Volunteering: Ways to boost your skills and CV

Participants

• Emily Slade - podcast producer and host, Prospects
• Amelia Doherty - stakeholder governance and risk analyst, Jisc

Transcript

Amelia Doherty: You shouldn't be afraid, first of all. I feel like a lot of people nowadays get very worried about being a nuisance. I can't relate. I'm a professional one.

Emily Slade: Hello and welcome back to Future You, the podcast brought to you by Prospects. I'm your host, Emily Slade.

Amelia Doherty: My name is Amelia. I'm stakeholder governance and risk analyst at JISC. And before that, I worked at the University of York and their students union, which is fun.

Emily Slade: Nice. So you're here today to talk about the benefits of volunteering. So what volunteering have you done in the past?

Amelia Doherty: Lots. So currently, I'm an ambassador for a charity called Just Like Us, which go into schools and talk about what it's like growing up LGBT plus, which with the aim of like reducing discrimination in schools. So obviously, June, very busy. Got 4 in June, which is exciting. I also do volunteering with The Refugee Council. They have these people called befrienders who basically once a refugee family have moved in, they get assigned a person that lives in the area, that knows the area, to show them things like, where's a good place to get a coffee? Rather than, you know, like the paid stuff that do all the, let's get you into a GP and a school and a dentist. I don't do that. I just show them nice things, take them to the museum. But it's really nice because you then get to honestly butcher their language a little bit and attempt to copy and you get to teach them fun English words and sayings and idioms. And then finally I teach Sunday school, which is a lot of fun. Relatively new. So I currently have 29 littles, all under the age of seven. that I teach Sunday school to, just half an hour on a Sunday. And they are hilarious. They say some really funny things. So there's lots of different ways. And I try and do like multiple, as you can probably tell, but none that are very time consuming.

Emily Slade: I was going to say, but they seem to be at different levels as well. Like it's one you can just sort of like rock up on the day, but I assume for Sunday school you needed to get like paperwork in order to be able to do that.

Amelia Doherty: Lots of DBS checks and training in all three to be honest because in all three of them I'm working with vulnerable people. So I'm like drowning in DBS checks at my house at the moment. But I've done stuff that isn't really related to people. So I used to do volunteering for York Museums Trust I was doing exhibition design, which was very fun, very cool. They did put my exhibition up, but then they didn't credit me. So shout out. I'm joking, I'm joking. I love York Museums Trust.

Emily Slade: What drives you to do all of this volunteering? Has it been something that your family did a lot?

Amelia Doherty: No, not really.

Emily Slade: Or is it just like how you want to spend your time?

Amelia Doherty: I just get bored.

Emily Slade: You know, there's like a lot of television.

Amelia Doherty: I don't want to pay BBC for a TV license. I think it's more about like, there's so many different things in the world that are worrying. And it often feels like you're a little bit powerless to do anything about it because, you can't go like to another country and fix their problems, right? You can't even fix the ones in this country half the time. But you can do little things every day that make a difference. So like, for example, I was really distressed by the way that people talk about trans people in the media, for example. And I was like, I can't go out there and fix transphobia in a day, but I can go into a school and explain why transphobia is wrong. And I might not fix the whole country, but those 100 kids that I'm talking to, maybe five of them go, maybe I shouldn't say that on Instagram or TikTok or whatever they're doing it on. And it does matter, like, The feedback that I've had has always been really good. I had one kid that laughed all the way through and I was like, oh no, that's awful. And then afterwards he was like, I was just so nervous because I'd never met like anyone who was LGBT before. And I don't know why I started laughing and I couldn't stop. And I was like, well, at least you're not mocking me. So it's a lot like that. I think there's also an element of You don't get very much time, do you? Like, I don't want to get really deep for like, you got to like make it worth it. You got to make it worth it. And also like cheekily when I was in uni, a lot of it was just for CV. Like I found that the older I get, the more intentional it becomes of like, I'm choosing things because I'm passionate about them and I want to make that difference in the world, even if it's really small, like saying, I'll babysit 29 7 year olds. But when I was in uni, it was a lot of like, I haven't gotten an internship that I need for proving that I want to do the job that I want to do. So I need to go volunteer to get the experience. So it's Very interesting, like the difference between what I was doing five years ago and what I'm doing now.

