Have You Volunteered Today?
Image Credit: Pixabay, Maialisa
Most young adults in modern society don’t even consider volunteer work to be a viable option for summer or even additional work. While most college students are ‘glad’ to get an unpaid internship, they must ask themselves a valuable question when the experience is over: what did I learn? Going into an interview for any future job, you must be able to talk about what you did during your internship, and what skills you acquired. This can be a daunting task because many internships do not give you any experience at all. In most cases, volunteer opportunities offer you real world experience that most employers are looking for.
A great example of finding volunteer work is to go to your local farmer’s market and ask around to see if any of the farmers require assistance. This includes selling their grown merchandise, or even helping setting up their stand. In most cases, farmers would be delighted to have someone help. While this may seem like a strange job to acquire, it’s easy to see where some professional skills can be acquired. In modern society, we’ve lost our ability to communicate effectively, what with new mediums of communication making our community interconnected. With this, however, comes an inability to communicate in the real world. We’re so caught up with what’s going on online, that we neglect our real world relationships.
With that said, volunteering at a farmers market can assist you in improving your interpersonal communication skills. You’re constantly being asked about the produce, and it’s important to be knowledgeable on what’s what. The difference between making a sale, and not, is the amount of knowledge you have about a product. If you’re constantly asking someone else what’s what, and how much something costs, a customer isn’t going to be pleased with you.
Another great benefit of volunteering at a farmers market is to help improve your mental math skills. When you have a customer who’s piling up produce and flowers in front of you, it’s important to keep track of how much everything costs, and giving them the correct change. If you don’t give someone the correct amount of change, they’re likely to tell you, and there’s nothing more embarrassing than that.
On top of the professional experience you gain from a volunteer opportunity, it’s also a rewarding experience for you. If you find something that you’re passionate about, like a clean water initiative, or helping America’s farmers stay afloat, it makes you feel as though you’re making a difference. In modern society, we’ve become so disconnected (while becoming connected) that people no longer have the motivation to make the change.
The smallest things, like volunteering for one day a week, can make all the difference in the world to someone else. Going forward, volunteer opportunities give you the professional skills that companies are looking for, and leave you a more fulfilled human being.