint. This comes in part from my own experience as a church volunteer, helping out at several local soup kitchens and temporary shelters during the colder months of the year. I washed dishes by hand, operated the electric dishwasher, wiped counters, cleaned tables and - much more importantly - met many new people who I knew could help me in my job search, career development and other life goals. Charity or Church Volunteer Key 1: How to Find the Right Volunteer Job for You For many people, the right volunteer role simply involves approaching their religious leader and offering to become a mosque, synagogue, temple or church volunteer. Approach any place of religious worship or spiritual observances. There are many ways to contribute including but not limited to singing in the choir, helping to organize services and special events and helping out with bookkeeping. Most religious communities are not rich and can definitely use your help in a wide variety of areas. They need you! For other charity volunteer work, it’s great to just drop in to agencies close to where you live and introduce yourself personally. Find out how to apply, ask about volunteer opportunities currently available there, and tell them a little about what kind of volunteer work you’re looking for. Many people prefer to volunteer within their local neighbourhood, within a reasonable walking distance or short drive from where they live. Of course, you can always do an internet search for volunteer work in your local area, and call ahead to schedule an appointment to speak to staff at agencies that might be a match with your skills, interests and experience. In-person meetings always help you to really get to know the staff and the culture or overall “flavour” of each agency. Charity or Church Volunteer Key 2: Finding the Time to Volunteer Everyone’s so busy these days – even many of my clients who are unemployed and job searching still say that they don’t have enough time in their week to volunteer! The good news is that you only have to volunteer a few hours a week, or even less, to contribute to changing people’s lives while also helping yourself enormously in the process. If you’re too busy to be a charity or church volunteer every week, then come every month, or volunteer on an occasional basis to assist with irregularly-scheduled special events. If live becomes busier and you can’t fit your volunteer work in, then by all means reduce your commitment temporarily – take fewer hours, with lesser frequency and shorter duration of your volunteer shifts until your other life activities and responsibilities settle down again. Charity or Church Volunteer Key 3: Give an Appropriate “Official Reason” for Wanting to Volunteer Of course, there are many reasons why people volunteer, and at least some of them involve a give and take relationship – giving your time and receiving various benefits in return. It’s no secret that volunteering offers this two-way or mutual benefit in the job search and career area, and in various other ways as well. However, it’s best when you are asked why you want to volunteer to be able to honestly and genuinely say that you want to: a) “give back to the community" and ... b) provide quality service to the client population that the agency services, whether that be seniors, people with developmental disabilities, teenagers or new immigrants. I learned this the hard way, through personal experience. I once applied to work at a world famous children’s hospital shortly after I became interested in the field of social work. I liked being with children and genuinely wanted to help them. However, I also knew that I needed to get some volunteer experience in order to get into grad school and be successful in my career. So when I was asked why I wanted to volunteer at the hospital, I focused on this career aspect and ended up sounding very cold and academic. As a result, I didn't get offered a volunteer position there. In retrospect, the best thing for me to say would have been, “I love children and want to help them.” How simple is that?! :-) Charity or Church Volunteer Key 4: Giving Your Time in Exchange for Developing New Skills It’s important to make sure that you get the most out of your volunteer experience. For instance, how can you use this church volunteer opportunity to build more skills for your career? Depending upon the project or volunteer team you are working in and the goals of the program you are assisting, you may be able to request from your volunteer supervisor duties that will assist you in developing specific skills. For example, you can develop people skills through providing a listening ear to frail seniors or people who come in out of the cold to use the soup kitchen. Or you could demonstrate your organizational or leadership skills through taking on additional responsibilities to ensure that services, meetings and special events are planned and carried out successfully. Consider volunteering for more than one agency. Given that volunteering at one agency alone often greatly helps job searchers, you can increase your chances and learn a broader variety of skills if you volunteer at two or more organizations for a few hours per week for each. Be sure to keep track of your accomplishments and the new skills you develop for your resume, and mention appropriate ones as applicable when applying for your next job or replying to specific job postings. If you describe them well, volunteer experiences can fill out your resume very nicely in a way that employers genuinely value and appreciate. Charity or Church Volunteer Key 5: Saying Goodbye Without Burning Bridges You may decide to end your charity volunteer work/church volunteer role for a variety of reasons including returning to full-time work and taking on additional family responsibilities that don’t allow you to continue your volunteer commitment. Or you may resign from your volunteer work because you just want to move on to other more challenging volunteer opportunities than the ones that are currently available to you. It’s a really good idea to ask for a reference letter (also known as a letter of recommendation) from your volunteer supervisor. Protect your reference letter in a plastic page protector and place it in your career portfolio for later reference such as when you attend job interviews. Finally, always finish on a positive note - even if you happen to have mixed feelings about your volunteer experience. Take the time to send your volunteer supervisor and/or fellow volunteers a card, and/or express in person in your own words why and how much you appreciate them. The natural consequence of you expressing appreciation this way is that they'll likely remember you fondly and you'll maintain that mutually-helpful relationship far into the future, if not for life.
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