{"id":62667,"date":"2014-02-25T13:45:12","date_gmt":"2014-02-25T18:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=62667"},"modified":"2014-02-24T16:24:43","modified_gmt":"2014-02-24T21:24:43","slug":"how-to-get-a-volunteer-position","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=62667","title":{"rendered":"How to get a volunteer position"},"content":{"rendered":"

Charissa Brammer, Head Editor, INALJ Maine<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

How to get a volunteer position<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"charissabrammer\"<\/a>Resume-building is something that has been on my mind a lot lately, as I have been\u00a0applying for scholarships and grants and trying to build my LinkedIn profile to attract potential\u00a0employers in a year when I graduate from library school and enter the world as a newly-minted\u00a0Librarian-with-a-capital-L. Like many students, I have found that volunteering is a good way\u00a0to fill in a resume and make yourself marketable, and, since I have been what you might call\u00a0a professional student for more than a decade, I have had a lot of time to gather volunteer\u00a0experience.<\/p>\n

When colleagues ask me how I have found so many volunteer opportunities, I always\u00a0tell them that I just asked. (note: asking is not enough to get you plum government positions and\u00a0those in large, famous organizations like the Smithsonian, in that situation, I would suggest that\u00a0you apply using their online system and go through the rigorous bureaucratic process. If you\u00a0keep filling out forms, they will usually eventually give you the job). Just about every smaller\u00a0or local organization will put out calls for volunteers from time to time. Answering those calls is\u00a0the least stressful time to apply to work at an organization (and it is how I scored this position at\u00a0INALJ). If there isn\u2019t a call for volunteers out, that definitely doesn\u2019t mean that the organization\u00a0isn\u2019t looking for people!<\/p>\n

Usually, when I decide that I want to volunteer with an organization, I will first send\u00a0a cheerful and professional email to the volunteer coordinator if there is one, and the head of\u00a0the organization if there isn\u2019t. I am a big fan of email in these situations, because it allows the\u00a0person time to gather their volunteer information and also eliminates the intrusive, awkward\u00a0phone call. Phone calls when you are asking for something, even when you are asking to give\u00a0them your time and expertise, seem to have a special tendency for throwing me off my game\u00a0and making things awkward. Email is much more controllable, and it allows the organization\u00a0to answer at their leisure. Win, win! The cheerful email (even when totally unsolicited) has\u00a0yet to fail me in my search for volunteer opportunities. There was one time that I sharked\u00a0an opportunity from a roommate who was using a more traditional face-to-face networking\u00a0approach and that had some interesting interpersonal consequences (Sorry, M!), but I got the\u00a0position that I wanted.<\/p>\n

While it is tempting to corral all of your volunteer experience into your chosen\u00a0profession, I would say that you should look for opportunities in any area that interests you! I try\u00a0to keep most of my volunteer work in the world of writing or libraries, but I\u2019ve found that some\u00a0of my more offbeat experience has helped me in the job hunt, too. In two back-to-back library\u00a0interviews, I found myself giving the interviewer detailed information about roller derby and my\u00a0involvement on the board of the local league. Judging by the interest that the hiring managers\u00a0showed in that one line of my resume, including roller derby in my volunteer experience might\u00a0have been the quirky attribute that made my resume stand out from the crowd of applicants.<\/p>\n

Even if it doesn\u2019t help you get the job, volunteering in things that you love might also allow you\u00a0to leverage your hobbies to fulfill the community service portion of some tenure applications.\u00a0If you are looking for a job, volunteering might just make the difference between getting\u00a0an interview and sliding to the bottom of the pile. It\u2019s also a good way to contribute to your\u00a0community and learn things that aren\u2019t in the Library science curriculum or covered in on-the-job training. So, job seekers and students, go forth, find the organizations that match your values\u00a0and the jobs that you want to get, and start drafting those volunteering emails!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Charissa Brammer, Head Editor, INALJ Maine How to get a volunteer position Resume-building is something that has been on my mind a lot lately, as I have been\u00a0applying for scholarships and grants and trying to build my LinkedIn profile to attract potential\u00a0employers in a year when I graduate from library school and enter the world…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":57249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[69,3592,5974,5198,3605,4514,5068,410,5975],"class_list":["post-62667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-charissa-brammer","tag-hobbies","tag-inalj-maine","tag-interview-tips","tag-stand-out","tag-volunteering","tag-volunteering-opportunities"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/charissabrammer.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-giL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/57249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}