Step 1: Be a Volunteer
Maybe you’ve just graduated college and are not sure what to do next. Maybe you’re a corporate executive in the middle of a career change. Or maybe you’re just someone who’s sick of crunching numbers in a cubicle all day. Whatever you’re looking for, volunteering provides an opportunity to do something dramatically different with your life, and can even start you down a new career path.
Right about now, you’re probably asking yourself: “Why should I volunteer?” First off, it’s nice. It’s nice to improve others’ lives, enhance a cause, and remedy society’s ills. You play a role in boosting social awareness through drawing attention to social issues and helping to mend the problems. Why else? Although a selfless act, volunteers ultimately benefit from the experience in a number of ways:
- Prepare for a career: develop professional skills, get real-world experience, and explore a particular career field. If you’re a recent college graduate, or you want to switch careers, this is a great way to get experience under your belt.
- Meet new people: make friends or add individuals to your professional networking web.
- Personal growth: foster personal traits like self-confidence, maturity, and independence or discover new talents and strengths.
- Personal satisfaction: investing your time to a worthy cause and seeing positive results can provide you with a strong sense of personal satisfaction.
- Boost resume/college application: a strong commitment to a cause provides you with solid work experience and also speaks highly of your character.
You can find volunteer opportunities in nearly every area of personal interest: animals, gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender rights, arts & culture, religion, race & ethnicity, healthcare, hunger, environment, politics, senior citizens, underprivileged youth, education & literacy, crisis support, media, homeless & housing, immigrants & refugees — and the list goes on.
Beyond the different types of work, you can also choose different locations: your local community, across the country, or across the globe. Many individuals will use their winter break, summer months, or gap year to volunteer abroad. Various organizations can help place you in a program that matches your interests whether they are working in a rainforest, teaching English in a foreign country, or re-building disaster-stricken towns.
So no matter what stage of your career you’re in, volunteering will do more than just satisfy your need to help others and make a difference. It may help open the door to what’s next.
