Tag: work experience

Where Can Volunteering Take You?

Today’s blog post is contributed by Angela Vincent, a volunteer at the Victoria General Hospital. Angie’s story is a great example of how someone can discover their passion while volunteering! Read on…

Hello everyone! For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Angie. I am a mother of two beautiful children: Keegan who is seven & Kenzie who is three! I would like to share a small story with you. It’s about my volunteer experience and where it has taken me – I think I should begin with how it all started.

Previously I worked in the retail industry for over eleven years. I enjoyed what I did but towards the end went through a difficult stage of feeling lost in life (a whole other story in itself :-)). I didn’t have any idea what I wanted to do or how to do something about not knowing what to do… if you catch my drift. At the time I remember my mom saying to me, “Try volunteering at a hospital, it’ll be good for you”. I have to admit, I felt nervous even thinking about doing so. Up until that point I had not spent much time in a hospital environment; let alone done any volunteering!

With that said, I bit the bullet and went for it. Before I knew it, I was in a “meet & greet” with Petra Slaughter, the Coordinator of Volunteer Resources at the Victoria General Hospital (VGH). Petra immediately took my nervousness down a notch. I told her exactly how I felt and that it was time I tried new things. Petra’s support and encouragement (not just for me, but for the entire volunteer team), was noticeably infectious. She wanted me to find my right fit just as much as I was hoping to find it – and so it began, I started off in the Medical Imaging Department as an on-call volunteer.

While waiting for a more permanent position (the waitlist was quite extensive and still exists to this day), I began volunteering in the office area with Petra; more so to pass time. Now if there is one thing I quickly realized: what you expect something to be like isn’t always how it turns out (Petra told me this once)… and how true! I found I really enjoyed the office area. Since starting in June 2010, I have worked my way from general office duties to conducting intakes with new volunteers and have since started training volunteer team leaders to conduct intakes themselves.

My time in the office has given me a great deal of satisfaction. I have the opportunity of meeting a variety of self-giving people all with different backgrounds and stories to share. It has been and still continues to this day, a magnificent learning opportunity and has provided me with a valuable skill set that in my eyes was nonexistent before.

Soon after, I realized my passion was with people and it was Petra who suggested I consider a career in Human Resources. After some research and digging around, here I am – currently a full-time student at Camosun College enrolled in the Advanced Diploma in Human Resources Management. I can honestly admit that my volunteer experience thus far, along with Petra’s mentorship, has given my life direction – who knows where I would find myself today if I chose not take my mom’s advice.

As I say to my son, ‘you are your own person’ – decisions are to be made; dreams are to be followed. Looking back… my time spent at VGH has been stepping stones to the big goal – a goal I never knew I had until volunteering! (Thanks Petra!)

Strategic Volunteering for Job-Seekers

Over the years I’ve worked for Volunteer Victoria I’ve done many presentations on the topic of volunteering to adult groups. (My colleagues in the youth program make presentations to youth groups.) Lately, I find myself talking a lot – especially to people in career transition – about strategic volunteering.

While this may be a new term to some of you the concept isn’t that hard to grasp. Essentially it means that while volunteers are offering their time and talents for free to an agency that needs their help, they are in turn receiving something that is important to them. Since we know that people volunteer for all different reasons, the “important thing” they receive will be different for everyone. It’s the thing that motivates them to volunteer in the first place. For example, do you want to start volunteering to make connections in the community? Do you simply want a way to get out of the house and do something fun? Or do you want to build your resume and use or gain work-related experience by volunteering? It’s the latter concept that I talk a lot about when speaking to people searching for work.

On first blush many job-seekers may wonder why they should make time in their schedule to volunteer when they really are interesting in looking for paid work. But once job-seekers realize that many skills can be built  and enhanced through volunteer opportunities – and at less risk – they start to warm up to this idea. Volunteering strategically means doing the homework on yourself to figure out what it is that you want to get out of volunteering, and then going out and shopping around for volunteer opportunities that are going to help you get it. Our volunteer database is a great tool to search for something relevant to your job search, and if you don’t find something there you can start approaching agencies directly to pitch a relevant volunteer opportunity that you create for yourself. Yes, that is possible!

Remember, when volunteering strategically you’re in the driver’s seat. Be up front with the coordinator of volunteers at the particular agency you’re interested in about what you’re trying to do and for how long you think you can volunteer. It may take you some conversations and tries with a few different agencies to see how you can find a win-win situation for both you and the agency both (because of course, they still have a mission to accomplish), but the truer you stay to your strategic volunteering goal, the easier it will be to get yourself the kind of experience you need.

Once you start volunteering, don’t forget to put your volunteer experience on your resume, add it to your LinkedIn profile, and talk about it in your interviews. And if you want any more tips, or a presentation to your local adult groups about Strategic Volunteering, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me at Volunteer Victoria.

Good luck on volunteering for work experience and on your job search!