How to use Hobbies and Interests to emphasize job-related skills on your resume

When writing your resume, your entire focus will most likely be on your skills and experiences. But what if you can’t bring out all the necessary skills for the job using your experiences? This is where additional resume sections come in handy. Did you know that you can use resume sections such as projects, publications, volunteer work, and certifications to showcase essential skills on your resume?

Today, we are going to talk about one such important resume section: Hobbies and Interests. You can use your interests to indicate your competency with job-related skills on your resume. Here’s how you can do that:

Understand which hobbies are relevant

The first thing you must understand is that not all your hobbies will be valuable or relevant to your resume. When creating a hobbies and interests section, you must first identify the hobbies that are relevant to the job description. These will be the hobbies that help you hone relevant skills or knowledge areas. Think about how your hobbies have helped you develop and polish new skills. Let’s say that you are applying for a management position. In such a case, your resume must mention hobbies that reflect organization, leadership, and planning. Some good examples are team sports, strategy games, and volunteering.

Match your hobbies to the relevant skills

If you want the hobbies and interests section to uplift the value of your resume, you must match your hobbies with the required skills. Here are some examples of hobbies that bring out job-related skills:

• Leadership – If you engage in activities outside of work that require you to lead a team, you must emphasize them on your resume. Some examples would be charity work or volunteer work.
• Teamwork – One of the best ways to highlight teamwork skills on your resume is to mention how you engage in team sports. If you have a passion for dancing or ballet, that can indicate teamwork as well.
• Creativity – Applying for a job that requires you to be creative? There are tons of hobbies that will help you emphasize creativity on a resume such as writing, painting, pottery, photography, etc.
• Innovation – Some jobs require you to have innovative ideas. If you have a knack for coming up with innovative solutions, hobbies like robotics, programming, and design can help your resume.
• Analytical skills – For some jobs, it is essential for you to showcase analytical and problem-solving skills on your resume. Chess, strategy games, and puzzle-solving are some great examples of hobbies that bring out your problem-solving and analytical skills.
• Communication skills – Want to showcase how you are a great communicator? Then, let your resume mention how you are a member of a debate team or how you engage in public speaking.

Create a dedicated section

Instead of mixing your hobbies and interests with the other sections of your resume, create a dedicated section to display them on the document. You can place the hobbies and interests section toward the end of your resume. Emphasize your hobbies and interests when you want to add more keywords to your resume.