Hi John, ECOLOG I found that volunteer positions were immensely valuable in obtaining experience during my undergrad (1st year onwards) for research projects - including funding - in later years (3rd & 4th year, Honours project). My volunteer work, which started when I was in elementary school with a very novel environmental education/recycling group, was invaluable in forming a foundation of later work in ecology and environmental education during my undergraduate years. It helped me figure out ahead of time what I was (and wasn't) as interested in, without having committed an entire summer to a job, and gained valuable skills in working with diverse teams and kind of random field schedules.
After undergrad, I found that volunteerism was looked upon as more valuable only if it had involved a long-term, physical commitment - which most of my positions hadn't, so I gradually dropped them (e.g. the university cycling co-op, sustainability initiatives on campus, Amnesty International, etc) unless they were directly applicable to the positions I was applying for - a summer volunteering with a field team on small mammal habitat research, for instance, or a month-long herpetological survey at a reserve in Costa Rica. I regard (as it seems you do) volunteering as a necessary skill in developing a mature, independent, diversely educated and contributing individual within our larger society, although that may not necessarily be valued on a resume. It's almost preferable that volunteerism isn't as highly valued in later years as many students at the undergraduate level aren't able to afford both a university education, working full-time, AND volunteer jobs. Volunteering, then, to me, is an invaluable aid in garnering early experience for future work, and numerous short-term positions can be especially so; but as a longer-term strategy, I advise people to choose one thing they really care about, knuckle into it, and make an ongoing, regular contribution that builds long-term relationships with the wider community. This, of course, has benefits far beyond academic... which (I like to think) will shine through implicitly in one's work throughout their career. At this point, with an M.Sc., I'm reluctantly turning aside many very very appealing volunteer or poorly paid positions because as a mid-30s female with potential thoughts of a family, I need to get on with the more valuable paying work (whether self employment, NGO, academic, a PhD, etc) that will allow me to turn around and pay it forward by offering volunteer/stipend-based training to those in the earlier stages. Of course, if I can afford to pay real wages that would be ideal - but that's another discussion. Best, Susan Cousineau On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 12:55 PM, John A. <[email protected]> wrote: > There are a lot of unpaid positions being advertised here lately. > Leaving aside the issue of personal fulfilment and so forth, I'd like to know > if volunteer positions actually make a difference to HR managers or hiring > committees. > > When I was in high school, I was strongly encouraged to volunteer by my > guidance counselor, so I served as a volunteer for several years with a local > museum, and later with a community NGO. I was given to understand this was > useful for college applications and for the résumé in general. That habit > stayed with me, and I volunteered off and on throughout college and beyond. > > By the time I was applying to jobs out of grad school, my advisor told me > to not even bother listing the volunteer positions--that no one in academia > could care less, and presumably no one in major NGOs or the corporate > environment would either. > > So the question is, does volunteering really offer any advantages to > anyone past the high school stage? If so, what are they? > > And if not, who ends up filling these positions, and why? > > > - J. A. > -- M.Sc. Evolution 2012 (France/Netherlands) BSc. Ecology Hon 1st, University of Calgary, Canada "The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his life and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him, he's always doing both." - - - J. Michener
