Do your DC do volunteering work?

[PooshTun]

At the breakfast table this morning I was reading my local paper and I came across an ad for the volunteering services centre. On the xth a number of local charity groups will be at y to sign on teenage volunteers for the summer. Volunteering, goes the ad, can 'help your child boost their cv and personal statement'.

I accept that many people volunteer because they are genuine. However, I am cynical enough to believe that some parents include volunteering as part of a strategy to build an impressive cv for their DCs.

Is anyone brave enough to own up to the latter?

And do Uni admission panels really attach any weight to this?

I mean, we use to laugh at Miss World contestants who go on about their charity work with Third World children while dressed in a £1,000+ gown.

Most of the fee paying schools where mym children go will have the children doing things like this as well as Duke of Edinburgh awards and CCF etc. I think all these things are good experience for children. Ideally people should volunteer for better reasons than CV enhancement however.

PooshTun Thu 07-Jun-12 10:14:05

"I accept that many people volunteer because they are genuine. However, I am cynical enough to believe that some parents include volunteering as part of a strategy to build an impressive cv for their DCs.

Is anyone brave enough to own up to the latter?"

Is there anything so wrong with that if it is:

a) work that needs doing (so not travelling to Africa to build a shed that could equally well be built with local labour)

b) the CV enhancement may come in the shape of genuine skills which will make the person better at their chosen career (personally I'd think it an excellent idea if children preparing for a career in e.g. medicine spent some time doing community volunteering work to practise interacting with people)

c) not taking work away from the paid labour force and leading to job loss

d) a case of the volunteer doing the work to the best of their ability

Does it make you any less genuine if you are aware that you are gaining valuable experience? I think universities are getting savvier about this sort of thing: they can tell the difference between real experience and box-ticking.

Each Christmas my DCs' music teacher will take the kids she teaches and mount a mini concert at the local old people's home. Near the same time DC's music school would also hold busking sessions to raise money for a local hospice.

I hope that I (or my DCs) will never get to the point where what will look good on a cv becomes a consideration.

Poosh, I don't think there is any risk that a one-off miniconcert or charity busking on your CV will induce anything other than hearty laughs in whoever gets to read it; putting that on would make you look desperate indeed.

But several years of experience at the local charity shop might look good if you're going into retail, regular volunteering at the local hospital or nursing home might look good if you are applying for a degree in medicine or social work, a year working as a volunteer in South America (particularly if it is clear your work depended on speaking Spanish) might help your application to study Modern Languages; starting up and running a drama group is also the kind of activity that would look good.

With universities, they will be looking

a) for relevant skills

b) for signs that the applicant is a person who can organise things and take initiatives and take responsibility. Which I believe is where the D of E comes in. Being taken out by your teacher to do some busking doesn't really prove any of those things.

Basically, universities are looking for someone who doesn't just do what they are told by the teacher, but who is prepared to go the extra mile. Wouldn't be surprised if that isn't what employers look for too.

@Cory - You seem to be under the impression that my 10 year olds activities will be making it onto their university/job application forms :o :o :o

No, I am saying that the only kind of volunteering activity that will make a difference on CVs is the kind of sustained and initiative-requiring activity that is actually evidence of the kind of qualities the universities are looking for.

They won't care if you did the work you did because you were kind at heart and wanted to help or not: they care about the fact that you have demonstrated through a certain type of work that you have the qualities that will help you to thrive at university.

Many departments get far more A applicants than they can possibly take on- and tbh they know that not all those A applicants would actually be suited to the work. Some pupils manage to get A* simply by being reasonably talented and by diligently doing what the teacher says, but will then sit back on their bums and do nothing until the teacher tells them to do something else. Those do not make ideal university students; they do not contribute to seminars and their essays tend to be rather dull.

Otoh it might be reasonable to assume that somebody who can take the initiative to start up a group that is lacking in their area will also take some initiatives during seminar discussions. And someone who can be responsible for younger children during charity expeditions might also be reasonably likely to take responsibility for their own studies.

my kid isn't rich enough to volunteer!

I never considered the aspect of it looks good on a CV. I am a Brownie Leader, dd is 12 and in a different guide group from my brownies, but as no one can look after her, I had to take her with me to brownies and now she is a guide she is a "pack leader" I was hoping to move her to another unit when she was 14 to become a young leader. She does enjoy it and does it well.

DD 14 has volunteered at a special needs scheme since she was 12, because of that she now wants to be a special needs teacher. She does it because she loves being with the little children, but I would have thought it would help her cv because it shows a commitment to what she wants to do as a career.
DS has volunteered with the scouts for many years, but is using that for his dofe rather than looking good on his cv.

nymets - You've summed it up perfectly.

Some well off kids will have a cv with trips to Africa to dig water wells for local villages or to teach English to Brazilian slum kids. All this kind of volunteering takes money and contacts.

