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Is There a Place for Hobbies and Interests on Your Resumé?
There are two basic types of resumés: chronological and functional. As its name implies, a chronological resumé is one that lists your experience and education in order, starting with the most recent jobs or achievements. This type of resume is sometimes also referred to as reverse chronological resumé, because listing starts with your current employment and works backward. Functional resumés focus on various areas of qualification, not your career timeline. This style of the resumé highlights what skills you have, rather than where and when you acquired or utilize them. In other words, instead of listing your experiences by your job titles, your resumé will contained sections titled by your skills such as verbal and written communication, customer satisfaction, project management, etc.
The functional resumé style is recommended for college students seeking internships or their first jobs out of college, for people with no professional experience, people who have not worked for some time (such as stay-at-home parents returning to the work force or people who have lost time to health issues or being caregivers), or for career changers. In this style of resumé you may want to include hobbies and other non-paid activities as they are relevant to supporting your claim to possessing particular skills that will be used in the job you seek. However, it is best to omit hobbies and interests that do not clearly tie to a relevant job skill, as well as those which reveal your membership in a protected minority category.
Whenever you are composing a resumé, you need to keep your focus on your career objective. All the information you present should support it, with nothing to distract or detract from it. In order to present yourself as the best-qualified candidate for the position, you want to give your potential employer a focused resumé with the information organized in a clear and logical fashion, not cluttered with irrelevant facts or padded with whatever might possibly look good.
The biggest mistake people make on their resumes is including information that is irrelevant to their professional experience. Even when a non-job activity is relevant to demonstrating your suitability for a job, not every aspect of it necessarily is. The functional resume does not require you to list names or organizations you have worked or volunteered for, which means you can list the experience and skills you have acquired without potentially disclosing any demographic information. Additionally, don't segregate skills gained through hobbies and volunteer activities from those acquired through paid employment. This is typically seen as amateurish and undercuts the credibility of your resumé.
Instead, list the experience and skills you have gained from hobbies and volunteer activities under the appropriate specific functional sections. For example, if you are seeking a position in graphic design, and have samples of work that you have done as a hobby, indicate the availability of these samples on your resumé or in your cover letter. Similarly, if you have done filing or organizing as a member of a religious or political organization, list those skills alongside the skills you've acquired in paid employment. Any employer will welcome the opportunity to have you demonstrate the qualifications that make you a perfect candidate for the job.
Before you send your resumé out to potential employers, have a friend review it. If you are a college student, seek assistance from a career center at your school. Having another person read over your resumé will help uncover any items that may raise questions about your experience or education, as well as determine whether the inclusion of your hobbies and interests works to support your career objective or detracts from it. Perfecting your resumé will assure that you show your potential employer that you are the best candidate for the job.
