What Skills Do You Gain From Volunteering?

As you’re browsing volunteer programs abroad, you may be wondering: What skills do you gain from volunteering? The good news is—more than you think!

Whether you rehabilitate animals in South Africa, teach kiddos English in the Czech Republic, build community centers in Argentina, or plant trees in Indonesia, you have the potential to earn many valuable skills from almost any volunteer program abroad. Plus, you’ll have a fun and meaningful adventure while earning those skills!

Not to mention that volunteering abroad, with its cultural differences, diverse peoples, unmatched locations, and unique tasks, will ask many different things from you. Those experiences, while sometimes challenging, will help you learn a variety of hard and soft skills, which can be transferable too.

As a pro tip, journal your experiences abroad and hold onto any creations for your portfolio, as that information can be helpful for job or grad school applications!

14 skills you can learn from volunteering

Wherever your volunteering journey takes you, you’re sure to pick up a wide range of skills.

So, what are the skills you gain from volunteering? Needless to say, you’ll gain a plethora of hard and soft skills from volunteering!

Hard skills are technical abilities earned from education or experience while soft skills are character traits earned from relationships and social interactions. And, these lists are just the beginning!

Hard skills gained through volunteering

1. Language skills

Sí, oui, ja—yes siree, language skills are one of the best hard skills gained through volunteering abroad. From navigating new locations to collaborating with locals on projects, you’ll grow your vocabulary and pick up many local phrases. Many volunteer programs build language classes into the program, and you may even live with a host family, so you can get plenty of practice!

2. Computer skills

Many volunteer positions will need participants to use computers in some type of capacity, allowing you to sharpen your technical expertise. Some tasks may include entering data for research, creating designs with Adobe products, or managing spreadsheets. You may also need to use other online tools for communication and collaboration.

3. Trade skills

You can gain trade skills from highly specialized, hands-on work from volunteering, depending on the program. If you’re volunteering to help build homes, for example, you’ll likely pick up skills in carpentry, and maybe even plumbing, electrical, and landscaping skills. Make no mistake—if you’re volunteering in hospitals, clinics, or dentistry offices, you’re picking up valuable medical skills too.

4. Project management skills

You’re more than likely going to be responsible to help out with a number of projects. As a volunteer teacher, journalist, builder, etc., you’ll develop many project management skills as you’ll often need to overcome many challenges with resources. Project management involves a culmination of a variety of skills, such as gathering and reviewing requirements, delegating tasks, organizing data, meeting deadlines, and more.

5. Design skills

Some volunteer positions will need participants to craft presentations, printed signs, or digital advertisements to help fundraise for a cause or educate others about health issues. Developing a design is both an art and a science—you’ll need to combine text and imagery in a way that’s understandable. You may even be improving your photography skills and design program software skills too!

6. Written communication skills

The ability to communicate effectively in writing will serve you well in any career.

Good written communication skills are about more than just improving grammar and spelling—it’s also about weaving together a message catered for a certain audience.

For example, you may need to write copy for a website, pen a play to help teach children valuable life lessons, or draft a grant proposal to request funding. And if you’re bilingual, you may be able to help translate text. Plus, you’re writing for another culture, which is another challenge!

7. Analytical skills

Analytical skills come in many shapes and sizes. In many fields as a volunteer, anywhere from conservation to medical research for example, they may request you to help comb through incoming data from a variety of systems and help with interpreting metrics and diagnosing problems. They may also need you to help report and present that data in an easy-to-digest manner for consumers, executives, businesses, and other audiences.

Soft skills gained through volunteering

1. Leadership skills

Leadership, like most soft skills, is something you gain from experience. As a volunteer abroad, you could be leading a diverse group of people with different backgrounds and personalities to complete a project.

While you may not have the official title of a leader, you can always step up to take on more responsibilities and help resolve any internal or external conflicts to keep the team strong and motivated toward achieving a goal.

2. Problem-solving skills and adaptability

Whether you’re in a tropical jungle or an icy tundra, you may find yourself needing to adapt to challenging environments and tricky tasks while volunteering abroad. Many situations will call for you to rise to the occasion in unexpected ways. You may not always have all the tools you need at hand to achieve a task or others may not agree with how you want to solve a problem, so you’ll need to work with your team to be inventive and resourceful.

