Her Next Chapters

98. Strategic Volunteering – How Unpaid Work Can Jumpstart Your Job Search

• Christina Kohl

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Thinking about returning to work or making a career change? Strategic volunteering might be the most overlooked tool in your job search toolkit.

In this episode, Christina shares how the right volunteer opportunities can give you current experience, expand your network, and even strengthen your resume. From boosting confidence to uncovering new career interests, strategic volunteering isn’t just about giving back—it’s about moving forward.

You’ll learn how to:

  • Identify volunteer roles that align with your career goals
  • Use unpaid experience to showcase transferable skills on your resume
  • Build relationships that can become valuable references
  • Explore platforms like catchafire.org to find meaningful opportunities

Whether you’re reentering the workforce, pivoting mid-career, or simply exploring your next chapter, this episode will help you see volunteering as more than service—it’s a powerful step toward professional growth.

Find volunteer opportunities here:
catchafire.org
idealist.org
unitedway.org

Volunteers of America

Grab the Free Strengths-First Resume Template - it's perfect for anyone in career transitions, whether with a long career gap, a career pivot, or just ready for a change.

  • Want to chat about your career goals? Schedule a free call HERE.
  • Send me an email ---> christina@hernextchapters.com
  • Connect with me on LinkedIn ---> www.linkedin.com/in/kohlchristina






Christina Kohl:

Hi and welcome to Her Next Chapter's podcast. I'm your host, Christina Kohl. I'm a mom of three and soon to be an empty nester. I'm also a certified HR pro who restarted my career after being a stay-at-home mom for over a decade. I created this podcast to connect with moms who have an empty nest on the horizon and are wanting to redefine their identity outside of motherhood, which might include a job search. On this show we'll have raw conversations about our ever-changing roles as moms. We'll hear from women who restarted their careers and share tips for a job search after a career break. So if that's you, you're in the right place. Friend, let's get started.

Christina Kohl:

Hi, friends, and welcome to this week's episode of Her Next Chapters. So in the month of September, we've been talking a lot about kicking off a job search. So, if you want to go back, a couple episodes ago we talked about Labor Day and the importance of rest and the importance of unpaid labor and how it can be relevant to your job search. It belongs on your resume when it's relevant. So go back to that episode if you missed it, if you want to hear more about that. And then last week we started with getting clarity on what your career goals are, and then activating your network and getting your wardrobe ready for those interviews, as well as your tech. So that was all last week. This week, I want to talk a little bit more about that unpaid labor in the context of strategic volunteering.

Christina Kohl:

Now that school's in full swing, if you've got kids that are in school, there's probably a lot of opportunities for volunteering, and this is where I would encourage you to look for opportunities that will allow you the chance to do the type of work for free right, you're volunteering, but to do the type of work that you are interested in doing for pay. All of the stuff that I teach is relevant, whether you are currently long-time unemployed, aka stay-at-home mom, or a caregiver of any kind, or you're currently in the workforce. So you want to be taking on roles and opportunities that will lead you to your next role. So, if you're making a pivot from one discipline to another whether it's a complete 180 or just a little sidestep you want to take on roles, and maybe, if you're currently working, you can do that with your current employer or you can do it with a volunteer's capacity. So, like I said, with all the schools, so many volunteers are needed in the school environment and if you want to do social media, you can do that on behalf of the school. Or maybe you could check in - if you love animals and pets, maybe you check in with the Dumb Friends League. We call it Dumb Friends League here, it's the animal shelter. Check in with your animal shelter and see if they need help with doing social media to get dogs or cats adopted and take their picture and write a little caption and promote them that week or something, and that all is relevant experience.

Christina Kohl:

Unpaid experience is experience, and so I encourage you in September to go looking for opportunities that allow you the chance to do the work you want to do, and this is going to do a lot of things for you. One is going to build current experience in that area. It's going to expand your skills. It's going to build your confidence as well, because you're like look, I did this, I did this thing, and it's going to build your network. So not only all the people that you are meeting while you're doing that volunteer work: the other parents, the other volunteers, the staff, depending on where you volunteer at, as well as someone you're reporting to. All these people can be references for you, whether they're a peer, someone you've been in a leadership position, they've been following your direction, or someone you're reporting to in that capacity. These are all going to be current references and this is why it's strategic volunteering, not just filling your time, not just contributing because somebody said, "hey, can you sign up to help with X? Be really thoughtful and mindful about what opportunities you say yes to and seek them out. Seek out the things that you want to do so that you can build your resume, build your confidence, build your skillset, build your network. It's all around those things and I know I've talked about this in a previous episode, but that was like probably almost two years ago, so I wanted to bring it forward again because we were talking about unpaid labor on Labor Day. I'm like, oh, this is a perfect time to bring back strategic volunteering.

