How Your Hobbies Can Help During The Interview Process

Whether or not to include your hobbies in your resume is a question that is open to debate.

While your hobbies are usually something best left out of your resume, mentioning a particular hobby during the interview process can sometimes help your cause during the interview process. I can think of a few important reasons why.

1. Sometimes a hobby can help to distinguish you from other job searchers, and for a good reason. Hiring managers often look for something unique about each candidate since it can be hard to remember each person they interviewed especially if they've interviewed many people for the same job. If you're the candidate who speaks four languages or travels to a new country every year, mentioning this might help to keep you top of mind in the interviewer's memory.

2. It can help to build up a rapport with the interviewer. Again, when a hiring manager is interviewing numerous people for a job, anything positive you do to distinguish yourself from others can help to get your foot in the door and separate you from other candidates. If you play the guitar and notice that the hiring manager has a picture of themselves playing the guitar hanging in their office, mentioning that you have the same hobby as they do can help to break the ice and build up a rapport with the interviewer that other candidates won't achieve.

3. Your hobbies and interests can help to indicate that you are a balanced person with a life outside work. If you volunteer your time for a charity or coach a kids' sports team, it can help to show a potential employer that you are a well-rounded person who understand the importance of having a work life balance. It can also have a positive effect if the hiring manager has the same interests you do or at least sees the value of your hobbies and interests.

As far as whether or not to include hobbies in your resume, determine this based on the type of job you're applying for. If you're applying for a travel agent position and you speak four languages and always travel to a new country every year, "learning foreign languages" and "regular international travel" might be two hobbies you include on your resume since they are job-related in this instance.

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