St.Louis Business Journal
VOLUNTEERING CAN BE A USEFUL TOOL FOR LANDING A JOB

By Anna Navarro August 2009  

Examples in this column are fictionalized to protect privacy.



Working for free can be a useful tool for landing a job. It doesn’t apply to all careers, but in some fields, it can be just the ticket you need to get the job you’re after.

After exploring a number of different careers, Mary decided she wanted to become a prospect researcher. It’s a specialized kind of research that focuses on identifying potential donors for non-profits. She didn’t have any training or experience in the field, but her investigations persuaded her the work was a good match for her skills and would meet her other needs as well.

In her first resume, we worked hard to identify transferable skills from her prior experience, and show how they’d be useful in prospect research. She networked and applied for jobs people told her about or she found online.

She also joined the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA), and the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) and took the “Fundamentals of Fundraising” course offered by the AFP. In addition, she took a class on prospect research at a local university taught by a long time professional in the field. She added these to her resume and they strengthened her case

Despite that, her first forays into job hunting weren’t successful. In some cases, she didn’t even hear back from employers to whom she applied. In a couple of instances, she got interviews, but didn’t ultimately get the job.

After the economy hit the skids in the winter of 2008, there were fewer openings, and the search became even more challenging. But Mary was willing to persist. She was deeply committed to finding an entry level position in the field.

She continued to network, and went regularly to professional association meetings. But it became clear she needed to do something more to qualify herself as a candidate.

That’s when I suggested she consider volunteering in the field to build her credentials.

It’s a strategy that has many potential rewards, but it also carries some risks. You have to be willing to make a substantial contribution of time for an organization to take you on as a volunteer. That’s because they have to orient and supervise you, and often provide other resources, like a computer, for you to be productive. What you give in return has got to more than compensate for that investment or it’s not worth it to them.

The risk for you is that you can sometimes land in an organization that doesn’t use volunteers well, so you don’t get much training or exposure. If you are very, very lucky, volunteering can open the door to a paying job in the organization where you are volunteering, but that’s rare. More likely, you’ll get a reference, or work experience you can list in your resume.

I recommended that Mary think through how much time she could devote to volunteering. While the time had to be substantial, it also needed to balance with her other responsibilities, and still allow time for job hunting. She also needed to consider how long she could commit to staying with the organization. She needed an “out” in case it didn’t work out, but few organizations would be interested if she didn’t commit to a reasonable term.

She decided she could devote two six-hour days a week to volunteering, and that she’d commit to staying for at least three months, unless she found a full time job in the field.

To cover her bets, Mary decided to split her volunteering between two organizations. She offered her services to two different groups and both took her up on it. As it turned out, they both made good use of her time, and provided great experience, including an opportunity to use the Raiser’s Edge, a popular fundraising software.

As a result of her volunteering efforts, Mary now started her resume with a whole new section on “Fundraising Experience”, detailing what she had done for these organizations. That was something she hadn’t been able to do when she first started job hunting. The references she garnered from volunteering, her memberships in professional organizations, and the training she’d gotten, all made a strong case for what she could contribute.

Shortly after the conclusion of her first round of volunteering, Mary heard of an opening with an employer with whom she had interviewed in the very beginning of her search. She’d been passed over the first time. But this time, she landed the job.

Anna Navarro is the founder of Work Transitions, a nationwide career consulting firm that works with clients on an individual basis to help them find more satisfaction and fulfillment in their work-lives. She can be reached by phone at (314) 367-0008 and her e-mail address is email@worktransitions.com. For more information visit the worktransitions.com website.

This column was originally published by the St. Louis Business Journal. The actual title of the column and date in which it appeared in the Business Journal may be slightly different from what appears on WorkTransitions.com.