Updated: November 2020

Volunteer experience can be invaluable for your resume especially if you are changing careers, re-entering the workforce, or building your dream career path. In this post, we’ll explain the benefit of volunteer experience for your resume strategy, share 22 strong transferable skills keywords that will make your resume more attractive, and show you how to add these into your resume. 

Why Volunteer Experience Can Be a Game Changer on Your Resume

When it comes to personal and professional fulfillment, volunteering offers a ton of benefits. These benefits include endless networking opportunities and boosting one’s confidence significantly. In addition to these great benefits volunteering is extremely valuable for demonstrating your real-world experience on your resume. Since hiring managers hire for current experience, this benefit is huge. Another reason volunteering is important, is that it can  fill employment gaps on your resume. When a recruiter or hiring manager is scanning your resume she will want to know that your skills haven’t become rusty during your time off. For this reason alone, adding gap-filling volunteer experience to your resume can be a game changer. Your volunteer  experience will visually and experientially fill the gap when being reviewed by hiring managers and recruiters.

What Transferable Skills Are & Why They Strengthen Your Resume Keyword Strategy

Another major benefit of volunteering is the ability to build up your transferable skills keywords on your resume. Transferable skills are skills you possess based on past experience, that you can carry over or “transfer” into your future experience. Since your future employers will be looking to understand what you are capable of in your next role, transferable skills will play an important part in helping them predict your performance potential.

Where to Use Transferable Skills On Your Resume

While having a robust resume keyword strategy is critical for every professional these days, transferable skills keywords are particularly valuable for those making a career change or re-entering the workforce after taking some time off. This is also a great strategy if you’re trying to make a career pivot. You’ll have to attract hiring manager interest in the initial resume scan by listing the strongest industry / role / level keywords in the resume keywords section. Therefore, having the visual keyword resume section, populated with keywords relevant to the job posting, is a huge opportunity. If you fail to list transferable skills that are necessary for the job, the hiring manager will not be able to see you as a potential fit, and therefore eliminate you from the pool of qualified candidates. You should also use these transferable skills throughout your resume but especially throughout the Experience section.

Transferable Skills Can Help You Get Past Applicant Tracking Systems

Finally, having the right resume keywords and keyword phrases are especially important today due to the heavy use of Applicant Tracking Systems or ATS’s. If you have omitted important transferable skills keywords from your resume, it is very likely your resume will end up in the resume black hole after passing through the ATS scan. For this reason it is also extremely important to tailor your skills to the job posting.

I had the opportunity to work with Noelle and it was an amazing experience. I have an eclectic work history and she helped me tell the story of my unique work experience in a masterful way that I could not have achieved on my own. She also helped me recognize the value I could bring to potential employers allowing my confidence to build. Her knowledge of the “job search” process is not only vast, but she taught me strategies for developing my career road map and the art form presenting my work experience to employers that I will use for the rest of my career. I am now able to move forward in my job search with confidence after working with Noelle. She is not only excellent at the work she does, but clearly cares about those she works with and invests herself in their success. – Margot, Product Manager

Here are the Transferable Skills That Employers Love

One of the challenges faced by the volunteers and service members I work with is identifying the transferable skills that are most valued by employers. If this is a challenge you share, look no further. I’ve come up with 22 skills your next employer is likely looking for. These are skills you have probably acquired if you’ve been spending part of your job search time volunteering. Even if you have not been a formal volunteer, but have been working as a stay-at-home mom or caretaker for your elderly parent, you are likely using skills from this list.

1. Teamwork/Ability to Collaborate

2. Strong Work Ethic

3. Dedication

4. Persistence

5. Compassion

6. Commitment

7. Perseverance

8. Sense of Mission / Mission-Oriented

9. Relationship Building

10. Project Management

11. Optimizing Limited Resources & Tight Budgets

12. Communication

13. Decision Making

14. Problem Solving

15. Planning

16. Organizing

17. Prioritizing

18. Information Processing / Data

19. Analytics / Analytical

20. Influence Others / Influencer

21. People Management

22. Leadership

After You Select Your Skills and Keywords, You Must Do This

Once you’ve identified a skill relevant to  your volunteer work, all you have to do is come up with a stellar example or story of how you demonstrated this skill “on the job” as a volunteer. You will need to be able to communicate your volunteer achievements in the form of a results-oriented story both on and off your resume. So take a quick moment to jog your brain and jot down your best result. You’ll want to have one result-oriented story per transferable skill.

Job searching on a budget? If you’re hoping to land a job using your volunteer experience, check out the Job Search Accelerator. In this budget-friendly job landing program you’ll have access to all of Noelle’s expert resources including optimized resume / cover letter templates, networking scripts and templates, LinkedIn optimization courses, interview answer scripts and more – everything you need to feel confident, navigate the job search successfully, and put your best foot forward as an applicant.