I was speaking with a friend of mine from University a few weeks ago who was filling me in on how his job hunt had been progressing. He has graduated with a 2:1 degree in International Politics, achieved a first class dissertation, has a significantly prolific unpaid internship under his belt from before he went to University and has been consistently been involved with charity work or working for a student society since he started University. By and all rights, he is an exceptional man and yet he is struggling to find employment like most young people in the United Kingdom; statistics are increasingly showing a growing trend of 16-24 year olds out of work.
However, this time he had some good news. He had been going through several interviews with a respected company here in the Aberdeen area and had been doing very well in the competency based interviews and even the preliminary conversational interviews. He was through to the third stage, the meeting with a director. As he tells it, all was going well until he was asked if he had any questions for aforementioned director.
“Have you got any concerns about me as a candidate?” He asked, knowing that the sooner he got feedback- any feedback- the sooner he could judge how well the interview had gone and how likely he was to have an offer of employment afterwards. The director looked at him, nodded and said one of the most shocking statements I have ever heard of an interviewer saying to a candidate.
“Because you have only ever worked for charity or non-profit, I’m deeply concerned about your drive to make money. I don’t trust people who aren’t concerned about money.”
Even when I think about it now, this statement still baffles me. And to make matters worse, that is a direct quote! When in fact, you have to consider the candidate. Here is a man who has so obviously demonstrated a much deeper calibre than somebody who wants money. Here is a man who demonstrated his desire to help people and shape his environment around him without any other gain other than personal satisfaction. Not only this but the results he had achieved from this charity work were outstanding. He has therefore demonstrated the drive, in my mind and to several others, not to go and “make money” but to actively achieve results and sacrifice large chunks of his free time to do so. And this apparently was not a positive. It has made me sit and wonder therefore- what is the value of charity work?
And this is where you see the real benefit of charitable work- skills. It is that catch 22 problem; you need to work to gain skills, but you need skills to gain work. So why, you might ask, shouldn’t you work in a charitable capacity to enable you to gain those skills? Why, you might ask, is what seems like such a logical way for young professionals to gain relevant skills and experience being discounted?
Since this, I have been speaking to a variety of different people across different sectors about the value of charity work- one a recruitment director; one a business development director; the chief operating officer of a service company, a senior recruitment consultant and a human resources director, all of which have said the same thing- this is a positive quality. It speaks volumes about the drive of a person and the willingness to learn. The business development director was most outraged by the context this question was asked in when explained to them, and has offered this titbit of wise advice-
“I would think that if the candidate is asked the question why they worked for a charity instead of earning money – the answer is more important, and how they answer the question than why they did it.
For example, if the market is poor and a student can’t get part time employment or break into the industry I would think more of them helping out, for no money, to gain experience and actually do something worthwhile rather than sitting around at home learning no useful skills- this is a really valid reason as to why more young people should be doing charity work.”
Especially when you consider the different types of work one can do within a charitable context. If you offer to help with charitable events such as Cancer Research’s Race For Life, you gain a variety of different skills including events management, logistical experience and marketing skills. If you could arrange to go into an office in the sector you are looking to work in to do an unpaid internship, the skills and contacts you pick up are nigh on unlimited. This isn’t just for office-based role, if one was looking to gain more experience in the Engineering scope for example then contacting some of the smaller service companies and asking to come in part-time, one or two days per week and do an unpaid internship then you will be able to say, when the time comes for applying again for a job, that you have picked up these technical skills. Also, you never know- if you had impressed your line manager at the internship, you may even get offered a placement.
Voluntary and unpaid work is perhaps one of the most valuable things you could put on your CV when starting out in a new career as it displays such a strong drive for personal development. So if you are stuck wondering how to gain new skills perhaps you can consider pursuing this route, and if you are ever challenged on why you did it, simply smile and explain how valuable it has been for yourself. It will ensure you come across as strong, capable of sacrificing monetary gain for personal development and ultimately, shows that you care about deeper things than just money.
Aberdeen Young Professionals 