It’s National Volunteer Week! Volunteering is a great way to help others. But did you know it can also help you? You can build work experience by volunteering. This is a great strategy for people who have little or no work experience. Here are some tips for volunteering.
Choose Volunteer Work in Your Field
If you know what kind of job you want, try to volunteer in that area. This will help you learn skills and gain experience that will look good on a job application. For example, you might want to be a vet tech. Try to volunteer at an animal shelter. You will get hands-on experience caring for animals. You might even meet people who can help you find a job later.
Build Skills that Employers Look For
You might not be able to volunteer in your exact job field. But you can still learn useful skills. For example, you might want to be an event planner. You could help organize a fundraiser for a food pantry. You would gain experience in organizing events, working with people, and managing details. These are all important skills for event planning jobs.
What if your volunteer position doesn’t relate exactly to the job you want? You can always ask for new duties. Check out this video of a volunteer. He asks to do different work.
Watch the full video on the Virtual Job Coach YouTube playlist.
Let People Know You Are Looking for Work
You can build work skills by volunteering. But volunteering is also a great way to meet people who can help you get hired. For example, you might volunteer to update the Parks Department’s website. You might want to be a web designer. Let the people you work with know this. They might know someone who is hiring. They can recommend you for a paid position.
Volunteering can help you gain experience, meet people, and find a job. The Virtual Job Coach can help you make the most of this work.
Learn more about this topic in our course, Filling Education and Experience Gaps.
- Self-Advocate Course (learn on your own)
- Partner Edition (for parents, support staff, or other partners)
- Instructor Edition (for transition classroom teachers and service providers)
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