3. Cross-cultural competence skills

Every country has its own array of cultural values—even if that culture speaks the same language as you. They could be more rigid or laid-back about time, resources, bureaucratic processes, etc.

You’ll need to learn to appreciate those cultural differences and navigate their boundaries with care and empathy. The cross-cultural competence skills gained through volunteering will help you become a stronger person both personally and professionally.

4. Time management skills

Trust us, your future employer will LOVE to see your time management skills in action.

Learning to complete tasks by certain deadlines is no easy feat, and it’s always one of the top soft skills that employers look for. With time management, you’ll need to plan, organize, and prioritize what tasks you complete by a certain time or possibly before certain resources run out. You may need to learn how to recognize other people’s strengths so you can delegate accordingly and ensure efficient time management.

5. Communication and relationship-building skills

As a volunteer abroad, you’re going to communicate with lots of people from around the world—both in person and digitally. You may even need to learn to communicate through translators and interpreters.

Being able to communicate your message in a way that others understand is a critical skill that you can gain from being abroad. After all, strong communication helps strengthen relationships and collaboration to overcome issues and achieve goals.

6. Teamwork and conflict resolution skills

These are both valuable skills you gain from volunteering! Your volunteer group will likely be an international mix, and you’ll need to work together with the locals in the area to achieve goals. Not everybody will always see eye to eye on how to resolve problems. You’ll need to learn to listen to new perspectives, compromise, and negotiate to pave new ways forward.

7. Public speaking skills

Did you know that the fear of public speaking is the top phobia in the world? From teaching a community class to presenting about public health to leading a research group, you can gain public speaking skills in many ways while volunteering abroad.

Learning how to connect with your audience, especially members of a different culture, will help you develop stronger communication skills and help influence more positive changes.

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5 transferable skills you learn from volunteering

Almost all of the skills you learn from volunteering can apply to almost any other job (and many other life situations) no matter the field or industry. Many employers look for the following skills below as well as the ones above. You can proudly mention that you’ve earned these skills from your experience abroad on your resume and in interviews!

1. Interpersonal skills

Volunteering builds interpersonal skills you can use on the job and beyond.

This is one of the top transferable skills you learn from volunteering. As a volunteer abroad, you’ll need to demonstrate patience, flexibility, and active listening with your team to accomplish tasks.

You’ll shape stronger interpersonal skills from the interactions you have with people who have different cultural values and speak a different language from you. Learning to work well with others, and collaboratively? Those skills will for sure come in handy in any field!

2. Written and verbal communication skills

As you can imagine, you’ll need to learn to convey messages in a way that resonates with others in written and verbal form. From rugrats to retirees, your audience could be of different ages, languages, and cultures too! You may even become a master of nonverbal communication. In the workplace, you’ll likely need to write emails to different audiences and create and present reports to superiors.

3. Confidence

Never underestimate the power of confidence. Traveling to a new country, meeting people of a different culture, and accomplishing new tasks in challenging situations? Yeah, that all means getting out of your comfort zone!

When you learn to believe in yourself and move past any doubts and fears, you can apply that confidence to almost any workplace by leading projects and asking for what you need from co-workers/vendors/stakeholders.

4. Creative problem-solving skills

What skills do you gain from volunteering? Ones that will help you land your dream job!

You may need to help find solutions in challenging situations while abroad. Maybe you need to find ways to teach without technology, feed lots of families with limited ingredients, or coax stray animals to come to you for care. In the workforce, you’ll need to use those creative problem-solving skills in a variety of ways, from completing projects in a short-staffed department to finding technical workarounds.

5. Resource optimization skills

Learning how to do a lot with a little? Whether it’s optimizing funds, staff, materials, or time, almost any employer looks for someone who knows how to accomplish large tasks with little resources, which is often the name of the game with volunteer positions! So, be sure to detail how you know to optimize use of resources on your resume.

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There’s no debate—you can gain skills through volunteering that will make you a more well-rounded professional!

Now you know the answer to what skills do you gain from volunteering! You’ll earn many of these skills—and many more!—fair and square from volunteering, so don’t be shy to flaunt them.

You’ll discover new talents, interests, and passions too. You’ll grow in ways you never thought possible. And, did we mention that you’re going to have the time of your life making a difference? Ready, set, volunteer abroad!

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