I’m sure most of us agree volunteerism is a GOOD THING and that we should all do more GOOD THINGS. LinkedIn, the world’s largest online professional network with more than 120 million members worldwide, has today added a new “Volunteer Experience & Causes” field as part of a member’s profile.
With this field, LinkedIn members can add volunteer positions, causes they care about, and organizations such as the Singapore Red Cross, the Thye Hua Kwan Moral Society, Mercy Relief, Habitat for Humanity International, Oxfam International, or any others they support on their LinkedIn profiles.
And that is a GOOD THING.
There’s also a reason that you may want to fill it out (truthfully, that is) – a LinkedIn survey showed that 40-percent of professionals surveyed stated that when they are evaluating candidates, they consider volunteer work equally as valuable as paid work experience, and 15-percent of hiring managers polled in Singapore have made a hiring decision based on a candidate’s volunteer work experience.
Yet surprisingly, of nearly one thousand professionals in Singapore, while 75-percent of these professionals have personally had experience volunteering, only 28-percent of professionals include their volunteer experience on their resume.
“Many professionals in Singapore are increasingly realizing the importance of maintaining a professional brand online,” says Arvind Rajan, managing director and vice president, Asia Pacific and Japan. “Having a brand that accurately reflects the full spectrum of one’s experience is crucial for professional success in Singapore’s talent-driven economy.”
If you have a LinkedIn profile and have volunteer experience, you may want to go update that section now. If you don’t have anything to add, you may want to read this post on why volunteering is good for your career.
