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The summer break is a great time to reflect on how you have developed during the last academic year and how you want to improve your career prospects outside of your degree. You may already have some work experience lined up, but with the exam period now over, how else can you boost your experience and career opportunities? Here, we’ll take a look at four volunteering opportunities that can improve your CV.
Tutor other students
Tutoring other students is a great way to learn some valuable skills that looks great on your CV, whether it’s someone on your university course in the year below, or teaching someone at secondary school or 6th form.
Not only can teaching a subject to someone else help improve your own knowledge, it’s also a very effective way of developing your communication skills, as to be successful, you’ll need to be able to share information to someone who may be completely new to the subject.
As a result, tutoring someone offers some great transferrable skills that employers love – the same skills you learn here will help you share ideas with colleagues better, helping you make a better impact on your team, as well as giving you experience of training others, which may lead you to promotions quicker, managing new staff members.
First Aid volunteering
First Aid knowledge is a great thing to have as it primarily benefits other people in your community, and offers a range of benefits to you too. Firstly, is team work. As a first aid volunteer, you may be working at an event with other first aiders, having to work together to prioritise who to treat first.
You’ll also learn leadership skills, even without having to treat anyone. In many emergency situations, as a first aider you’re likely to be the only one with first aid skills, and as a result first aid training has a focus on taking control of the situation and leading bystanders who may not know how to be helpful in an emergency. As a first aid volunteer, you’ll encounter many such situations, helping you to build these skills further.
As you can imagine, these transferable skills are highly valued by recruiters, but there is also a direct benefit for employers too – businesses must have a certain number of first aid trained staff, so you may actually help your future employer fulfil their first aid obligation!
Volunteer at a care home
Volunteering in your local community is a great way of showing you have a well-rounded character and compassion for others, especially when helping some of the most vulnerable people in society. Older people can fall into this group as many become isolated in their old age, and so even simple efforts such as having a conversation or going for a walk with an older person can really make a difference to their lives as Danushri Srinivasan found when volunteering at Admiral Court Care Home.
Working with older people who may have hearing trouble or living with dementia can really help to show you’re able to get on with anyone, ideal for candidates for any role that involves relationship building and working with others, such as sales and project management.
Take a leading role in a club or society
Volunteering to take on a leading role in a club or society you’re involved in is a great way of showing some highly valued skills that recruiters love. One of the most important is that these roles often involve some form of management, which is a highly valuable skill to learn at an early age. Your role in your club or society may involve managing people, budgets, or events, which are directly applicable to the working world, showing you have experience managing projects.
Club and society committee roles also involve debating and working with other committee members on how to run the club. This helps build your skills working in a position of responsibility, especially when it comes to decision making and influencing others with well-constructed arguments.
These skills are essential for anyone looking to enter management training schemes, and the extra experience while still at university can help you move up the ranks quicker.
Contributed by Seb Atkinson of Selesti Limited.