Volunteering to Get a Job - Guest Post - Career Pivot

Volunteering to Get a Job - Guest Post - Career Pivot Volunteering to Get a Job The advice to “volunteer to get a job” when you’re looking for employment shows up everywhere. It’s one of those pieces of advice that sounds easy when it’s on paper, but job seekers who have actually tried to follow the advice discover that it’s anything but. Often, the non-profits you’d like to volunteer for, don’t have volunteer positions. Even if they do, they’re often for low-level jobs like envelope stuffing that wouldn’t help you even if you did put it on your resume. In this post, I’d like to show you what those other books and articles simply don’t talk about: The nitty-gritty of how to actually get resume relevant work through volunteering, using a process I call the skill-bridge technique. Step 1: Decide What Skills You’d like to Develop The first step to getting resume relevant work is to figure out what skills you’d like on your resume. Make a list of all the skills needed for your desired job title, and find the weak points on your resume. What skills are critical for the job but for which you don’t have much (if any) experience? Step 2: Figure out what the organization needs The next step is to do a bit of networking. This can be through volunteering at the organization in the low-level jobs mentioned earlier, or through going to events that people from the non-profit will be at in high attendance. The goal is to have conversations with people who work there and figure out two or three issues that are on everybody’s mind. What are the top problems, challenges, and opportunities that the organization is facing? Step 3: Show the organization how your skills can solve their problems. The final step takes a little bit of creativity. The goal is to figure out how you can use your desired skills to tangibly affect the problems, challenges, and opportunities that you identified. Then, ask one of your contacts at the company for the email address of a decision maker. Send them a short email saying that your contact gave you their information, and create a crisp, clear proposal showing how you can help solve their problem using your skill (for free). Conclusion If all goes well, you’ll take on a relevant project that will not only fill in the gaps on your resume, but also give you passionate advocates and connections who know you can solve problems, and will assist you in your job search. Interested in seeing how a real life job-seeker used this strategy to go from administrative assistant to business analyst? Listen to the original interview here! About The Author: Matt Goldenberg is the creator of the Skill Bridge Technique and the founder of Self-Made Renegade, a website for liberal arts grads and career changers who’d like to get their dream jobs. Listen to the most recent episode Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...