The sad thing is that less well off kids who serve the community in a less high profile manner don't get the recognition they deserve. It wasn't Cory's intention but her rather patronising comments about my 10-11 year olds activities sums it all up.

My eldest five DC have all held down a job to earn money continuously since each was in Y9 and each has also volunteered to a greater or lesser degree.

DD1 taught in China in her university vac last summer on a university scheme which had nothing whatsoever to do with her CV since her graduate job had been offered and accepted by then. DD2 is currently teaching a young asylum seeker, again on a university scheme and again with no nod towards her CV at all. I can't imagine she'd even mention it tbh.

Thank goodness the whole world isn't cynical.

Yellowtip - Why do you feel a need to go into auto attack mode simply because a post came from me?

It is the volunteering centre that went on about how it will look good on a teenagers cv and mission statement. I am sure that they will be open to your comment about cynicism in the world.

That aside, there can't possibly be parents out there who plan things so that their kids to go to the 'right' school and the 'right' university so that they can land the 'right' job.

There can't possibly be parents on MN advising others what kind of cv will impress a selective school admissions panel.

You are right Yellowtip. I am soooo cynical.

Even if they were volunteering to put something on their CV / UCAS form, then they need to be quite careful to make it relevant to their career / course. I suspect that the ad in the OP is just attempting to round up more volunteers with that cynical line.

Anyway, in terms of relevance, it needs to be things along the lines of

• teaching -> mentoring disadvantaged young people (often done by uni students), teaching EFL to asylum seekers
• medicine -> volunteering in care homes, hospitals, hospices and other medical settings, alongside shadowing medical professionals.
• politics -> electoral campaigning, volunteering in the campaigning arm of a charity (e.g. Shelter), working / volunteering for an MP
• modern languages -> going to that country and teaching English (there are ways of doing this surprisingly cheaply, and invariably the ones where people pay ridiculous sums of money are the ones where the 'volunteer' will be doing very little of value), or if it's an immigrant language then teaching English to people who speak that language.

You get the picture. Weeding an old person's garden isn't going to help anything, unless they want to be a gardener, or it's for DofE.

Great thread...I never thought about this...I will now!

I agree that it's out of order for this local volunteering centre to try to attract young volunteers that way; it sends quite the wrong message.

'Auto-attack'? . That's a touch megalomaniacal, no?

I work at a charity shop for a few hours on saturdays, but I'm only going to give it a brief mention in my personal statement. When I went to an Oxford taster day they mentioned that they're not particularly interested in well-roundedness, more in what you get out of what you're doing. Simply listing all the things you've volunteered for is unlikely to add much to a PS.

Forgot to add this:
I also volunteer at a local children's nursery on Wednesday afternoons, but again it's not really related to the subject I'm applying for, so may not even mention it at all.

Fairly genius idea by the volunteer agency tbh, especially for students who haven't been able to get paid work. Many voluntary organisations struggle with help over the summer months, so a win win. And if teens haven't found a natural way to voluntary service eg via school, scouting, church, DofE etc, then there is no harm in getting them thinking about presenting it on a cv. Not so much that that is its main benefit, but more so as they are thinking about what do they have to offer and who would benefit.

Would be interested in what sort of position are being offered. Always difficult to assess the cost/benefits of training volunteers.

You don't need money to volunteer, anyone can do it. People of course do it it to boost the CV, but most people do it because they are passionate about what they do.

Ladymuck - The plan is that various local charities will each do a presentation and at the end representatives will field questions and hopefully sign up volunteers.

From their viewpoint, they need volunteers and whether those volunteers have genuine or self serving reasons isn't relevent. Hence the attempt to appeal to people's self interest.

My son is going on the NCS course this summer, and is really looking forward to it. It seems to me as though everyone's a winner on that one, the young people have a great time and the community reaps the benefits of their volunteering.

It certainly doesn't make the difference between a university place or not. They want people who are very keen on their subject and employers want someone who will turn up and be good. If you've turned up at another job or even voluntary work that at least means you can get out bned in the morning and use an alarm clock and aren't a constant sick skiver whichputs you ahead of many so it can illustrate that kind of thing. Sometimes they want something that makes someone stand out whatever that might be.

I don't think it's wrong for parents to want to help their children which seems to be the message of the thread. In fact you could argue the parent who doesn't help their child, doesn't suggest they volunteer etc is the morally deficient parent, not vice versa.

Yellowtip - Forget about the Real World. This forum is full of threads from parents asking for advice on how to impress entrance panels and scholarship panels. MNetters will turn up to volunteer info about what they did in order to pad out their DCs application with impressive activities.

It would take a naive person to take the attitude that people don't take on volunteering as as another means of impressing uni admission officers or employers.

You are not a naive person. You know that these people exist. Yet because the post was made by me its eye rolling time and accusations about cynicism. This is why I accused you of being in auto attack mode.