Aibu to think it's fine to put skills learnt in personal life on application form if they are relevant?

[Boppingbooper]

I'm applying for a new post in the NHS and the desirable criteria states experience of undertaking venepuncture an advantage. Now I haven't undertaken venepuncture in my personal life or in a professional capacity. However, I have a child with a medical condition so I have on many occasions delivered intravenous antibiotics through periphera lines and an implanted venous assces device. This included making up the required antibiotics safely, assessing the position of the needle and line to ensure it was working correctly and safely using aspetic technique. I mentioned to a close friend that I was thinking of putting this experience on the application for. To explain that I feel capable of training to undertake venepuncture and that taking blood/body fluid doesn't phase me. Friend has said that it's not the done thing to put person experiences on the application form like this.

I've not moved jobs in a while so I'm not wondering if I am bu to think my personal experience is useful on a job application for professional roles?

So, would I bu to include this kind of information or am I unreasonable to think hiring managers consider skills learnt outside of work environment?

As a student vet nurse my experience of maintaining IV lines is very different to "getting the vein" this takes time to practice, I've been doing this as part of my job for two years and I'm only just feeling confident about it. However it isn't all I do, on average two-thirds cannulas a day and blood samples. Saying that, my patients are pretty wiggly!!

All of your other skills are really useful and absolutely vital skills so would put you in good stead, however if they are specifying someone who can already undertake venepuncture as a requirement it might not be enough.

I think as your skills are relevant you absolutely should list them.

This is relevant experience that most people won’t have and is a good indication you could be trained.

I think if you don’t have the required experienced from a job, then including the experience you’ve mentioned from your personal life is preferable to just not putting anything. So YANBU, include it if it’s all you have.

But also include the ways in which you understand it differs from a professional background in that skill. They’ll want to see that if you only have limited specific experience you recognise you have a lot still to learn and are open to that, it’ll wave red flags if they get the sense that you believe your limited personal experience is equivalent to having done it for a job.

And wrote it as dispassionately as possible, use clinical language, stick to ‘my child’ or ‘a child in my care’ and focus on the skill rather than anything emotive.

I think this is more something you could mention in your cover letter, rather than CV.

Yes, I think your particular experience indicates that you have a good understanding of what’s required for the technique and have relevant experience of the area: I’d include it, it certainly can’t hurt and it’s only down as a desirable quality anyway.

It’s different when people put all kinds of “personal experience” on their CV and expect it to be taken seriously as a professional skill: “excellent multitasking skills from running around after my kids” and “doing all the home admin because I’m a SAHM” don’t qualify you as an Office Manager or an Admin Team Lead, for example.