volunteer at a humane society or a woman's shelter?

Question

I have a question that I have always wondering about. Let's say that a person volunteers at a women's shelter or they do some similiar volunteer work at a humane society. The process could be dealing with children or general office duties or anwering phones for the hotline. We can also assume that the person did some front office work at the YMCA or served as a receptionist.

Assume the person wants to apply for a paying clerical administrative position or customer service. They include paid experience but should they only include the volunteer experience for the YMCA or can they also mention if they worked/volunteered at the women's shelter(should they leave that part out)? I was wondering because in the applications they always ask you for the phone numbers and the address. Of course you will have the phone number and address for the YMCA but most of women's shelters do not enclose the locations or physical addresses. Sometimes the women's shelters will only have phone #'s.

The particular person could have paid experience in fast food, grocery store and retail. I was just wondering how employers would look at that if you mentioned the phone number of the women's shelter but did not put down the physical address. I know the most important thing is that they need a phone number to call and I guess they could call to see if so and so volunteered in so and so area. and what if they do mention something about the location or if the applicant is hesistant to put it down or something.

Answer 1

I don't think that they would look much at the fact that there is not physical address. If anything they would ask the prospective employee about it, and you could explain the fact that it is a women's shelter and they do not want to devulge their address.

Answer 2

I personally would think that references from these types of organisations would be an asset on a resume. It would be appropriate to list them as work experience, but I would ask before you use numbers for women's shelters just to be sure you don't cause any problems. If you ask, they might just write you a letter of recommendation that you could include with an application.

Also, you might consider just using someone you worked for at these shelters as a reference (instead of showing it as work experience).

Good luck!

Answer 3

Always, always include all volunteer work. On your resume put Phone # will be given if asked for, when it comes to the shelters