I just finished reading an article by Noble McIntyre entitled “The Hidden Benefits of Volunteering Your Time.” And I could not agree more. In fact, the benefits are so easily recognized, a more apt title might have been “The Glaringly Obvious Benefits of Volunteering.” The article lists common reasons to volunteer that relate to resume building. As we all know, in today’s competitive job market it’s important to have something on your resume that allows you to stand out from the pack – or in this case the pile.
But is highlighting your volunteering experiences just a resume trick, or a bona fide indicator that you are a better candidate than a similarly qualified contender? Results from the eighth annual Deloitte Volunteer IMPACT Survey indicate the latter. Below are a few of the findings from this 2011 survey. The results indicate that volunteerism is a career must. Candidates should feel conspicuously incomplete without it and employers should mandate interview questions to probe for evidence of it. We know that past behavior is a great predictor of future behavior, meaning that candidates who have volunteered previously are more likely to volunteer in the future and, are therefore, more likely to enjoy the benefits noted below.
The Deloitte survey indicates that millennials (those born between the late 1970′s and the early 2000s) who frequently participate in their company’s employee volunteer activities are:
- 2x as likely to rate their corporate culture as very positive (56 percent versus 28 percent).
- More likely to feel very loyal toward their company (52 percent versus 33 percent).
- Almost 2x as likely to be very satisfied with the progression of their career (37 percent versus 21 percent); and,
- more likely to recommend their company to a friend (57 percent versus 46 percent).
Volunteering benefits our communities, positively impacts our employees’ feelings of pride and self-worth, and strengthens our businesses. Let’s put a spotlight on volunteers at work – they deserve it.
Go to http://blog.simplyhired.com/2013/05/the-hidden-benefits-of-volunteering-your-time.html and to http://optimistworld.com/Workers-Volunteering-Happier-Pride-Loyalty-Satisfaction/to see these articles.