When I gave my first lessons in French someone suggested: organize it in a way so that you enjoy it and with will be fun for you and the pupil. Treat it more as a hobby, less as your job.
Starting my work as a recruiter I received another tip: if you want to have a coffee with this candidate and you wish to continue the conversation – this might be a right one.
What’s the deal with this hobby …?
Your interests make you more interesting in the eyes of the recruiter. It gives a topic to start the conversation. Recruiters often translate hobby into your other competencies and skills. Think about what passions can teach such things as:
- Logical thinking
- Regularity
- Working under pressure
- Patience
What does a hobby have to do with skills?
Focus on what you like and learn to describe it succinctly and concretely. Travels – but where? Everywhere? – What skills did they bring you? Books – what have you read lately? Wine? Which year do you like? Maybe fashion – favourite stylist? Hobbies on CVs will be listed in points, but learn to talk about them in a short interesting way.
Only the interview will verify how your hobby translates directly into what you get out of it, but the above-mentioned can translate into this:
- Logical thinking – chess, board games
- Being systematic – running, blogging, language learning
- Work under pressure – sailing, climbing
- Patience – fishing (sic!), Gardening
The key is to put them neatly into history and be lucky to have a conversation with a recruiter who cares. Many times after the interview I was folowing the travel blogs of potential candidates or their technological channels on YouTube.
Remember, we are not talking about what you once did in your life, only about long-distance interests.
Do not embellish! Do not enter things you do not know about …
You’ve seen the ballet and you know what pas de bouree – it does not mean you can dance.
You can say „ge ne pom pom poin” – no, you do not know French.
Then, for me it’s easy.
I am an extrovert. Skills like basic fire shows or a couple of guitar chords made me interesting to others in a way I wanted to be interesting and attract people I like.
Improv
And then I discovered improv – kind of art that taught me how to cooperate with people better, how the group mind works, how to hear others and perform without preparation. I am not the best one on the scene, not even the good one but I definitely use those skills at work. Excessively.
I use improv warm-ups for almost every piece of training, I try to use my trained empathy whenever I can and also I am not afraid of public speaking. Of course, I still forget about breathing when speaking to a bigger group of people but it’s still survivable.
My improv skills went level up when I started musical improv workshops. Leading idea: willingness to fail. Whatever I do, I have to remember that people watching me are only… people. Like myself. With their own life’s luggage of faux-pas etc.
What improv taught me as well is that the truth is the best and the most interesting. For some, I can be perceived as too much emotional, but this is how I am and I am too old (wink!) to try to be more serious than I really am. I might look more professional in dress suit but my mind wears jeans and sneakers.
Sailing
Sailing is a hobby I started to develop thanks to my parents and I didn’t know that it is my passion till I turned… a couple of years ago. I started to miss the sea, lakes, emotions. Waking up in a middle of the night, being obliged to stay in extreme cold or quite hot weather for 4 hours, having the specific sailing rhythm of life, not mentioning seasickness doesn’t seem cool. But it is.
It is extremely enriching when you realize that you can count on people you didn’t know a moment ago, you have a common goal and usually a lot to talk about. Instinctively you understand that it’s not a place for topics like religion, politics or age, they have no importance. You know that you can start to eat only when the captain starts, that what you took in your hands has to come back on the same place, that on the sea you have to note every hour the yacht/ship position etc. You have rules that you have to obey and you have to respect the sea.
And this is how I became a supportive team player with a tendency of telling people what to do. I am fully aware of me being bossy (Dossy?) but I can see how it helps sometimes. I know my OCD and know where it comes from. I feel happy to know that people consider myself as a supportive colleague.
Is hobby important on a CV?
So, when people ask me if recruiters pay attention to what you mention as a hobby in your CV I say: yes. I do.
1. It makes you more interesting.
I simply think that people who are passionate with something specific can be listened to endlessly, even if it is a completely unknown topic to the listener. Do not say that writing about cooking in a resume is childish or frivolous if you love talking about the types of spices or chocolate. You’re probably looking at the world from a different perspective that can „get out” at work.
2. Is the subject for „small talk”
At the beginning of the interview candidates tend to be super stressed. This is heard on the phone and visible at the face to face conversation. When we are talking about a hobby, we want to let you relax. We want to check how you talk about things that you like, which are close to you. Do you say interestingly whether you are reliable in relation to information on paper?
3. Shows you through his prism
You can not escape this. The recruiter will ask about team sports for a sales position or team leader one. If you build marketing strategies, then board games have surely taught you strategic thinking. Or maybe you’re watching the stars with full commitment, and that’s what the analyst’s thing to do. Sales man – amateur psychologist, team sports.
On that note, I encourage you to take care of your hobbies and passions, to liaise them with your daily tasks and observe what skills interfere. Such an exercise may let you understand better what you can be better at, in which direction you would like to develop.
I have asked others about it:
Dagmara Pakulska, author of the press review, which I follow and adore, Marketing Consultant:
History and antiquity are my hobbies. I am fascinated by how simple people were able to do such great things (knowing that at that time everything had to be discovered). It shows and teaches that sometimes having little resources, but a lot of determination you can acheive unacheivable.
Kasia Borowicz, Social recruiting and training. Kasia manages a group on FB:
Blogging. I started a long time ago and if I did not do it, I do not know if I would take up any business. And I feel that I know more or less what I do and I feel more confident. The same as it is about social media as I simply was not afraid to use them to promote myself. Then languages or fitness because they teach to be systematic and disciplined.
Kasia Trzonek, travel blogger, Multilingual Accounting Specialist:
Travel taught me how to plan, create „to do” lists and search for new solutions and a plan B. Horse riding contributed to my early mornings.
Łukasz Chmurski, guitarist, sailor, lawyer
Working with several bands over many years, or sailing with different crews so the need to work with various people and often manage them taught me a lot. This experience definitely made managing the office easier.
Karolina Latus, CEO, HR consultant
Running constantly teaches me consistency and patience, and pole dance classes help me to focus on here and now.