You have a 62 percent higher chance of getting a new job if you put this on your resume

Feeling like a bit of action in your career? Could you use some excitement in your workweek and dream of that one brand new job? Then pay close attention to your resume.

You can add something to it that significantly increases your chances of landing a new job. In fact, it increases them by 62 percent if you put on your resume that you have done or are doing volunteer work. It doesn't matter what: helping the elderly in a nursing home, children teaching English in an orphanage in Costa Rica, cleaning toilets in a hospital... You can do it all. Not just for yourself or for those you help, but also for your career.

For an employer, it is important to see that you are willing to give something for another. That not everything in life is just about money. That you want to work hard because you do this volunteer work alongside your regular paid job . Your employer sees above all that you want to do something for another.

I can still vividly remember the time when I was studying, had a part-time job, and also volunteered every Friday evening (yes, really) at the children's hospital in Amsterdam. I made a television program with and for all the sick children, who sometimes with their bald heads could laugh incredibly behind the camera, and could momentarily forget that they are surrounded every day by scary tubes, doctors, and operating rooms. Not sick for a moment, just a child. The fact that I was at a bar later than average made me look at my life differently. That my friends and I were lucky with that carefree toasting at the bar.

It is genuinely more important than writing one good position or experience after another on that resume, because this shows that you want to work harder than many others. And that you have a good heart. And contribute something active to our world. So if you plan to score a new job, first go help out for a day or so at Unicef or the Red Cross. Not only good for your karma, but who knows, you might score a promotion this way. Of course, the longer you do the volunteer work, the better it is. This way you show that you are not a one-day fly and that you dare to commit to an unpaid job for a longer period. It does cost you time and energy, but you do it anyway because you want to do it.

I don't know exactly what it has done for my career, but I can assure anyone who doubts about volunteer work: it definitely does something for yourself. Something very positive. Something that just work cannot fill. Let's see if they can still use my help.