Monday, February 20, 2012

Volunteering Your Way To Paid Employment


Volunteering Your Way To Paid Employment

Giving away something of value, such as your time, talent, and expertise does not always occur to the job seeker. However, it is a time-honored, successful strategy. This is why you see people in the grocery store handing you a toothpick with Jimmy Dean Sausage on it. They are standing, not by accident, in front of the Jimmy Dean Sausage cooler.

In my 'Day Job' of creating and managing career programs for people with disabilities, I believe I had 5 volunteers last year. I hired 3 of them when appropriate positions became available. From my perspective, these were easy hires. I had met the person, and trained them to some extent. Best of all, I directly observed their work, and also was able to get direct feedback from their future co-workers. We were able to find the best possible 'fit' for them because we understood their skills and abilities.

Beyond the 'free sample' benefits, please consider the networking opportunities. One of the above people was a clerical/admin type person. She volunteered for me, and my office never operated so efficiently. She was so good, that I ran out of tasks to assign. So I loaned her out to the Executive Assistant to the CEO. When a job became open in the larger agency (I manage a Division), guess who had a SERIES of supporters telling the decision-maker who to hire? The Volunteer did. She is now working full-time with benefits.

When you volunteer, you will (over a few months), develop a reputation and certain very important contacts. This is vital. Some statistics show that 60% of jobs are filled through networking activities. Further, only about 25% of jobs are even advertised when the economy is tight. It really is about who you know.

That said, the people you get to know may be somewhat limited as far as THEIR networking contacts. In the U.S., Federal Fair Wage Law is somewhat restrictive about people giving free labor to for-profit corporations. That means that your volunteer experience will be limited to charitable organizations, not-for-profit businesses, churches, schools, and governments. Interestingly, government grants many exceptions to Minimum Wage laws to...governments.

The point is, these folks mainly run in professional circles with each other. Birds of a feather flock together and all that. However, if you are not interested in just charity work, all is not lost. You never know who has a brother in law who is a Corporate Attorney who dates a Public Relations Executive at the firm you would be PERFECT for. We'll just skip on past the brother-in-law might be married to someone's sister but still dating thing...that's a different column.

So, to change the subject, let's go back to what YOU get out of all of this. I have completely glossed over the way that you get to improve your skills, expand your abilities, and do different things in your occupation. Space is limited. But, you DO develop good contacts, and might be auditioning for paid employment.

At a minimum, you are doing something that is good for a charity or other non-profit organization. You are making a difference to some important mission, and improving our world. You have the privilege of giving of yourself. If nothing else, you can take pride in having value as a person and as a worker.

Good luck,

Chris

Links to my work, “Beyond a Career Crisis”:

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