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July 30, 2008

How to use Volunteering to Try on Potential Careers

Last week we examined various means of identifying your skills and how they can help you find a volunteer position that reflects your passions and makes use of the things you like to do, and the transferable skills you've acquired.

James Elekes' comment demonstrates how he has used a book like Richard Bolles' "What Color is Your Parachute" and other business experience to find fulfilling volunteer positions.

"I've read "Parachute" (available through Bookshare.org, NLS and Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic) many times since its first edition, every time gaining valuable knowledge and insight. I have long had a passion to observe the inner workings of government, be it on the local, State or Federal levels. As an observer, you often must take a step back, focusing on the tree rather than the entire forest. I believe in the dignity of all humanity and, expressing my opinion when unfair treatment is focused at a particular segment of the community. Professionally, I am systematic and structured when analyzing an issue.

"As a result, (my) 'Volunteer/Community Service' has focused on how to improve the service delivery to the disability community whether it be in serving on an Advisory Body, focusing efforts on expanding resources to bridge a gap in service funding or opening options for disabled individuals to participate in a heretofore unavailable experience.

"It is ironic but, I do not look at what the activity can do for me but what I can contribute to the community to make it better. To this end, it is the life experience gained that is the reward. It is this experience that fills the picture of me out and, time and time again, it is the view of the value added I can bring to a prospective employer that is that intangible that was the difference in being the successful candidate when compared to others vying for the same employment goal.

"Incidentally, my present 'Volunteer/Community Service' Project is as a Coordinator for a local grass-roots group focused on insuring that disabled community members are registered to vote in the upcoming Presidential Election and, insuring the individual has an understanding of the new voting technology purchased by the State in order they may cast their vote privately, independently and, secure in the knowledge their vote will count. Once Voter Registration is concluded, I've been asked by the group to aide in establishing transportation to/from the Polling place for Election Day."

While Jake offers this comment:

"First off I think my love of accessible computing and the fact that I am a "people person" lead me to both my past and current nonprofit jobs. At the first of these nonprofit organizations I typed out memos and various other things for the staff, and I also answered phones and would sometimes make business-related phone calls. At my current job outside the home I mainly make phone calls or answer the phone, and there is a list of people to call which I navigate with the Non-Visual Desktop Access free screen reader.

"My interest in computers is also what lead me to the volunteer job I have, where I telecommute for a local senior center.

"I had previously transcribed a book about a family friend who is a Holocaust survivor, and he paid me for it.."

Both men have seen and found a niche, utilizing their respective skills and passions to fill that niche and have been and still are active volunteers in their communities.

When you volunteer you may be able to find a way to create a niche for a project or identify a need that's come up that nobody else can fill -- maybe even create a job for yourself in the process.

Read today's eSight feature, "How to use Volunteering to Try on Potential Careers"

I recently had a conversation with a volunteer manager of a non profit organization in my region. I asked her if she thought volunteering was a way to find potential jobs and she admitted that before she had to do practicums in her social service course, she never would have thought of volunteering. Her family didn't volunteer. None of her friends volunteered. It just wasn't on her radar.

However, once she had to 'volunteer' to get experience in her chosen profession, she realized the following:

She even decided to go back and volunteer in her spare time, after gaining her degree. She enjoyed the people and the experience that much.

She said she now looks not just at academic qualifications but also to see where and if students, who are potential job candidates or volunteers, have any community service or volunteering in their background. What kind of volunteering, where and how long they've been a volunteer.

In Ontario, students must have a minimum of 40 community service hours before they graduate from high school. So we're starting to get students in the volunteer mode early, helping them to see where they can uniquely fill a need, and what skills they've developed through volunteering which may help them find a job or start of a career.

We also have a day where parents can bring their children to work to see if they'd be interested in pursuing a similar career or job.

Disability Mentoring Day (DMD) provides another way to explore career options. On this year's Mentoring Day, October 15th you can expect to spend the day in a work situation that is compatible with your career goals.

