Volunteer Experience May Not Bridge Gaps in Employment

Abstract

This study investigated whether volunteer experience compensates for a gap in employment that occurs either early or late in one's career. Recruiters (n=82) evaluated resumes of fictitious applicants with either early or late employment gaps, plus one of three types of volunteer experience: career-related, career-unrelated, and none. For applicants with an employment gap, resumes with volunteer experience - regardless of its career-relatedness - were not rated significantly higher than resumes without volunteer experience. Although not statistically significant, resumes with late employment gaps were rated highest when they had career-related volunteer experience and lowest when they had no volunteer experience. In line with human capital theory, applicants late in their career were rated higher than applicants early in their career.