How To Put Volunteer Work On Your Resume (With Examples)

Maybe your like

Skip to Content
Skip to Footer

Blog Resume Help Volunteer Work on Resume

How to Put Volunteer Work on Your Resume

Written By Ida PetterssonCareer Coach and Resume Expert+1 more

Reviewed By Conrad BenzContent Manager & Hiring Manager Headshot of Ida Petterson

Ida Pettersson

Career Coach and Resume Expert

Committed to empowering job seekers of all experience levels to take the next step in their careers, Ida helps professionals navigate the job hunt from start to finish. After graduating...

View Profile

Including volunteer experience on your resume is an effective way to show off some of your valuable skills and make your resume more well-rounded. Learn when to include volunteer work on your resume and how to list it with our examples.

Build My Resume NowNovember 10, 2023 A woman helping children, which is great volunteer work on a resume

Table of Contents Table of Contents

How to Put Volunteer Work on Your Resume
- Should you include volunteer work on your resume?
- How to list volunteer work on your resume
- Where to put volunteer work on a resume

Copied

Listen to this article 0:00 / 0:00

Including volunteer work on your resume is a good way to show employers how your skill set makes you qualified for your target role, especially if you don’t have any other relevant experiences to list.

ViewsLikes

We show you how to put volunteer work on your resume and frame it in a way that highlights the skills you picked up during your time as a volunteer.

Should you include volunteer work on your resume?

Yes, you should include volunteer work on your resume if it’s relevant to the job you want or if you lack formal work experience. Listing volunteer experience on your resume is a great way to demonstrate to employers that you’re hard working and involved in your community.

In fact, according to a LinkedIn survey, one out of five hiring managers in the U.S. agreed that volunteer experience was a factor in why they hired a candidate.

Build My ResumeOur resume builder can make you a resume in as little as 5 minutes. Pick the template you want, and our software will format everything for you.

Listing volunteer work is particularly important if you:

Have limited paid professional experience, like if you’re still a high school or college student.
Are transitioning careers and have volunteer experience that’s relevant to your new career.
Have a gap in your resume
Want to highlight leadership skills that you haven’t yet developed through your professional career.

However, if you already have years of relevant work experience or if your volunteer work isn’t related at all to the position you want, it’s best to leave it off your resume.

The best resume templates for 2025

One of the best ways to make your resume is by filling out one of our free resume templates. All our templates are designed by experts and free to download for Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

View Resume Templates

How to list volunteer work on your resume

In this video, our career expert Eva goes over the recommended way of listing volunteer work on a resume:

ViewsLikesOur Expert:

Eva Chan

Volunteer work should be listed on your resume using the same format as your work experience section. In other words, you should include the organization you volunteered for, its location, the time frame, followed by a bulleted list explaining what you accomplished while volunteering there.

Depending on whether you’re a student, a fresh grad, or a more seasoned professional, you’ll also want to make sure you’ve chosen the right resume format first. Selecting the appropriate resume format will allow you to highlight your most important relevant information and show that you know how to make a resume stand out from other candidates’.

Here’s an example of volunteer experience on a resume:

Volunteer, Cranford Food Distribution Center, Cranford, NJ May 2020 – Present

Trained 5 new volunteers, helping them develop a strong commitment to community service.
Helped prepare food and dish out meals to over 200 people per day.
Planned and organized two successful fundraising events, which raised the food bank over $2,500 in total.

However, if your volunteer experience isn’t highly relevant to the job you want, list it on your resume using a shorter format.

For example, here’s how you can include volunteer experience on your resume without taking up too much space:

Big Buddy’s Reading Help, VolunteerJune 2018 – January 2019

Tutored grade school children in Los Angeles in reading comprehension.

Use hard numbers to make your resume more impactful. For example, mention how many people you helped feed as a soup kitchen volunteer, or how much money you helped raise during a fund drive.

Where to put volunteer work on a resume

Depending on the type of volunteer experience you have, there are two places on your resume to list it: your experience section or in a dedicated volunteer work section.

Experience section

If your volunteer experience is highly relevant to the job you’re applying for, you should include it in the work experience section of your resume, alongside any paid positions you’ve held.

In your experience section, include three to four bullet points highlighting the skills on your resume that you picked up from your volunteer work, and any notable accomplishments.

Example

Here’s a sample showing how to write a resume that features your volunteer experience in your experience section:

Dedicated section

If you have volunteer experience that’s not especially relevant to the job you’re applying for, list it in a separate section on your resume labeled “Volunteer Experience,” “Community Service,” or “Additional Activities.”

Include a sentence briefly describing your volunteer experiences under each entry. These sentences should be kept short, as you don’t want to focus too much of your resume on experience that isn’t directly relevant to the position. Describe current volunteer roles using the present resume tense and the past tense for previous volunteer experiences.

If you’re struggling to format all the sections of your resume properly, try using our 12-minute resume builder. Most resume builders have the option to add an additional volunteer work section and will do all the work of formatting it for you.

Example

Here’s an example of how to list volunteer experience in a dedicated section:

An example of volunteer experience in a dedicated resume section

Facebook

Twitter

Copy link

https://resumegenius.com/blog/resume-help/volunteer-work-on-resumeCopiedCopy Rate our article

Click to rate this article

4.5 Average rating

33 people rated this article

Written by

Ida Pettersson

Committed to empowering job seekers of all experience levels to take the next step in their careers, Ida helps professionals navigate the job hunt from start to finish. After graduating from New College of Florida with a B.A. in Philosophy and Chinese Language and Culture, Ida moved to Hong Kong to begin her own career journey and finally settled in Taiwan. Her insights on resume writing, interview strategies, and career development have been featured on websites such as LawCareers.net, Digital Marketer, and SheCanCode.