If you have used volunteering to explore a job or investigate a career, please take a moment to share your experience.

Posted by Liz Seger at 10:02 AM | Comments (3)

July 23, 2008

Steps to find meaningful volunteer experience

I can imagine there are some of you out there saying
why is she talking about volunteer work, "I need a
paying job and I need it now."

You might have noticed that the exercises we have
been doing to determine what kind of volunteer
opportunities to explore are very similar to the ones
Richard Bolles uses in "What Color is Your Parachute."
Both sets of exercises help you determine what skills
you possess in order to help you decide what kinds of
work you would like to do.

By completing these exercises you'll develop a pretty
comprehensive idea what you're good at, what you
enjoy doing, your strengths, and your transferable
skills.

Learn more about Richard Bolles and his book which
"remains the gold standard of Career Guides". Go to
Job Hunters Bible

Then read today's eSight feature:
How to Decide What You Can and Want To Do As a Volunteer, Part II

Let's look at Nan's answers in this article on what
she loves to do. She tells us that she loves to design
websites. She loves to play with cats. She loves to
grow vegetables.

So she came up with the idea of combining her love of
web design and her passion for keeping cats safe by
volunteering as the web designer for a vet or cat
rescue center or a humane society.

Next she combined her love of growing vegetables and
finding great volunteer projects, and started thinking
about helping middle schoolers grow their own
vegetable gardens. Or she could help seniors or others
on low incomes develop vegetable gardens where they
live. Or she could even become the web designer,
either as a paid position or as volunteer, for
agencies who give away veggies that farmers and
homeowners grow.

Lastly, she could combine her love of free speech,
developing great projects and cat's safety by setting
up volunteers at a vet's emergency center to care for
the recuperating kitties after surgery. She could
write a column in her weekly newspaper on the care of
cats and kitties as a paid columnist or as volunteer.

It's really not as hard as it seems and it actually
can get your creative juices flowing by looking at
your passions, your skills, the things you love to do
and finding a way of putting them all together.

Take me for example, I love talking to seniors, well
talking to almost anyone. I'm interested in issues
pertaining to women, children and people with
disabilities and I love to write. My passions are:
free speech, being an advocate and social justice
issues.

That's how I originally got started in journalism,
writing about issues of concern to disabled people. I
also have been a transportation/peer support
co-coordinator for a local community support network
and at the moment I'm beginning to volunteer in the
"Talk a Bit" program with seniors who have virtually
no one to check up on them. I've been asked to help in
the victims services program with our local court, but
I just haven't had the time for that yet. It came from
my experience having been sexually assaulted and the
Crown Attorney's idea that I could help other people
who have been sexually assaulted to feel safe and
secure, both able-bodied and disabled. I'd be a kind
of advocate for them in the court system.

And for those of us who say, "I don't drive, I don't
have transportation, I don't always feel well,"
remember that there are always virtual opportunities
to volunteer.

Please join the conversation and tell us:


What steps have you taken to find meaningful
volunteer experiences?

Posted by Liz Seger at 12:17 PM | Comments (4)

July 15, 2008

The Impact of Having a Volunteer Wish List

Each of us has our own reasons for volunteering, but how do you go about finding where to volunteer or how do you create your own volunteer job.

Nan Hawthorne in her series on volunteering suggests you start out by finding a volunteer position which suits you, not just any volunteer position. First write down the things you like to do, be free-wheeling, write down everything you like to do, no matter how wild.

Then she suggests you write a list of things that you really care about or are passionate about. In other words, things that really touch your soul and evoke big emotion when you read about it, hear about it, or talk to someone about it.

Lastly, combine the two lists and try and brainstorm, alone or with your friends, what kind of volunteer positions you could come up with. Things that work with your interest that you might start on your own or that an agency or group might already be involved in.

