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When looking for employment, there are a number of strategies that we use to assist us in our efforts. We write and polish our resumes, scour job posts and attend job readiness trainings to improve our marketability. While these are all useful strategies for attaining a good-paying job, the single most effective means of finding gainful employment might be working for free! This may sound counterintuitive, but in a recent study, volunteering was shown to improve job seekers’ chances for finding employment by as much as 27 percent! Volunteering offers an opportunity to learn a new skill set and develop a professional network. To evidence the effectiveness of this approach, I can use my own recent employment as the Communications Specialist at National Able Network (Able) to demonstrate how volunteering for the greater good of the community can positively affect our lives both personally and professionally.

In December of 2011, I was an underemployed, part-time English teacher preparing for graduate school applications, when my girlfriend and I saw a news report showing veterans returning stateside as part of the military drawdown from Iraq. Like many Americans, we wanted to show our deep gratitude, but we also wanted to do something that would help local veterans transition back into our community. We decided to organize a “Welcome Home” event in their honor to raise resources and awareness for Post-9/11 Veterans. Unfortunately, neither of us had any event planning experience nor did we have any contacts within our local veteran community.

Lucky for us, one of the first organizations to support our efforts was Able and the Veterans Forward team! After learning about us, a Veterans Forward representative invited us to the Able headquarters where they assessed our idea, helped us flesh out a plan of attack, and provided us with some much needed veteran contacts. Through this process, it became clear that I needed to learn a whole new skill set if this idea was going to work. Therefore, I learned how nonprofit organizations functioned, how to use social media to recruit volunteers and participants, how to formally apply for city and federal parade permits, how to write press releases to attract media attention and, of course, how to fundraise!

The Chicago Welcomes Home the Heroes Event was held on December 14 and 15, 2012, corresponding with the one-year-anniversary of the drawdown from Iraq that inspired us a year earlier, and it was a success by any measure. Ultimately, it was a three-part, two-day event that included a ceremony honoring those who gave their lives in support of the Post-9/11 conflicts, a Welcome Home Parade, and a Veterans Resource Fair in Chicago. Thousands of like-minded Chicagoans attended the event, and nearly 70 veteran service organizations participated, including Able.

After the event, I continued volunteering to further refine my newfound skill set, but I was not able to find a long-term, paying position that utilized these skills, until now. On April 15, 2015, I was hired as a Communications Specialist at Able! In this capacity, I will assist in developing revenue sources that will continue to support Able’s mission while promoting the important work that Able does through our social media outlets. Today, I finally have the opportunity to take the knowledge that I accrued while volunteering and reinvest it back into Able, and in return, I get to continue serving veterans and my community more broadly.

This career opportunity would not have been possible had I not volunteered. By volunteering, I created a space to learn new marketable skills and demonstrate my capacities. It also introduced me to an established organization that shared my values and ambitions. And most importantly, it started a professional network that ultimately led to me being hired. In the long run, since I am familiar with Able and they are familiar with me, the chances of this being a good, long-term fit are exponentially better than if I got hired through a simple job post. Moving forward, I will continue to preach the benefits of adding volunteering to a successful job search!

If you are interested in volunteering with National Able Network, please contact Maureen Wilson at mwilson@nationalable.org.

For more information about the benefits of volunteering visit: http://www.volunteeringinamerica.gov/.