Johannesburg - Job-hunting requires both resilience and patience, especially when you are a first-time work seeker with no experience.
It is important to stay positive while waiting for potential opportunities to turn into employment and one way to do this is to use this time wisely to make your CV more attractive by volunteering. It is a great way to gain real work experience in real organisations that can improve the quality of your CV and increase your chances of finding employment.
Now there’s a great way that helps you treat volunteering as a proxy for experience and to make your CV more impressive - this is done through an organisation called My Hands and Heart - a volunteering platform for employers and volunteers alike.
What can volunteers gain?
As a volunteer, you don’t need any special skills or experience. You list what you’re interested in doing, where and when. You can also subscribe to the organisations that interest you. You will be matched to companies that need people like you.
The platform tracks your volunteering by keeping a record of what you’ve done and how much time you’ve spent on it. This enables you to build a profile of the skills you acquire as you volunteer.
The more volunteer jobs you do and the more time you log doing them, the more skills you acquire and the greater your social employability profile grows, making you an increasingly attractive employee.
This profile becomes a useful reference that you can use to show prospective employers just how serious you are about contributions to your community and how dedicated you are to social causes.
Sometimes the organisations that use volunteers have fulltime employment opportunities. Where better to look for the staff they need than within their volunteer pool? After all, volunteers are a known quantity.
This is a great example of how volunteering can become your best job interview. All you need to do is show you have a great attitude, that you’re helpful and ready to go the extra mile.
A full-time job may not come along immediately, but everyone you work with should remember you as a great potential employee. You never know when your past volunteering experience may present you with a great job opportunity.
What’s in it for businesses?
If you are an under-resourced business or organisation, My Hands and Heart enables you to source “free” help from within your community, making your contribution by giving young workers essential skills and work experience.
And if you’re unsure about making a full-time employee commitment, working with volunteers enables you to scout for full-time employees, while limiting financial risk. The platform also manages your volunteers in a structured step-by-step process.
My Hands and Heart, accessed easily via the www.myhandsandheart.org website, is a national platform initiated by the National Youth Development Agency and Vulindlel’ eJozi, a youth skills empowerment initiative by the City of Joburg in partnership with Harambee Youth Employment Accelerator.
THE STAR