Emily Slade: Yeah, 100%. And some may hear that and think, oh God, like unpaid labor, essentially, in order to get to a point. But everything that you're doing, especially currently, sounds incredibly rewarding. And did it essentially work volunteering in place of like an internship?

Amelia Doherty: Yeah, like when I was in first year, I was of uni, sorry. I was trying desperately to get a job as old people do and I just didn't get one. I applied for like, I was applying for things in like the Department of Biology. I had a history degree, I was never going to get them. And I ended up at a retail job which was perfectly fine. It paid the bills which is what I needed it to do. But I just didn't feel very fulfilled. But when I was doing the volunteering, it was like something I actually wanted to do and I actually cared about. And when I came to the job interview at Jisc, I was really expecting them to ask me about skills I'd picked up during like the job I'd had at the students union or stuff I'd done during my degree. And they had really honed in on, I'd won this award for volunteering from my university and they were like, tell us about this. Tell us how you got that award. What were you doing? And it's like, Man, I was entertaining on Wednesday night.

Emily Slade: And so do you put all of your volunteering experience on your CV or do you tailor specific volunteering things to specific CVs?

Amelia Doherty: Yeah, I think it's more tailored. Like for example, for JISC, I didn't put down all of the societies I was in because no one cared. I put down the one I was president for, because I was president. And I put down the one that I thought was most relevant to this job, which was like the treasurer sort of, I do a lot of like work with the finance team at Jisc. So I was like, I understand money. I had also worked in finance at the students union, so I should have just used that in hindsight. I think when you give reams and reams of stuff on your CV, it just tends to stress people out. So I only tend to put one or two and it just depends on what I'm applying for. So it's that sort of thing. But I tend to put down more about the impact or the skill that I've gotten rather than where I got it from. And I think it also depends on how long I've been there. Like I volunteered for just like us for quite a long time. I'm still volunteering with them. It's been Over 2 years now. So I'd put them on a CV, whereas I wouldn't put down like a university society where I was secretary for seven months. Because it shows a great commitment and I feel like a lot of the time that's what employers are looking for.

Emily Slade: What advice would you have for people that have never volunteered and don't even know where to start?

Amelia Doherty: I think You shouldn't be afraid, first of all. I feel like a lot of people nowadays get very worried about being a nuisance. I can't relate. I'm a professional one. So I think there's that element of if you don't know where to start, by just asking around. Like I had never actually heard of the Refugee Council until I was volunteering with them. And it was I want to work with refugees. let's Google places you can work with refugees. And that's often the way to do it. Like if you're really passionate about a cause, the best way to find out where to volunteer is Google what you're caring about and then put volunteering. So like, I don't know, if you're really passionate about the environment, there's so many different options and you might not want to be involved in all of them. But that's often the way to do it. The other good thing you can do is Often city and town councils have their own volunteering boards. So for example in York we have York CVS which basically has like a list of trusteeships and places that are looking for volunteers in the area. So if you don't want to go for those big, you know, Amnesty, Greenpeace, whatever, you don't have to. There's all these smaller charities that still appreciate support. And I think that that's the big way is once you get started, it's actually quite easy because a lot of people who volunteer don't just volunteer in one place. So you can kind of get passed around. If you're religious also. Don't know if I'm allowed to say this, but if you're religious, your church always wants people, your mosque, they always need welcomers, greeters, cleaners, florists, like all of these things. I didn't realise how many volunteers prop up that sort of building. I'm obviously chilling out in children's liturgy, but every now and then it will be like, hi, can you go talk to an old person that's in the house by themselves because they can't make it to the church anymore. And those sorts of things are always in newsletters. And when they do things like soup kitchens or food pantry donations, those sort of things, you don't have to be religious to join in. Food banks, number one place to go volunteer. Also constantly looking for donations. If you have tins of beans in your house, please go donate them. But even things like soap. A lot of it is such like you can build it in really easily into your day-to-day life.

