Whenever I answer the question ‘And what do you do?’, I always include at least one of the roles that I have that consists of unpaid work. I think that it gives a rounder picture of who you are and what is important to you. My 2 roles are around chairing my local residents association and running 10k races for charity.

We have always emphasised to anyone who is job seeking, be that for a portfolio career or not, that is crucial that you are seen as someone who is doing something of value. The skills that you exercise or indeed develop in these roles as well as being satisfying and hopefully motivational in themselves may also be ones relevant to paid work. We were intrigued therefore to see that LinkedIn is now letting  users list their public-spirited deeds and philanthropic efforts alongside job experience under a new section called “Volunteer Experience and Causes.” According to a survey by LinkedIn, now more than ever, volunteer experience is valuable information that could give job hunters the boost they need to get promoted or hired.

LinkedIn randomly selected and surveyed 1,942 people and found that a vast majority of them–89%–had volunteer experience. But this unpaid work went largely unreported. Only 45% of the respondents actually reported volunteer experiences on their career profiles. Survey responders said they didn’t think such experiences would count for much, and they didn’t think managers would be interested. The thought to add that experience to their profile hadn’t occurred to some of them.   But when the question was turned around, 41% of the same people polled said they considered volunteer experience as valuable as paid work experience. And 20% of the hiring managers polled in the survey admitted to making hiring decisions based on volunteer work.

Nicole Williams, Connection Director at LinkedIn, says that recruiters are now looking at volunteer experience as real work experience if job candidates are able to talk about their achievements while volunteering in a quantifiable way. For example, talking about how you grew the Twitter following for an event you managed as an event coordinator would make a strong impression. The goal is to translate the description of your volunteer work into the vocabulary of employment, Williams says.

So – test it out now – in private.  ‘And what do you do?’ ……….

Oh yes, its here. My talk on portfolio careers recently in High Wycombe. If you couldn’t make it there, click here …..

Study success. Study what works. Play people to their strengths. Build teams with similarity of spirit and diversity of strengths. The words of Mike Pegg at the first Strengths Festival. There is a great write up here of how iSpy,  an innovative and very successful digital marketing agency embraced the strengths approach with amazing results.

There are times when our good friend Hugh MacLeod just manages to sum up a 15 minute spiel. This is one of them. We discuss the importance of doing the work that you love which is usually the work that you do best. This cartoon says it so succinctly.

For a price of an internet connection, Khan Academy is changing the way we can all access learning. Bill Gates says an education is available to the curious and determined. Hope we will see more of this open source type project. ” I like to teach the world to sing…..” ( sorry showing my age ). Big hat tip to my pal Steve Clayton.

Today we have another guest posting. This time from Alexis Bonari who describes hereself as ” a freelance writer and blog junkie”. She is currently a resident education blogger and performs research surrounding http://www.collegescholarships.org. In her spare time, she enjoys “square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop”.  Alexis was stimulated by what we had to say about motivated skills and contacted us with her views on the importance of having a diverse skills set. This is what she has to say:

“As today’s employment choices continue to decrease due to the condition of the economy and lack of jobs, it’s more important than ever to have a diverse skill set as opposed to just one or two specific areas of expertise. Having a diverse skill set helps a person adapt to the constantly changing market and as many companies continue to scale down, full time employees are being replaced by part time and flexible staff, making the “portfolio worker” more desirable than ever.

Leadership

Although companies don’t want too many cooks in the kitchen, it’s paramount to have leadership skills when job hunting. This gives the employer someone to fall back and a sense of security in case they are needed elsewhere or just want a break. Hiring a dependable second or third in command takes precedence over the average Joe when hiring any day.

The Self Directed Employee

There is nothing more frustrating than someone who needs constant direction which wastes not only their superiors time, but the companies time as well. Today’s cream of the crop employees are self directed, easily taught, flexible and don’t need a lot of hand holding. These are key qualities that your resume should reflect. But be cautious when working up your resume, just because you’ve had a dozen jobs, doesn’t make you more desirable than someone who’s has only had one or two. There’s a fine line between a job jumper and a baby boomer who has held the same position for thirty years.

Being Well-Rounded

Qualifications can be met through other areas as well. The military, teaching classes as a group leader in your church or community or being involved in charity work. Extracurricular activities are important and show that you can balance work and home life, which is a great asset to an employer.”

In addition to her sound advice on having diverse skills aren’t you just dying to know what ’square foot gardening’ is?

Ahh how to find the Holy Grail…..Mike Pegg as ever offers some great thoughts and practical solutions.

We posted a video last work from Philip Zimbardo on the secret powers of time and commented on the highly original presentation put together by RSAnimate. Today we are posting another one of their superb presentations – this time to accompany Daniel Pink who is again discussing his new book Drive. We are indebted to our good friend Bruce Lynn who brought this to our attention. Those of you who have not read the book really should see what Dan has to say about motivation.

In our book we emphasise the importance of knowing your values and your motivated skills. These are both of course related to meaning and I was fascinated to come across this 1972 clip of Victor Frankl with a barnstorming display on why the search for meaning is central to each of us.