Are you struggling to connect your volunteer experience to the work experience on your resume? For example, would you know how to translate your volunteer work at the local community center to your dream job as an account manager?
It’s relieving to know that any experience you have might be used in your job pursuit, no matter what position you are seeking.
It’s called relevant experience, and you can focus on that in anticipation of being asked in an interview: “How is your previous experience relevant to this role?”. You may have little to no work experience, but highlighting relevant experience can help your resume stand out.
In this article, we are going to outline some examples that we hope will help you relate your experience to the job you are applying for.
Relevant work experience examples should definitely be included when you’re putting your resume together with our online AI-powered resume builder.
How Do I Know if My Experience is Relevant?
To include relevant experience on your resume, you will first need to understand how to identify and translate your diverse professional experiences. You can review sample resumes and job descriptions to identify the types of resume example skills to strengthen your own resume.
Incorporating relevant experience means identifying any experience that might have prepared you to take on the responsibilities of the job you are currently seeking. You can develop skills and build knowledge through:
- Volunteering
- Internships
- School projects
- Freelance roles
- Recreational activities
- Part-time jobs
These opportunities helped you to build relevant transferable skills that you can use to upsell your abilities to a potential employer.
Identify which skills in a job ad pertain to you through your experiences. Then, list these skills to include when you create your document with our downloadable resume templates.
What Counts as Relevant Experience?
Employers look for how the core competencies and skills you have developed might transfer to the role they wish to fill. It’s best to list what you accomplished rather than what you did. Tasks you performed may not always align with a job description.
But what counts as relevant experience and what doesn’t? Take a look at the following lists:
Relevant Experience
- Showcasing accomplishments and skills, even from different industries or positions
- Achievements that make a positive impact (e.g., increasing membership, implementing new processes)
- Leadership roles in academia, part-time jobs, or volunteer organizations
- Projects, initiatives or extracurricular activities that highlight abilities (e.g., creating software, organizing fundraisers)
- Training or certifications directly related to the role or industry
Not Relevant Experience
- Basic tasks with no impact or relevance
- Unrelated hobbies or personal interests
- Volunteering in unrelated areas
- Routine tasks without notable achievements
- Non-professional social media presence unrelated to job
As you might have realized, it’s all about connecting abilities you have acquired through unrelated experiences to the job you’re applying for. In other words, it’s about the transferable skills you can highlight to grab the recruiter’s attention.
Extracting Relevant Experience – Examples
Now, let’s see some examples to further clarify.
Experience: You were the leader on an academic project or a supervisor in a part-time job.
Roles you could apply for: Leadership roles.
How to word it: “Led a team of 5 members in a semester-long marketing project, involving the creation of a comprehensive marketing plan.”
The above example would be in your education section, but the experience is still relevant to a working role that involves leadership.
Experience: You developed marketing materials for a volunteer organization.
Roles you could apply for: Marketing roles.
How to word it: “Increased volunteer membership by 35% through the redevelopment and distribution of marketing materials.”
This volunteer experience, might have only been for a short time and was not a contract job, but it still involved tasks and an achievement that a very relevant to a corporate marketing role. It could be listed in the experience section or a separate volunteering section on your resume.
Experience: Shelf stocker at a grocery store.
Roles you could apply for: Warehouse and logistics roles.
How to word it: “Collaborated with the receiving department to track inventory shipments and resolve discrepancies.”
There are some similarities between these two roles, so you could definitely include this in your resume’s experience section.
Calculating the Number of Years of Relevant Experience
Calculating the number of years of relevant experience can be a challenge as it is not always measured in a specific time range. This is why it’s important to differentiate your relevant experience from other tasks that are not relevant to the job you are targeting.
To help you identify your relevant experience:
- Carefully review the job posting for the role that you are applying for.
- Select specific requirements that match the responsibilities you’ve taken on in your previous experience.
- Highlight only those responsibilities that best align with the job posting’s requirements.
For instance, let’s say you previously worked as a grocery store clerk for 2 years, but you also took on some managerial responsibilities in the last few months.
Now that you are applying for a customer service manager role at an auto parts store, it would be best to highlight your managerial responsibilities, since it aligns with the required skills for the new job.
This is how it would look on your resume:
Experience
Acting Store Manager
Grocery Store XYZ
2020
- Assumed managerial responsibilities for the final 4 months of employment, overseeing a team of employees and coordinating daily operations.
- Implemented a new inventory management system, resulting in a 10% reduction in stockouts and improved efficiency.
- Conducted performance evaluations and provided feedback to individuals, fostering a motivated and high-performing team.
How Do I Describe Relevant Experience on My Resume?
Let’s take a look at some examples of how you might include relevant experience on your resume. Some of these positions seem entirely unrelated, but look how different communication skills, leadership abilities and creativity can count as transferable skills between them.
Example: Camp Counselor to Marketing Coordinator
Perhaps you served as a Summer Camp Counselor throughout your college years. Your major was marketing. Now, you are applying for a marketing coordinator position. So, your camp counseling experience might appear as such on your resume:
Experience
Summer Camp Counselor
Happy Kids Camp | Bay Village, OH
2018 – 2021
- Planned and orchestrated engaging and educational activities to create memorable experiences for campers.