Christina Kohl:

So if you are connected to a school through your kids, like I said, there's probably a lot of volunteer opportunities there. Just check in with the PTA or whatever it's called in your area and let them know you want to do photography or you want to do newsletter writing, or you want to do whatever it is you do. You want to teach a particular topic you know, or run a science fair or something like that? Are you fundraising? There's so many opportunities within the school environment. If you are not connected to a school, or are you like - y ou know what, they filled all their volunteers? Doubtful, but maybe there just aren't any roles left of interest to you. Some places that you can look in your community - there's obviously the United Way. They're going to have a whole list of organizations that are in your community so you can check there.

Christina Kohl:

And then another organization that I send people to is called Catch- a- Fire. It's the word catch and then a fire, f-i-r-e dot org. And they are basically a matching opportunity professional-level It's volunteering. When I say that, I mean it's more than, I don't know what to describe it as. Like a lot of volunteering, sometimes is like, you know, we're going to go, it's a community cleanup day. We're going to go pick up trash. So if it's that and you want to do that, see if you can't take on a leadership role of organizing the volunteers and making sure all the materials are there and doing the communication and not just be the one to pick up the trash. Right, of course you're going to pick up the trash too.

Christina Kohl:

But what I'm talking about at catchafire. org, and I'll give you some other ones as well, but nonprofits can come to that organization, to a website, and say we need help with event planning, and it might be a six-week project because we want someone to help us with beginning to end, planning all the stages and running the project. Or it might be we need help with event planning, but we have staff that can do it, but they need some direction. So we just need like an hour consultation. Please get on the phone with us for an hour and help us brainstorm and know and help us create a project plan, and then you're done. So I just use event planning as an example, because one of my clients - that's what we're looking for, for her is event planning. There are tons of HR opportunities, there's marketing, there's finance, there's IT, website, there's all kinds of different projects that they have listed. A nd as a volunteer, you can go in and create your profile to say these are the things I'm interested in, and you can even have them send opportunities to you and these are great resume builders and confidence builders to be able to do this type of work.

Christina Kohl:

The other piece of it, let's say you're just getting back or you're into the workforce or you're pivoting to try on something new. And, for example, in HR, you're an HR professional and you haven't been working for a while and you see a volunteer opportunity for compensation review. They want help building out their compensation plans for their nonprofit and you're like, yeah, yeah, I could do that. I've done that before. So you sign up and you do it and of course, you're going to do the best you know, the best that you can and help the organization.

Christina Kohl:

But you might realize, like I didn't really enjoy that as much as I thought I would. So it's still strategic in both directions, because then you've learned like, that's really not where I want to go next. I want to do more of the human resources side versus the technical side, like the people side. I want to be talking to people and building relationships with people and not building out compensation plans. So it's a win-win, even if you try on a role. Right, this is strategic, but it's volunteering. So you're trying on a role and you're going yeah, reviewing handbooks, or the social media campaign isn't really what I thought it was going to be like, maybe I don't want to do that. Or you might be like, yes, this feels so great, I'm doing the thing that I was born to do in this moment and I'm so excited to have done it again. And then you've got that energy that you're going to be using throughout your job search, right. In particular, your interviews.

Christina Kohl:

This is to try out strategic volunteering in your job search to help you get that current experience, expand your network, build your confidence, build your excitement about the things that you want to do next. So catchafire. org is the one that I just mentioned. Another one is Idealist. It's like idea and then list. I believe that's an org as well. I'll have in the show notes. United Way, of course, for your local area, and I think there's just one that's simply volunteer. org.

Christina Kohl:

I'll put all of these in the show notes, but that's my best advice right now on this topic for unpaid work and last week I gave an example of unpaid work in my household, managing very complex medical challenges for one of my kids. That's unpaid work, but I wasn't volunteering right, I guess I was, but I was taking care of my family, but it was in a way, that example that I gave was very specific in how it could apply to a job. This is different in that you're volunteering outside of your family and it might be for your kids right at school or a sports team or something like that, but it's still gaining and demonstrating the skills that you want to be able to use in your next job. So those are my words of wisdom around unpaid work, unpaid experience, being strategic in how you approach your job search. All right, friends, that is it for this week's episode. Hope you find it helpful, as always, and if you want help with your resume, you know where to find me.

Christina Kohl:

I do those resume reviews. It's one-on-one, a video call. We look at your resume together, we go line by line by line and you're getting my insight as an HR professional with over 17 years of experience and as a Career Coach for several years and help you get through the ATS, help you get really focused on the role that you are excited about and, if there's time, we can also talk about some strategic volunteering ideas to help boost your resume, to take you in the direction you want to go.

Christina Kohl:

So that is in the show notes and, of course, grab the resume template, because that has a lot of this information as well. It's totally free. If you want the paid review service, then there's a link in the show notes to schedule that as well. All right, friends, have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll talk to you next time.

Christina Kohl:

Thank you so much for listening today. I hope this episode hit home for you and, if you haven't already, be sure to connect with me on LinkedIn and say hello so I can personally thank you for listening. Until next time, remember, your story is uniquely your own, and your next chapters are ready to begin.