How to write about hobbies and interests in your resume – While your experience and skills tell a recruiter about your professional background, your hobbies and interests convey tell them about your personality.
In search of a new job, candidates end up spending most of their time, updating their skills and experience on their resume.
The more appropriate content your resume has, more will it be visible to the recruiters.
Most job seekers believe that the section of a resume which contains hobbies and interests go unnoticed. Well, to be frank it does not get unnoticed unless it talks about something that’s different from other resumes.
Your resume is something that talks for you, in your absence.
Adding or omitting anything to it which is not real, could decrease your visibility and make you sound like an exaggerator in front of a recruiter.
We tell you about a few things you should consider while mentioning your hobby and interests in your resume.
Window to your personality
Hobbies and interests are something to talk about. They define a candidate’s personality and is a window to it. If you’ve mentioned stuff like reading, travelling, music, internet browsing etc. in the hobbies section, your hobbies are nothing different from most of the candidates, which is why you don’t stand out from the crowd. So talk about a hobby that defines you as a professional.
Degree of Uniqueness
An employer selected an inexperienced candidate for as much salary as an individual two positions senior received. Why you ask? Because she had this unique hobby of educating children from underprivileged sections of the society. The post she applied for was of a Human Resource Manager, and the employer said that while most of the candidates were experienced and liked to travel and read in their free time, this woman dedicated her free time to do something constructive. Now you know what I mean when I say, degree of uniqueness.
Demonstrative
You may like thinking about weird stuff. That, however, is nowhere close to be called a hobby. If you mentioned something like ‘narrating creative stories,’ be ready to narrate one in the interview. Like other sections of your resume, you need to customize this part according to the way you’d present it. So think before you mention dancing or club hopping. (wink)
Related to job profile
It does not really have to be on the same plane as your job profile, but something that could boost your professional skills and help your personality shine. If you have more than one hobby, you can easily mention one that’s off the record and one that’s on.
Honesty
If while going through the internet, you came across a resume that mentions river rafting or bungee jumping as a hobby, liked it, and thought of using the same for yours, I suggest you chuck the idea right now. Recruiters have their own way of finding out about you. So, if you are not somebody who’s even close to liking adventure sports, maybe you should talk about something you honestly love doing. Even if it’s reading, mention what genre of books have you read and which others would you like to read.
While your experience and skills tell a recruiter about your professional background, your hobbies and interests convey tell them about your personality. After all, there’s always a way to make your personality count better than the others.
