Become a volunteerHi, my name is Alice, I have written a blog post about how Girlguiding helped me join my random skills from my CV together and use them somewhere they matter.
To be honest, my CV looks like someone has covered their eyes and thrown darts at a dart board with subjects and hobbies just spread out all over it, none of them really go together or make any sense to be written on the same piece of paper. The reason is that I never knew what I wanted to do as a job when I left education, unlike all my friends who seemed to always know what they wanted to do and were excited to go to college, university or start their careers.
I decided the best thing to do was to try a lot of different things that sounded fun and see where I ended up; as long as I was enjoying what I was doing then it would be fine. So I did courses in health and social care, catering and cake decoration over a few years.
I then went onto work as a barmaid, waitress, chef, worked fixing and building computers, painting furniture with a friend and working in a big DIY store.
The hobbies section on my CV is equally ais weird and wonderful from being a self-taught knitter, allotment owner, book lover, and someone who loves camping and the outdoors. It all just seems very muddled, in fact, I was once asked at the age of twenty-one in an interview, “Why have you done so much and had so many jobs for someone of your age?”
That question sat with me, even though I put a positive spin on it at the time and got the job by saying because I enjoy trying new things and welcome challenges. I started to think I wasn’t actually sure that was true. I just knew people always told me I definitely shouldn’t say that I didn’t know what I wanted to do or how to use my skills in an interview, so I didn’t.
So how does this tie into guiding?
Well the exact same month I was asked that question in the interview, I started volunteering as a Girlguiding unit helper. My family especially found it amusing I was starting guides at the age of twenty-one; instead of the question “why have you done so much?” it was now “why have you never done this before or joined as a child when we wanted you to?” The answer this time is simply: I wish I had!
Adding another thing to my CV of Guide leader in training, and eventually Ranger unit leader was awesome. I enjoy the unit meetings, carnival prep, trips and even planning meetings where the wackiest ideas are thrown around by the girls, and you have to explain for the seventeenth time why skydiving is not something we can do during next week’s meeting.
My random set of skills helped me become and enjoy being a leader – even the skills Ii no longer enjoyed, I found myself liking again. For example I found myself cooking on an international camp for thirty of our guides, rangers and leaders for eight days, dressed in a minion onesie and apron, in a tent with no sides, using six camping stoves and a gas fueled water boiler that took hours to heat up. That experience helped me realise that even if I didn’t like the job of being a chef I could use my skills elsewhere and teach other people them too.
Guiding has helped me be proud of who I am and that I don’t just have to have one set of skills for a specific career. It’s also helped me realise the following;
- You should share and use your skills because if you don’t you are wasting them.
- It’s never too late to learn or try something new.
- You can never have too many interests if you have the time for them all.
- Putting “Girlguiding member” on your CV can start great conversations about it in your interview because people find it interesting.
- You can rekindle an old love for a hobby by helping someone try it for the first time and watching them enjoy it.
- It doesn’t matter if you’re not great at something, or if a ten-year-old is way better at it than you on their first go, as long as you gave it a go.
- The most important one is you don’t have to put all your skills on your CV, it’s ok to whittle them down and use them anyway at guides or to share.
- I hope you have learnt something and enjoyed seeing my experience, please remember – enjoy your skills and share them with everyone!
Alice has also created a vlog to share her experiences which can be found on our Youtube Channel.
