If you take the time to research and choose the right organization, the right volunteering can really boost your personal brand.
Choose a direction, or discover one
I started volunteering at my local synagogue at a very young age when personal branding not only wasn’t a priority, it wasn’t even in my vocabulary.
That’s okay!
Not knowing your personal brand doesn’t prevent you from building one, and ALL donated, volunteering time is never a waste. Being active is a great way to meet people and discover things about yourself that can then lead to ideas about what your personal brand should be. You can even volunteer your way to a job.
However, once you do have specific personal branding goals, it will be easier to answer the questions below for maximum benefit.
5 volunteering choices to make
1) Choose the right organization
Volunteer at the place that will most help your personal branding goals.
If your goal is to be recognized as an expert, share your expertise at a local chapter of an industry association, or writing op-eds or blog posts for that association.
If your goal is to be recognized for a specific job, offer your services in that role for a large charity that highlights its volunteers on its website, for example.
2) Aim for the right role
A volunteering position should appear on your resume just like any other position, and not all roles are equal with regards to your brand.
Which role will enable you to make best use of your skills AND provide great benefits to the organization? That combination is key to being a successful volunteer and getting recognition for it.
3) Aim for the right supervisor & colleagues
This is a tough one, I admit it. Just like when you get hired for a job, you’ll rarely be offered a choice of who your boss would be.
Rather, just like when you job search, before joining an organization, spend some time learning about the people whom you would likely work with and understand how they could help you in the future. An (older?) well-connected supervisor would be preferable to someone who’s also just getting started in the organization.
4) Aim for the right recipients
As part of the organization, who are the people or other organizations that you will spend your volunteer time helping? Look for a role where you will get to interact with recipients directly so that people can learn about you & your work both inside AND outside the organization.
5) Join at the right time
This is more relevant in some cases than others. The idea is that some organizations have busier times of year than others, are only active seasonally, etc.
Another angle is to consider- can a volunteer organization enable you to get into an otherwise inaccessible event?
Do what it takes to be in the right place at the right time.
Author:
Jacob Share, a job search expert, is the creator of JobMob, one of the biggest blogs in the world about finding jobs. Follow him on Twitter for job search tips and humor.