- Supervised and guided a team of eight counselors and kitchen staff, fostering a positive and collaborative work environment.
- Developed captivating promotional materials showcasing camp activities, resulting in a 20% increase in enrollment from prospective parents.
- Effectively communicated with camp administration through comprehensive reports, ensuring transparency regarding camper behavior and promptly addressing any issues.
- Maintained and organized camp equipment, ensuring a safe and enjoyable environment for all campers and staff.
In this case, action verbs used to describe the activities can be applied to a marketing coordination position.
You have experience planning and coordinating tasks, you have supervised a team, you have designed and created materials, compiled reports for managers, etc. These are all related to a marketing coordinator’s responsibilities.
Example: Volunteer Experience in Your Business Development Resume
As a second example, maybe you have volunteer experience from a college student organization. You were in charge of arranging activities, increasing the organization’s social media presence, and raising funds, in addition to assisting in the cleaning of the organization’s office. After graduating with a business degree, you are now applying for a position as a business development associate.
Basically, you would focus on the leadership, communication, and organizational skills you strengthened in this volunteer role. All of these skills would surely be applicable to a business development associate.
This entry might look like this on your resume:
Relevant Experience
Member, Student Government Association
Georgetown College | Georgetown, KY
2020 – 2021
- Successfully organized and executed three impactful special events, elevating association awareness among the campus community.
- Implemented a strategic social media campaign, resulting in a remarkable doubling of Facebook traffic over a single trimester.
- Led and coordinated two highly successful fundraising events, mobilizing the community to raise over $700 in total donations for local charities.
Since cleaning the office would not be relevant to working as a business development associate, you could omit this detail. However, you might include it if, for example, you were applying for a managerial position in a janitorial or cleaning supply company.
Example: Listing Part-time Work Experience
Skills developed in a part-time work setting can be added to your resume. You might have worked part-time in a retail store when you were studying, for example.
Part of your job duties included assisting customers and arranging merchandise for displays. Below is an example of how you might mention the skills developed in this job on your resume:
Experience
Cashier/Stock Clerk
Bob’s Retail Store | New Jersey
2021 – 2022
- Demonstrated exceptional communication and customer service skills, resolving customer inquiries and concerns, resulting in a 95% satisfaction rating.
- Utilized keen organizational skills to design and execute captivating in-store displays, increasing sales by 15% during high-volume shopping periods.
Example: Internship Experience
If you’re asking yourself “Should I put an internship experience on my resume?” the answer is definitely yes!
Including internships on your resume is a powerful way to highlight your skills and dedication and it can set you apart from other recent grads. It shows that you’ve taken the initiative to gain hands-on experience and developed a deeper understanding of your field.
Experience
Marketing Intern
Inbound Marketing | New Jersey
January 2023 – Present
- Collaborated with the marketing team to develop and execute innovative social media campaigns, resulting in a 30% increase in organic engagement and a 15% growth in followers during the internship period.
- Conducted market research and competitor analysis, contributing to the development of targeted strategies that led to a 10% boost in customer acquisition.
- Assisted with the creation of compelling content for various digital platforms, driving a 20% increase in website traffic and generating over 100 leads
List Your Skills
Break out the skills in a separate section. According to Deloitte, 70% of companies asked are sourcing for skills rather than just considering job experience. Make it easier for employers by creating a separate section, especially if you´re a career newbie or someone transitioning to a new career:
Skills
- Verbal/Written Communication Skills: Developed through leading fundraising events and spearheading social media campaigns as a member of the Student Government Association.
- Organizational Skills: Honed while serving as a Stock Clerk/Cashier at Bob’s Retail Store and organizing events in a student government role.
- Customer Service Skills: Cultivated through resolving customer inquiries and concerns effectively in a retail setting.
- Problem-Solving Skills: Acquired through conducting market research and developing targeted strategies as a Marketing Intern.
- Collaboration: Enhanced by working closely with marketing teams to create and implement successful social media campaigns.
- Market Research and Analysis: Developed during a marketing internship, contributing to customer acquisition strategy through deep market analysis.
- Content Creation: Gained by creating compelling digital content as a marketing intern, resulting in significant website traffic growth.
Then, you could go into more detail during an interview if asked, “How is your previous experience relevant to this role?”. Either way is acceptable and could draw the interest of a recruiting manager seeking candidates with these skills.
Wrapping Up
No matter what position you’re seeking or how much work experience you have, highlighting relevant experience can make a big difference. Volunteering, internships, school projects, freelance roles, recreational activities, and part-time jobs can all count as relevant experience.
It’s all about identifying the skills and accomplishments from these experiences that align with the job you’re applying for. When describing the variety of experience on your resume, focus on the tasks and achievements that make a positive impact.
To make the process even easier, you can use our online resume builder to create a resume that includes all your relevant experience. Our templates and tools will help you showcase your skills and accomplishments in the best possible light.
Good luck!
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