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03/01/2004
How to Gain R&R Through Volunteering
by Mark Stefanick
Getting into the habit of helping others can be extremely profitable for your students!
In the real working world, good customer service or pleasing clients is purely defined as helping others. Satisfying customers' needs results in a good reputation and skyrocketing business growth. Also, being a team player in the office is simply characterized as helping others. If young adults entering the workforce help others on their team and are recognized for it, there is definitely room for career advancement!
Your students entering the working world should depict helping others as getting some "R and R." Not Rest and Relaxation, but Remembrance and Riches. Remembrance is listed first because if they make their life's work what they are passionate about, making money will be a bonus. Accumulating wealth should not be the primary motivational factor in finding a career because if they enjoy what they do, the money will come. If your graduating students excel at helping and servicing others in whatever profession or industry that they are passionate about, they will be PAID HANDSOMELY for their service.
During college, get your students started with the habit of helping others through volunteering projects so they can then SMASH THEIR JOB MARKET COMPETITION after graduating!
By volunteering for work in their chosen career field, students gain a resume advantage with actual involved experience related to their field, valuable real world experience and important character references. Before graduation, shouldn't your students find a profession or start a business that they love?
Volunteering allows them to not only be prepared when they enter the workforce, but enables them to ask and answer the question, "Have I made the right choice?" If the answer is "no," it saves them from what could be a lifetime of frustration in a job or industry that does not meet their expectations.
Through volunteering, students may experience a chosen vocation in the outside world, and "reality test" their internal desires and skills. It is highly recommended that they volunteer for "staff hungry" established and recognized non-profits such as local United Way Agencies so that the experience and character references JUMP OUT on their resume! Besides, they can get a jump on satisfying volunteer requirements well before graduating.
There are many sources of excellent volunteer opportunities listed on the Internet. For example, at ProjectSledgehammer.org student skills are matched with "Career Volunteering" opportunities. Even if a majority of your students are not honors students, clearly, it is their resume experience that gives THEM the edge to beat out Straight "A" students! Help your students develop this habit of helping others!
Mark Stefanick, a "Sometime Actor" on the feature film in production, Our Lady Of Sorrow (www.OurLadyOfSorrow.com), is now touring college campuses across the country, lecturing on the contents of his new book: SMASH YOUR JOB MARKET COMPETITION - Career Volunteering strategies for landing your dream job and eye-opening insights for creating a successful future.
Email: movement@CareerVolunteering.org
