What qualifies as experience? When a job requires two years of experience does that mean actual paid job experience or can it be internships and volunteer work? I have been at school for the last four years and have done a lot of volunteer work. I am looking into the nonprofit sector and wondering if my experience qualifies. If it doesn’t, what avenue should I look into to open up my options for these types of jobs? I am interested in event planning for different charities and organizations.

Employers ask for the best, but…

Employers ask for the best when posting jobs on job boards such as CharityVillage – usually in the vein of “X years of experience doing exactly the same thing as this job requires.” Why wouldn’t they ask for exactly what they require? In reality, however, they often must take the best of what they can actually get from the candidates who apply. In other words, they must compromise on some things, depending on the caliber of the candidate pool available to fill the position. As a candidate, you must adequately communicate your ability to do the job in question, which is primarily based on your previous experience and education. But the best part is, they tell you the kind of experience they require right in the job posting. Your job is to try and demonstrate that you have the same, or very similar experience to what they need.

Experience is as experience does

To paraphrase Forrest Gump, “Experience is as Experience does”. That is to say, each employer, as part of the hiring process, will evaluate the quality of your existing experience and its relevance to their requirements. You can make this much easier for them (and increase your chances of getting the job) if you can “connect the dots” for them. Do this on your resume, and reinforce it in your accompanying cover letter. Look for commonalities within your past – the work you did as a volunteer organizing a local event and a marketing course you completed while at school. The message in your cover letter in this case could be:

“I can plan events from “soup to nuts”. Not only do I have experience in organizing the events themselves, but I can market them much more effectively because of my education in the latest marketing techniques, and ultimately make the events more successful. My experience with ABC organization in planning their Annual General Meeting was a tremendous success as a result.”

You MUST do this work ahead of time, at the time you are crafting your resume and supporting documentation. It’s not easy, but it’s critical to success.

Some experience is better than others

The key with volunteer experience, as with experience in general, is to only include it if it is relevant to the position you are seeking. The fact that you helped hand out water at a charity run is nice, but it doesn’t really help define your ability to say, organize an event.

Any volunteer work can tend to be discounted because of some perceived general feeling that the not-for-profit world is “not as tough” as the corporate world, or that organizations are always desperate for volunteers and will perhaps tolerate different (i.e. lower) standards of performance. Those of us who are more familiar with the sector know that this is not usually the case, but there can be bias out there nonetheless, even among hiring managers within nonprofit organizations.

This is not a country club

What wasn’t clear in your letter was your reason for wanting to work in the not-for-profit sector. Did your volunteer experience motivate you to pursue this career option? If not, ask yourself why you are considering the not-for-profit world. Do you have a passion to help people, or a desire to work for a powerful cause, or perhaps simply do something with your career that isn’t as profit-focused as the corporate world? If your motivation is simply, “all I have is volunteer experience for a not-for-profit, so maybe they’ll hire me,” then think again.

In addition, some people new to the nonprofit sector assume that there is a different standard of professionalism applied to staff positions, in the same vein as their assumptions about all volunteers. That is simply not the case. There are the same, if not more, work pressures and demands placed on not-for-profit staff as corporate staff, and many of our clients who are considering transitioning into the nonprofit world from corporate life don’t always fully appreciate this. They see the transition to not-for-profit as a way to relieve the constant work stress they are currently facing. Most learn the hard way that the stresses for staff are just as real in the not-for-profit sector.

Volunteering…now that’s a transition strategy!

Volunteering can be used as a great transition mechanism toward full-time paid positions, but you must have a strategy in order to be successful. We recently had a client who was a full-time mom for eight years, and felt completely out of touch with the world of work. Rather than return to the corporate world she wanted to work at her local hospital. We defined her strategy: to work in a mid-level administrative capacity in human resources. We crafted her resume and cover letter accordingly, then she sent them out and started making some calls. She did meet with roadblocks in the form of people trying to push her to other volunteer positions, such as reading to the elderly, and other patient services, but she had a strategy and stuck to it. Eventually she was given the opportunity to volunteer in a clerical role in admissions, and concentrated on doing a great job. She then saw a job posting for a full-time paid staff position, and as a “pseudo insider” was able to prove her skills, work ethic, and other abilities with a reference from the hospital, and is now happily employed. This is just one approach of many.

You may want to employ the same approach – define your strategy, determine your true abilities your experience has taught you, and then start talking with the staff members of the organizations for which you have already volunteered.

Good luck!

Michael Mayne, M.B.A., CMA, is Managing Partner and a Certified Professional Career Counsellor at Catalyst Careers, a Career Transition, Counselling, and Outplacement firm. Michael has been involved in the not-for-profit sector for many years, and is Past President and Treasurer of ALS Canada. To contact Michael, visit: www.catalystcareers.com.

To submit a question for a future column, please e-mail it to careercoach@charityvillage.com. No identifying information will appear in this column.

Disclaimer: Advice and recommendations are based on limited information provided and should be used as a guideline only. Neither the author nor CharityVillage.com make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability for accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information provided in whole or in part within this article.