Emily Slade: I was going to ask how does it impact, like what does your week look like? It looks like you're spread across quite a few organisations. So are you talking about like weekly, nightly commitments?

Amelia Doherty: No, I think it depends. So Just Like Us is pretty. calm most of the year. Obviously don't do anything in the summer because there's no schools. So they have like a monthly you sign up and then they'll assign to you. So for example, I signed up for 12 in June, which I think was a bit over the top for me. And I'm glad that they cut me off. They only gave me 4. They were like, we need other people to do stuff. And they're obviously great because they send you like postcards and stickers and things when you've done.

Emily Slade: And is that like, it would be like a Tuesday afternoon that you go into school?

Amelia Doherty: So I tend to pick the ones that start before my working hours. So I do like the 8 to 8.30 and then obviously log into work or during my lunch hour, though I tend to get hungry if I do that too often. Whereas like the Refugee Council, because obviously there's not a permanent influx of people all the time, you can be I've not had anyone for 5 months. And then you get a weekly slot for 6 weeks, for example, or 12, or however many that they think that you'll need. And that's like an afternoon. And then Sunday schools every Sunday. Yeah. Unless I don't, I'm not on the router because.

Emily Slade: Oh, okay, so that's also shared as well.

Amelia Doherty: Yeah, like a lot of places need volunteers constantly because they don't want to ask the same person to do the same thing every time, right? And it's good to shake it up, give other people new opportunities. Obviously, things like children will do is super strict, like you need multiple people because otherwise it's a safeguarding risk. Same with just like us, actually, you can't just send one person into a school. So they're always in pairs. So it doesn't actually impact too much my regular week. I'll have weeks where they're busy and weeks where they're not, same as anything else. And that's really nice because it means I can kind of plan around them, but I can also make them plan around me. I feel like a lot of people get very stressed about commitment level. They go, I only have one week a month or whatever. That's fine. That's kind of the point. So it just depends on what you're doing. I feel like if you're willing to give like one day a month, that's more than enough a lot of the time. Unless you're in a uni society. They demand everything.

Emily Slade: All the time. Yeah. Amazing.

Amelia Doherty: I don't know how to word this without sounding awful. I'm a nice person. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to do it for your CV. Like there's the famous quote of like, oh, I can't build the orphanage because I'm doing it for selfish reasons. And it's like the orphans don't care. They just want an orphanage. Like people are not going to care if you're doing it because you want to pick up your CV because you're still doing the course. But I think it does help if you care about the course.

Emily Slade: You'll probably have a better time if you care about the course.

Amelia Doherty: You'll definitely have a better time and you'll put in more effort. It's as simple as that. But I don't think it's a make or break. If you don't volunteer, you're never going to get a job sort of scenario. I think that depending on what you're doing, it could actually be less helpful because you're just losing time that you could be spending applying or whatever. But if you're going into certain industries, it's kind of almost a requirement nowadays. So for example, like I studied history. Most people who study history want to go into heritage. It's very difficult to get a museum job that's of any kind really, unless you've got that sort of volunteering experience because there's so few jobs and so many graduates. So all of the friends that I have who have archaeological or heritage jobs, they've also got so much work experience and most of that's unpaid, which we go into wider classes and discussions on that, but I don't think we've got time. Whereas the friends that I have that have gone into like myself into other industries, It's just partly because they don't have any of the volunteering experience required.

Emily Slade: You're based in like York, right? Which is quite a big city. Very historical. There's a lot of opportunities as well. What if you're based in a small village somewhere and your opportunities of volunteering are lacking? Can you do anything online?

