What Hobbies Should You Include on Your Resume?

Resume experts may warn you not to include your hobbies on a resume. You don't have much space to impress a recruiter, hiring manager or HR staffer, and the person responsible for hiring you needs to see your most important skills above all else. However, there are certain situations when hobbies are an important addition to your personal brand.

Adding Value

Your hobbies add value to your personal brand, but only if you make them relevant on a resume. Forward-thinking and nontraditional companies may believe hobbies help you stand out from other candidates. Hobbies may indicate your insider industry knowledge, valuable personality traits, passion and ability to stick with something over the long term.

For example, you might be an avid coin collector applying for an IT job. Both coin collecting and IT work require great attention to detail and the ability to determine the good and bad attributes of an item, so it's worth mentioning this hobby on your resume. Consider how your sailing hobby could come into play with a sales position where boating enthusiasts may be potential clients. Your hobbies becoming selling points for your personality, and they also allow you to convey your passions to potential employers.

Hobbies to Include

Your hobbies enhance aspects of your personality that translate to important soft skills most employers look for in a candidate. Think about how some common hobbies come into play with your work persona.

Extreme sports, such as bungee jumping, mountain biking or skydiving, demonstrate your willingness push boundaries and test limits. You're also a calculated risk-taker. Playing competitive sports demonstrates your ability to work well with a team and speaks volumes about your determination and drive to win. Endurance sports reveal you have what it takes to go through the daily grind over the long haul with a specific goal in mind. Sports also indicate that you are willing to put in a lot of hard work (i.e. practice) before the actual competition so your body is in top form.
Yoga requires focus, concentration and awareness, and you need those skills to successfully complete daily tasks and long-term projects. Mountain climbing, like yoga, also takes special focus, since you must concentrate as you climb upward and fight the force of gravity. Your hobbies with technology reveal you have skills for a contemporary workplace. Video production, photography and blogging demonstrate your ability to use modern technology. These hobbies also require an eye for detail, precision and focus.

The overall theme of a hobby can relate to your field. For example, mountain climbing works well if you plan to apply for a position with a travel company, while your video production aptitude suits jobs in event planning, public relations or television news productions. When you can relate your hobby to your chosen field, it adds even more value to your resume and job skills.

Your hobbies can supplement your professional experience if you list them the right way. Knowing how to incorporate hobbies has the advantage of setting you apart, enhancing your skill set and demonstrating your passion for a cause dear to your heart.

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