I, like many of y’all, have an account on LinkedIn. I was looking through the profiles of several women I know from the Junior League of Fayetteville and came across one woman. She is a fellow Army wife and has not been employed since moving to Fayetteville. She has her volunteer experience listed as work experience (even though LinkedIn has a section for you to list community service separately). It is actually a good idea to list any and all volunteer work on your resume.
Yes, I realize that serving as an FRG leader or FRG officer at any level is extraordinarily challenging. Most FRG leaders would prefer to get paid, given the amount of work that is involved. But should this be listed as a job?
What do y’all think? Should you or do you list volunteer experience under work? For you military wives, do you consider your FRG position to be a job?
I list my volunteer stuff as work because I do most updating on my phone and it’s easier with the app that way… I actually never saw the other spot until I logged on with my laptop one day! I don’t think anyone would really fault you or someone else for this… and you’re right–it’s basically a job! Just unpaid 🙁
I don’t know much about FRG work beyond watching Army Wives on tv but I do think it is important to include volunteer/Community Involvement on your linkedin (like junior circle, other volunteer activities) and resume if those are activities are important to you. In my experience, I would definitely not put volunteer/community involvement activities under work (it could be misleading to possible/future employers) but a separate section of the resume/linkedIN.
Being an FRG leader I definitely consider that a job. It’s more time consuming and stressful than people think. It’s not all fun and games because there is so much legal issues that come into play.
You pose an interesting question. I would think that volunteer work that has a lot of involvement (i.e. head of the FRG) could be listed as work work experience. When I think of volunteering, I think of associating with a nonprofit or specific/particular tasks. So being an FRG leader as a job, sure – but running the clothes drive or launching an activity (while holding that FRG title) could be a volunteer role and/or task listed in the volunteer section. It’s sort of a tricky line the more I think about it!
Since I don’t get paid for it, I don’t really consider it a job. It is a “job” but I would definitely put it as volunteer experience. When it comes time for me to redo my resume, FRG will really be the only relevant thing to put on there, but I’ll be noting that my 2000+ hours were volunteer time.
I always do a skills based resume and then list employment and volunteer history last. I do think depending on the amount of responsibility that in some cases volunteer work should be listed under the job section.