Amelia Doherty: Yeah. So, oh my goodness, I just remembered that I do a completely separate volunteering piece. Well, first of all, Just Like Us does it online as well. So you could do it online. But also like there's groups like Zooniverse, I don't know if you've heard of them. they're amazing. I'm just going to plug them now. So they are really good if you're into humanities or sciences. So they do transcription services and you can volunteer as a transcriber. So for example, I spent maybe 18 hours once, which by the way, you can just do like 10 minutes, they don't mind. I was a bit over the top. Transcribing, honestly, transcribing World War II draft notices. So obviously not tights because they're from the 30s. They were the early years. And you get given a clump of them. You can do them one at a time. So if you just want to do one to test it out and then disappear and never be seen again, that's technically volunteering. I did 3 1/2 thousand and I don't know why I did that.

Emily Slade: You're like Alexander Hamilton, you know, where it's like, and Alexander wrote the other 400. It's that.

Amelia Doherty: I did get. I did have to apologise to one once though because I didn't read the handwriting correctly and just did it wrong and they had to bring a different transcriber in. But they do all sorts. So there are loads of museums. Birmingham Museums Trust did that recently. But there are mostly ones in the US and Canada. I spent a lot of time with the University of Minnesota. Never been to Minnesota. But they do like obviously things like the draft notices, but they also do things like their plants, their botanicals. So they'll have like a picture of a plant and then they've got the little bit at the bottom that says, and you can transcribe that. And it's so easy to do. And it's actually really helpful for if you do want to go into certain industries, like if you're really into sort of lab work, archiving, archaeology, that sort of stuff. It's kind of built in. But also it's just helpful if you're someone that's not massively technologically confident. You can practice your typing. You can practice your ability to read other people's work.

Emily Slade: Yeah, 100%. It sounds quite flexible as well.

Amelia Doherty: Super flexible.

Emily Slade: With Jisc, our company, you get given like 3 days of volunteering that you have to take throughout the year. And it's really difficult often to pin something down for such a short amount of time where you're not able to commit long-term. Whereas this sounds like something you can sort of pick up and do on a Tuesday afternoon because you have to do it during work hours as well. Quite easily. Yeah, really simple.

Amelia Doherty: I'll send you a link. It's really fun as well, like because there's so many different projects on there. So if you're really not interested in one, you can just move on to another. Some of them are also like doing, if you're really into the AI thing right now, I'm not, but But they have one where they're teaching AI to read storybooks, which I do think is cool, to be honest. That's crazy. They can read them to children. You could volunteer in a hospital to read to kids.

Emily Slade: Oh, that's cute. That is cute. Sad but cute.

Amelia Doherty: Yeah. And also, if you're like in a rural area, there's loads of other things like there's Nike's with the babies, like the tiny, tiny babies that are premature. If you can knit or crochet or anything like that, you can send your cardigans, your blankets, whatever, to any hospital and they will take them for the babies, which I think is very cool. Though you should check that e-mail the knit's the right place because I did send the cardigan to the wrong place once and they were grateful for the cardigan but very confused and sent it back. But there's all sorts of stuff like that. The Samaritans you can do from home as well.

Emily Slade: And is that like you're on the phone with people? Yeah.

Amelia Doherty: And now obviously they all have, the best thing about volunteering as well is that they always add like additional training and stuff.

Emily Slade: I was going to say, do you, I assume with that you would have to go to like, you would have to commit to some training?

Amelia Doherty: 100%. And probably also a DBS.

Emily Slade: Yeah. Which is not a bad thing to have, I don't think.

Amelia Doherty: Nope, it's handy. And the trainings opportunities are always really fun. I did one recently. I'm not with the Samaritans. I'm not with the Samaritans. I did one about child safeguarding and specifically how we protect children who don't speak English, when you don't share a language with them basically, which is really interesting. You never even think about a scenario where the child can't tell you what's wrong until you're trained on it. And there's some really interesting ones at the moment about AR. and how you safeguard people in public when there's, things like the Ray-Ban glasses that take photos and stuff. But the training opportunities are really strong. It's what you can do even if you think that you're far away from everything. It's just about knowing where to look and knowing who to talk to.

Emily Slade: Brilliant. Thank you so much for your time today.

Amelia Doherty: No worries.

Notes on transcript

This transcript was produced using a combination of automated software and human transcribers and may contain errors. The audio version is definitive and should be checked before quoting.

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