While education, skills and work experience says lots about your hard skills, your interests and hobbies provide insight into your soft skills.
No, employees aren't robots. Each individual has quirks, good days, bad days, busy days, and a whole entire life outside of work.
While it's the hiring manager’s onus to identify the perfect candidate to fulfil the job role, it is the job seekers duty to provide an accurate and composite view of who they are through the application process, starting with the CV. This means that the job seeker's CV should contain sufficient information such as education, skills, work experience and interests to convince the hiring manager that they're the ideal candidate.
While education, skills and work experience says lots about your hard skills, your interests and hobbies provide insight into your soft skills. As such, the type of activities you're involved in afterhours speaks volumes about your work ethic, personality and emotional intelligence.
From your interests, hiring managers can catch clues that point to your versatility, leadership capabilities, ability to work in a team, passion, and desire for self-improvement.
These are identifiable from your involvement in:
Competitive Sports
1. Club sports like soccer, netball, or hockey show that you're able to work well in a team.
2. Individual sports like Tennis, Yoga, or Cycling show that you're determined and passionate.
Side Projects
3. Photography and Videography are hobbies that show you're creative and patient.
4. Blogging shows that you have excellent planning and communication skills.
5. If you often perform or play an instrument, the hiring manager will consider you dedicated and disciplined.
Activities
6. Other interests
You can add hobbies such as gardening, golfing, fishing, painting, pottery, wood work and the like only if you are and have been committed to them for a while. The key is to be able to elaborate as to why and how these activities could positively impact your performance as employee. In other words, it's stuff you really enjoy doing and are passionate about. Remember, hiring managers are able to see right through half-truths and lies - it's their job.
These are not identifiable from your involvement in:
1. Collecting
This includes stamps, Pokémon, coins, etc. Including this tidbit about yourself adds no positive value to vie for your case as the ideal candidate. If they have no interest in your hobby, they may think it's silly.
2. Socialising
The hiring manager will immediately picture you in a pub or something similar. Having friends and hanging out with other people really isn't a hobby - more like a relax-y. The same is true for Watching TV.
3. Facebooking
Posting on Facebook is not a hobby – it’s digital socialising. Posting on Facebook does not make you a social media expert. Social media experts apply for social media-related jobs and emphasise their knowledge under Skills on their CV. Not hobbies. Besides, you're better off not bragging about how much time you waste online.
Don't even think about adding these:
4. WhatsApp Admin does not show leadership skills or team work.
5. Pirating movies and series is not an IT skill you want to brag about.
6. Using Instagram and Snapchat filters does not make you a photographer nor Photoshop expert.
Did you know Careers24 has a handy CV builder tool that will help you create the perfect CV? Once your CV is in place, take a look at the 1000s of available jobs on Careers24. There are also helpful interview and career advice tips to help you get ahead in your career.
