How to List Volunteer Experience on a Resume (With Examples)

Jamie Anderson

• 5 min read
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How to List Volunteer Experience on a Resume (With Examples)

Volunteer experience can strengthen your resume, especially if you're a student, recent graduate, career changer, or job seeker with limited professional experience. It can demonstrate practical skills, responsibilities, and achievements you may not have gained through paid employment.

But where should you put volunteer work on your resume? Should it go under work experience or in a separate section?

The best approach depends on how relevant the experience is to the job, your responsibilities, and the other experience you have.

Should You Include Volunteer Experience on Your Resume?

Yes, if it adds relevant information about your skills, experience, or achievements.

Volunteer work can be particularly useful if you:

  • Have limited work experience: It can demonstrate practical skills and responsibility when you have little paid employment.
  • Are changing careers: A volunteer role may help you demonstrate skills relevant to your target field.
  • Want to demonstrate relevant experience: Volunteering in marketing, administration, teaching, or event planning can strengthen your application.
  • Want to demonstrate transferable skills: Community projects can show organisation, communication, teamwork, and problem-solving.

You don't need to include every volunteer activity. Prioritise roles that demonstrate relevant skills, meaningful responsibilities, or achievements.

Where to Put Volunteer Experience on a Resume

You can include volunteer work alongside your professional experience, create a separate volunteer experience section, or briefly mention an activity under additional experience.

1. Under Your Work Experience Section

If your volunteer role is directly relevant to the position, you can include it alongside paid employment. Make sure you identify it as voluntary.

Example:

Social Media Coordinator (Volunteer)

Community Development Organisation | January 2025 – December 2025

  • Created social media content to promote community programmes and events.
  • Maintained a content calendar and coordinated publication schedules.
  • Responded to audience enquiries and monitored engagement.

This approach is particularly useful when your volunteer work provides your strongest evidence of relevant experience.

2. In a Separate Volunteer Experience Section

If you have paid work experience but also want to highlight community involvement, a dedicated section keeps the information organised.

Example:

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

Community Outreach Volunteer

Hope Community Centre | March 2024 – Present

  • Assisted with community outreach activities and distributed information about support services.
  • Coordinated with volunteers to prepare materials for scheduled events.
  • Directed community members to appropriate services.

Place this section after your professional experience or education, depending on which is more relevant to the job.

3. In an Activities or Additional Experience Section

For occasional volunteering that doesn't require a detailed description, a brief entry may be sufficient.

Example:

Community Involvement: Participated in local environmental clean-ups and neighbourhood improvement projects.

Use this format when the activity adds value but doesn't warrant a full experience entry.

How to List Volunteer Experience on a Resume

Once you've decided where it belongs, follow these steps to present it effectively.

1. Include Your Role, Organisation, and Dates

Start with your volunteer title, the organisation's name, and the dates you volunteered. Add the location if it's relevant.

Example:

Volunteer Tutor

Bright Future Learning Centre | June 2024 – Present

Use a title that accurately reflects your responsibilities. If you coordinated events or managed a project, you can use that title when it genuinely describes your work.

2. Describe Your Responsibilities Clearly

Avoid vague descriptions such as "helped with events" or "assisted with various activities." Explain what you actually did.

Weak: Helped with community events.

Stronger: Assisted with event planning, prepared materials, and coordinated volunteers on event days.

Begin bullet points with clear action verbs such as organised, coordinated, developed, managed, or supported.

3. Highlight Relevant Skills and Achievements

Review the job description and identify the skills the employer wants. Then choose examples from your volunteer experience that demonstrate those abilities.

For example, managing social media for a charity may demonstrate content creation and audience engagement, while maintaining community records may demonstrate organisation and attention to detail.

Include measurable achievements when you have reliable figures to support them.

Instead of:

  • Helped organise fundraising events.

Write:

  • Coordinated volunteer schedules and event logistics for three fundraising events supporting local community programmes.

Never invent numbers or exaggerate your contribution. If you don't have measurable results, a specific description of your responsibilities is still valuable.

4. Keep the Entry Focused

For most volunteer roles, two or three relevant bullet points are a useful starting point. Include more detail if the experience is your main evidence of relevant skills, or less if you already have substantial professional experience.

Focus on what strengthens your application rather than listing every task you performed.

Volunteer Experience on a Resume: Examples

These examples show how to present volunteer work in different career situations. Replace the details with information that accurately reflects your own experience.

Example 1: Student or Recent Graduate

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

Student Volunteer Tutor

Community Learning Programme | September 2025 – Present

  • Assist secondary school students with English assignments and reading exercises.
  • Prepare learning materials suited to different learning needs.
  • Coordinate with fellow volunteers to organise sessions and monitor students' progress.

This example demonstrates communication, organisation, and teamwork without relying on paid work experience.

Example 2: Marketing Role

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

Digital Communications Volunteer

Community Support Organisation | February 2025 – November 2025

  • Created social media posts promoting community programmes and fundraising activities.
  • Prepared a monthly content calendar to organise publication dates and campaign themes.
  • Reviewed post engagement data to identify content that attracted audience interest.

This experience may be relevant to roles involving content creation, social media, or digital marketing.

Example 3: Administrative Role

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

Event Support Volunteer

Local Community Association | April 2024 – August 2025

  • Assisted with event registration, attendance records, and material preparation.
  • Coordinated with volunteers to prepare for scheduled activities.
  • Responded to participant enquiries and directed requests to the appropriate team members.

These responsibilities demonstrate administrative support, record-keeping, and coordination skills.

Example 4: Career Change

Suppose you're moving into project coordination and have volunteered to organise community events.

VOLUNTEER EXPERIENCE

Community Event Coordinator (Volunteer)

Neighbourhood Development Group | January 2025 – June 2025

  • Coordinated event preparation, schedules, and communication with volunteers.
  • Maintained a checklist of requirements and followed up on outstanding tasks.
  • Worked with the organising team to resolve scheduling issues and prepare event materials.

This example highlights transferable coordination skills without overstating the level of project management involved.

Ready to put these tips into practice? Use Preplink's Resume Builder to create your resume and organise your experience, skills, and achievements.

Should You Include Unrelated Volunteer Experience?

You can, provided it adds something meaningful to your application.

Volunteer work may demonstrate transferable skills even when the activity itself differs from the job. For example, maintaining distribution records at a community food bank could demonstrate organisation and record-keeping skills relevant to an administrative role.

However, if an activity was brief, unrelated, and adds little to your application, you can leave it out.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When listing volunteer experience, avoid these mistakes:

  • Listing only the organisation's name: Explain your role and responsibilities.
  • Using vague descriptions: Replace general phrases with specific tasks.
  • Exaggerating achievements: Describe your actual contribution accurately.
  • Including every activity: Prioritise substantial, recent, or relevant experience.
  • Ignoring the job description: Emphasise skills that matter for the position.

For more guidance on presenting your employment history, read our guide to work experience on a resume.

Final Thoughts

Volunteer experience can strengthen your resume when you present it clearly and connect it to the job you're applying for.

Choose relevant roles, describe your responsibilities accurately, and include measurable results when you can verify them. Your experience doesn't have to come from paid employment to be valuable. What matters is showing employers what you did, which skills you used, and how that experience relates to the position.

Add a stronger resume-tailoring example