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22 Dec 09 Handling The Hobby Section Of Your Resume

The hobbies section of your resume can be a tricky one.  Because the main importance and the way you are being judged is resume wording and style, hobbies should be handled carefully.  While most people will be scared off adding a hobby section to their resume, you really shouldn’t be.  As long as you know what to write, the hobby section can be another way to sell yourself.  Another great little window into why you’d be a better employee than the other applicants as it were.

You should absolutely use your hobbies to illustrate skills that you have that can come in handy on the job.  So only use hobbies that apply to your career, so to speak.  If you play videogames a lot, you’re going to have trouble making that one come through, so an employer gains more interest in you.  So stay away from hobbies like that, and stick to outgoing proactive hobbies.  Anything that gets you out, as a positive force, and that likely showcases your leadership or problem solving abilities.

Remember to keep your hobbies job related, otherwise you’re just wasting space and an employer’s time, with content that doesn’t matter to them.  The idea of this section is to help them learn about you, and why you would be a fantastic employee.   So limit your hobbies to 2-3, so that you have a short but informative section.  This is just a little place to sell yourself, don’t drone on for too long.

That can’t be stressed enough, you absolutely don’t want a large hobby section.  Otherwise the rest of your resume will look worse off because of your hobbies.  Also, never let your hobbies section be the reason your resume spills over to a second page.  You want to keep your resume at page length, and if you can’t do that with a hobbies section, it’s better to go without.

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