How Volunteer Work can help you Find a Job
Volunteering can give you an immense sense of pride, accomplishment and positivity. It can be rewarding to know that you have donated your time and effort to helping those that need it the most. It benefits you, those you are helping and the whole community in general. But volunteering can also help get you into paid work.
If you have been out of work for some time, then you will not be used to the busy workplace any more. Going straight from being unemployed to a paid job can be a scary experience because you are simply pushed into the world of work and this can cause immense pressure on some people. Volunteer work will help to ease you back into the workplace environment, some places will allow you to set your own hours and as long as you stick to them you will have no problems. There is less pressure on a volunteer which means you can perform work related tasks without the constant feeling of fear that many people experience.
Volunteering will also help you improve your social skills, those that find it difficult to interact with people can benefit from a low pressure environment like a volunteer job. You will be meeting people with similar interests which should make communicating with them much easier. It can also help you make new friends and increase your social circle.
Selflessness is a wonderful thing, helping others is what drives good people and it also looks great to any potential employers. If an employer sees that you volunteer it will not only mean that you were willing to give up your time for free, it also means that whilst you were unemployed, you were actively seeking work, it shows a very strong work ethic because they will know you were not just sitting on a couch watching television whilst you were unemployed.
If you suffer from confidence issues, as many people do, volunteering can help to minimise them. Volunteering will give you the chance to build your confidence and your workplace skills. Using equipment that you would find in a workplace will give you some much needed practice for when you do get a job. If the place where you volunteer will train you then this will also be a huge bonus because people that are already trained stand a much better chance of being employed.
Volunteering is a wonderful thing to do, it is selfless and it helps those that are in desperate need. But when you do find a paid job, do not simply forget about your volunteering. Remember why you loved it in the first place and keep going.
