Volunteering – 6 Reasons Why it Will Help Your Career and Your Karma

No, I am not talking about community service, although it’s always good to give back to your community when you can.  I am talking about helping companies out – for FREE.  Yep, you heard it, for FREE.

For the last few years working on a start up, I  have begun to notice some trends taking shape.  The one I would like to address in this article is the notion that passionate workers often like to continue building their skill sets outside of their current work environment.  Something I hadn’t seen in my days in Corporate America but a dynamic that seems to be getting more popular  – especially in the past 6 months.

Being a scrappy start up, we need to be creative about how we find resources to help us and, even more importantly, how we ‘pay’ them.   Having the ability to leverage passionate executives has helped us tremendously over the past several months.  To our benefit, we have managed to find a small group of people who are willing to help us in exchange for our highly leveraged networks and their ability to learn about things they can’t in their current positions (think social media, web applications and the like).

It’s a win/win for both sides – we get the benefit of a highly experienced and passionate individual who is genuinely interested in what we are doing, they get the benefit of building their skill sets and network outside of the workplace.

But really, you ask, why would anyone want to do it?  Well for some folks it a constructive way to channel their passion, for others it’s a way to help out a friend in need (Karma, always a good thing) and for others it’s a way to develop a solid network outside of their current work environment.  Sometimes, it’s all three.

Additionally, being in the recruiting space, I can tell you it will have a positive impact on how recruiters and hiring managers evaluate you as a candidate –  heck, I’d even go so far as to say it might become an experience requirement for companies over time.  Here’s why:

1. Passion Statement – Showing passion for what you do is critical in any job.  In fact, it’s one of the hardest things to screen for AND I would say one of the most important characteristics a person can have.  Taking your passion outside of your work environment while still being a top performer will get recruiters and hiring managers to stand up and take notice.
2. Street Cred – Having the ability to say you’ve helped a start up or another company build a product or drive revenue gets immediate attention from recruiters and hiring managers.
3. Competitive Edge - Just by having volunteer work on your resume for legitimate companies who are doing great things will give you an edge against candidates who do not.
4. Build Your Network – By helping out you are able to show potentially well-connected executives your work product and build your network in a constructive and valuable way.
5. Gain Exposure to New Areas – You can ‘test drive’ different industries or functions to see if its something you might want to do on a more full time basis in the future.
6. Pay it Forward – As we all know, Karma is a good thing.  When you help someone without agenda it will pay back over time in spades.

So there you have it, if your passionate about what you do — YOU have the opportunity to help someone else be successful.  Take advantage of it and go make it happen.