Volunteer to be more attractive

A volunteer position co-ordinating walking school buses helped steer Andrea Mercer into a full-time job. And she's not the only one for whom volunteer work is an increasingly attractive option, with companies around New Zealand getting behind the movement. Earlier this month, BNZ shut up shop for a day as part of its "Closed for Good" initiative and 3500 staff spent the day doing volunteer work with groups including the SPCA and Salvation Army.

Dale Bailey, Career Service's Northern area manager, says volunteering can have many benefits for those looking for work, as well as for those already employed and even for businesses.

"For someone facing redundancy or an in-between period, it's a great way of maintaining routines, keeping or widening their network and providing a sense of worth," he says. "It can also bring a lot of training opportunities, though these are mostly informal - the way you deal with people, use of computers and so on. In some instances there will be formal training. Auckland Museum, for example, has quite a major training programme in place for volunteers."

Bailey says volunteering can also provide an opportunity to get another referee and open job seekers up to "the hidden jobs market" of jobs not formally advertised. "Volunteer work means you're expanding your social network and that may mean you hear about part-time or full-time work opportunities earlier, and that's a distinct advantage." And, he says, it can also expose you to an industry you're interested in working in, allowing you to peek behind the scenes and see if the industry really does suit you.

Mercer joined her son's walking school bus (WSB) as a volunteer in 2004 and became the parent co-ordinator in 2008. She says the skills and experience she gained in the role of co-ordinator helped her land a prime job managing 30 volunteers at the Takapuna branch of North Shore's Citizen's Advice Bureau.

"The WSB role involves co-ordinating rosters, record keeping and managing a small budget. It requires being organised, having good communication and organisational skills, a commitment to the programme and the ability to motivate others. These are desirable skills for many employers," says Mercer, who had been out of paid employment for a number of years raising children and studying for a degree part-time.

The volunteer aspect itself was a drawcard for some prospective employers, she says. "Some of them said to me that my community volunteer work was what attracted them - that I had been proactive and community conscious."

When it came to job interviews, Mercer says the WSB work gave her tangible experiences to draw on given she had no recent workplace experience. "During job interviews they were asking things like 'explain a time when you had to persuade someone to do something', and I could tell them about recruiting volunteers, which was a good one because there was no reward except for doing some good for the community. Or 'explain how you have brought different people together'. Well, our team included mums and dads, eye surgeons, highly trained professionals ...

"Prospective employers were looking for quantifiable details; they wanted specific examples of how you used your communications skills, how much you managed to increase the business and so on. And I was able to give them answers."

Bailey says most job interviews now involve "behavioural interviewing". "It's a style of interviewing which looks at exploring real-life experiences and how you behaved - and having volunteer experience can give you another story to tell, and context. And if you're under-employed, it's a way to demonstrate deeper capabilities."

Beverley Main, chief executive of the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand (HRINZ), is another advocate for volunteer work. "You never know who you might be working alongside and if you have the right attitude and approach it may well help you find work. As you're working alongside people they can see your capabilities."

HRINZ relies on volunteers to help run its branches and sit on the board. Main says her organisation "has a position where we do not really provide a training ground - we want volunteers who already have good skills", but adds that volunteers get to work alongside other practitioners, strengthening their own networks and knowledge, and keeping abreast of the latest happenings - and thinking - in the industry.

Bailey says for those already employed, volunteering has plenty of benefits. He says it "makes you a more rounded person", providing a different context from work, expanding social networks and exposing you to different people and situations.

"And, if you're interested in leadership, the volunteer setting is a very interesting place to learn skills. You have to persuade people to do things - they're not there to do what you want them to do. So it adds to your management skills, you have to work on your persuasiveness," he says.

"As an employer, I look for people who can get along with other people and can fit in with my team. If [potential employees] are doing volunteer work ... it shows me they are a self-starter and have self-management skills. It shows they're interesting and can communicate well and it also expresses something about their values," Bailey says.

Both Bailey and Main say they're seeing increasing numbers of corporates involved in volunteer work. "There is a lot more social-corporate responsibility now," says Main.

"There's a lot to be gained [for the business] from the learning, skills and experience that volunteers can bring back," says Bailey. "Being exposed to different cultures and people, that's all part of business."

He says several of his team recently spent time packing goods to send to Samoa for tsunami victims.

"You could see that it made them feel really good and positive. They had a real buoyancy when they came back from their days off. So volunteering can be short-term too. It doesn't have to be on-going."