How can you use your volunteer experience to show your team skills?

1 Identify your team skills

When reflecting on the team skills you have gained or improved through your volunteer work, consider leadership, communication, cooperation, coordination, and creativity. Leadership can be demonstrated through taking initiative, delegating tasks, motivating others, and resolving conflicts. Communication can be shown by listening, speaking, writing, and presenting effectively and adapting to different audiences and situations. Cooperation involves being flexible, respectful, supportive, and reliable while following directions and feedback. Showing coordination includes planning, organizing, managing, and executing projects and events as well as meeting deadlines and goals. Creativity is expressed through generating, developing, and implementing new ideas, solutions, and strategies. Think of specific examples of how you have used these skills in your volunteer roles and write them down.

2 Quantify your impact

The next step is to quantify your impact by using numbers, percentages, or other metrics to make your resume more concrete, credible, and compelling. For instance, instead of saying "helped organize a fundraiser", you can say "organized a fundraiser that raised $10,000 for a local charity". To do this, consider the amount you saved or raised, the frequency of tasks completed or events attended, the scope of people or departments you worked with or served, the quality of products or services improved, and any awards or honors you received. Make sure the numbers and metrics are relevant and meaningful for your volunteer role and industry.

3 Highlight your achievements

The final step is to emphasize your accomplishments when describing your volunteer experience on your resume. Utilizing action verbs, keywords, and bullet points can show your skills and achievements in a dynamic and succinct way. These words should match the requirements of the job you are applying for and make your resume easy to read. For example, if you volunteered as a tutor for a local literacy program for two years, you could include bullet points such as: leading a team of four tutors to design and deliver weekly lessons for 20 adult learners; communicating with learners and staff to assess needs and provide feedback; coordinating the logistics and materials for the annual graduation ceremony; increasing the learners' literacy levels by 25% on average; and receiving the Tutor of the Year award for outstanding performance. Be sure to use action verbs, keywords, and bullet points that are specific and relevant to your volunteer role and industry.

By following these steps, you can use your volunteer experience to showcase your team skills on your resume, making you stand out from other applicants. Volunteering can be an invaluable asset to your career, as it can demonstrate your passion, dedication, and potential to employers.

4 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?