For me, writing is something I love doing and that I am passionate about. I have done it - both as a paid freelance writer and as a volunteer - for a couple of years on the Welland Tribune Community Editorial Board. The Tribune has groups of 12 people on each board. There are boards for adults and then there is a youth community board, as well, in which you write about things of interest to you and your community.

I began at eSight through Jim's tell-me-a-story site, talking and writing about issues concerning persons with disabilities which had become a great passion to me over the years. You can often tell where my interests are heading by what I'm writing about.

My parents, who both were active in the community, volunteered in many different capacities. My dad, who loved to sing and act, was in our local Broadway musical society as an actor and as a stage manager. My mum before developing MS was a great knitter and contributed socks and mufflers and mittens through the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire (IODE) during the second world war. She was the 'classroom' mum until I hit high school when she finally said no more. She also volunteered with Home and School Association (PTA in the US) all through my elementary school years. Plus, until her passing, she was active in our local MS chapter.

She even started me early with helping her make sandwiches for funerals or charity events. I put the bread in neat rows across our kitchen table and she put the fillings in and then I topped the sandwiches with the top layer. In doing so, even at four, I realized I was 'helping out' people in my own small way and giving back to the community.

Liz S.

Read today's special eSight feature,
"How to Decide What to Do as a Volunteer, Part I."


Then, join the discussion and tell us:


What was on your volunteer "shopping list" (wish
list) when you found your first meaningful
volunteer experience?

Posted by Marten at 06:38 PM | Comments (5)

July 09, 2008

Don't Overlook Volunteering

Volunteering, a topic close to my heart, not only helps you feel better about yourself but also helps other people. I regard volunteering an essential part of developing skills you can bring to your next job. Let me explain.

In 1977/78 I went to teacher's college at a prestigious Canadian University in Ontario. I know now that I was one of many persons with disabilities who, although trained as a teacher with good grades, would be refused a diploma and teaching certificate because I was a person with a disability. At that time, the opinion of the faculty at many universities was that persons with disabilities would never get jobs as teachers.

I came home depressed and demoralized. My mum said to me "You can't sit around and let those skills go to waste, you have to do something with them." So she talked to one of the ladies in her bridge club about me volunteering in her school.

At first, I assisted with marking, running off mimeographed classroom work and supervising the children along with her in the classroom. The itinerant Special Ed teacher said to me that a school very near where I lived needed someone to help in the Special Ed program in the mornings. Would I consider volunteering there as well.

For two years I honed my skills and gained the respect of most of the teachers. There were still a few around who thought disabled persons had no place in the classroom. The children I taught in my classes improved and integrated back into the regular classroom, and the inside joke going around both schools was that children were inventing imaginary learning disabilities to get into my itinerant classes. As one of the Special Ed teachers wrote in a letter of reference for me, "Ms. Seger leaves no stone unturned in trying to find ways in helping the children find and reach their true potential and promise to excel."

At the end of two years, with a signed petition from the principals and most of the teachers at the two schools I volunteered in, plus the insistence from the Handicapped Employment Program of the Ontario Ministry of Labour, I was given a chance to redo one practicum at any university other than the the particular one that had refused me. Ultimately I gained my B.Ed. and Ontario Teacher's certificate.

The principal of the school nearby told me, when I came in to tell him I'd received my B.ED. and OTC, "Oh does this mean I actually have to pay you now when you come into teach?" Then he said "Nobody deserves that pay cheque more than you. Most people would have not shown up, been negative and nasty about the whole thing, you just dug in your heels, did the best job your could and earned everyone's respect."

Until he and I both left teaching, a number of years later, I was the first one called when he needed a sub.

Read today's eSight feature, Don't Overlook Volunteering

Then join this week's discussion and tell us:

What's your opinion on using volunteering as a career development strategy? When have you used volunteering to gain meaningful experience?

Posted by Liz Seger at 12:48 PM | Comments (5)