Jul 29th 2021

The importance of extra-curricular activities for landing a job

Are you fresh out of uni and wondering how to add a little extra to your CV to make your application stand out from the crowd? Extra-curricular activities may be just what you’re looking for to help you land a job. In fact, a study of 21 million job adverts in the UK found that soft skills and non-academic achievements are vital to getting through the first stage of the recruitment process. 

Whether it be sports, volunteer work, being a member of a university society, or learning a foreign language, let’s dive into the importance of extra-curricular activities and how Tempo can help you showcase them to employers. 

Benefits of extracurricular activities

They give you transferable skills 

Extra-curricular activities help you develop a variety of soft skills that are transferable to the workplace and give you an edge when it comes to applying for jobs. In fact, our research shows that almost three-quarters of businesses believe that hiring people with soft skills is more important than ever. 

Chris Davies, Founder of Graduate Coach says, “Employers want graduates who can demonstrate they have acquired the key employability skills they are looking for.” 

Let’s say you were the president of a university society, you will most likely have gained soft skills such as teamwork, leadership, communication and time management. These are all valuable skills that can be applied to the real working world and give employers an insight into how you may work on the job. 

They fill in the gaps

Just graduated from university with little to no work experience under your belt? Extra-curricular activities are the best way to help fill in those gaps on your CV, giving you practical real-life examples that you can showcase on your application or discuss in an interview. You can sign up to platforms such as Udemy and complete online courses in Excel or improve your writing skills – the possibilities are endless. Having completed an online course will show employers that you have taken the extra step to work on personal development.

They show off your personality

Extracurricular activities are a great way to show employers what type of person you are by taking a deeper look at what you’re interested in outside of professional and academic work. For example, taking a gap year to travel demonstrates independence, and volunteering at an animal shelter shows employers that you are an empathetic person. Including them on your CV gives you more character than listing out your work experience and shows employers that you have the initiative to seek out new challenges and learn new things.

How to showcase extra-curricular activities on your CV

On the Tempo platform, there is a dedicated extra-curricular section on candidate profiles, making it simple for jobseekers to shine a light on all the exciting experiences and skills gained outside of work. You can also add up to three  tags to describe your extra-curricular experience, such as creative, sport, position of responsibility, award, and so on. This way employers will see the whole picture when making hiring decisions.

Want to give it a go? Head over to our platform by hitting the button below.