How to Add Volunteer Experience to LinkedIn

Volunteering is an excellent opportunity to become more engaged in your community while also developing your personal brand and expanding your network. Moreover, when you include volunteer experience on your LinkedIn profile, it helps you build social capital, develop your career, and increase the effectiveness of your networking with prospects and leads.

What if I told you that adding volunteer experience to your LinkedIn profile enhances your chances of finding a job by 41 percent? Those are the words of recruiting managers and business owners. So, if you have any free time during the week or are planning to perform some volunteer work in the near future, be sure to include this important piece of information on your LinkedIn profile.

However, why do hiring managers and prospects express an interest in volunteer opportunities? Volunteering demonstrates your leadership abilities, compassion, and empathy, to name a few characteristics. It also shows your ability to operate in a team, as well as your job drive, among other things.

In this piece, we’ll talk about how to include volunteer experience on your LinkedIn profile. But first, let’s take a look at the value of adding volunteer experience to one’s professional LinkedIn profile.

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Why Add Volunteer Experience to Your LinkedIn Profile

Including volunteer experience on your LinkedIn profile is a great way to inject a little bit of yourself into your professional profile while still remaining professional. Possibly you spend your spring weekends painting houses in low-income communities, or perhaps you spend your Thanksgivings serving the poor in a soup kitchen.

It’s ideal if your volunteer work is related to your professional field, but even if it isn’t, a hiring manager will gain valuable insight into your work ethic as a result of your voluntary work.

In addition, volunteer experience might help you build your LinkedIn profile if you’re new to the workforce or transitioning between jobs. Including transferable abilities in your profile may provide you with the potential to be found by hiring managers who are searching for candidates using the LinkedIn search tool.

How to Add Volunteer Experience

1. Log in to your LinkedIn profile to get started.

2. In your bio, select “Add Profile Section” from the drop-down menu.

3. Select “Volunteer Experience” from the dropdown menu by clicking on the “+” sign next to it.

4. Fill out the Volunteer Experience section form and save it by clicking on the “Save” button.

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FAQs

Should you put volunteering on LinkedIn?

Indeed! Volunteering is an excellent method to get your name out there and to demonstrate that you have contributed to a worthy cause and assisted those in need. Potential employers or leads will gain an insider’s perspective into who you really are, what matters to you, and the topics you are passionate about if you share your story on LinkedIn. It will provide you a competitive advantage when recruiters or leads look for individuals or companies on LinkedIn using the information you’ve provided.

What counts as volunteer experience on LinkedIn?

Volunteering is an excellent method to broaden your horizons and distinguish yourself as a person. Keep in mind that any volunteer work you have done should be listed on your profile so that people can know who they are networking with before they communicate directly to you about it. A volunteer experience is any unpaid effort that you have done for a certain cause that has been recognized. Consider the Volunteer Experience area of your LinkedIn profile to be a critical component of your professional development.