Paid Job or Volunteering?

Hi,

I've been looking around for paid jobs (part-time / weekends / temporary) for about a month or so and, yes... incredibly hard to find haha. So I was wondering whether simply trying to volunteer for certain places would be a) an easier route and b) the best route for the time being? I don't really have any lack of money and I'm not saving up for something enormous, I suppose I just to feel like I'm contributing something worthwhile haha.

I don't know what specific area of volunteering I'd look into, and I know quite a lot are restricted to 18+ year olds for X amount of reasons, but I can't see any harm in it really? I'd also prefer to have my own means of transport before I started a paid job really.

Should I continue a struggle looking for paid jobs or try looking into volunteering? :P

How are you trying to find a job? Are you going into places and handing in CV's?
If you're going in and handing CVs I would suggest starting to look on websites instead and applying that way. I started by handing in CVs and found nothing, I applied for two jobs through their websites and got interviews for both.

If you're looking to go to uni in the future, I'm guessing you're not atm as you said that you're not 18? then volunteer work is really good. Look at the type of course you'd like to go into (even if you may not be entirely sure) and try to volunteer in those sort of places. The main places that wont be volunteer work for under 18's are hospital based really, i've not heard of anywhere else having a problem.

if everything else fails, Mcdonalds is always an option.

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Originally Posted by Glen Coco

How are you trying to find a job? Are you going into places and handing in CV's?
If you're going in and handing CVs I would suggest starting to look on websites instead and applying that way. I started by handing in CVs and found nothing, I applied for two jobs through their websites and got interviews for both.

If you're looking to go to uni in the future, I'm guessing you're not atm as you said that you're not 18? then volunteer work is really good. Look at the type of course you'd like to go into (even if you may not be entirely sure) and try to volunteer in those sort of places. The main places that wont be volunteer work for under 18's are hospital based really, i've not heard of anywhere else having a problem.

if everything else fails, Mcdonalds is always an option.

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Hey

Tried looking online and in-stores as well haha, quite a lot of the places either want full-time/experience/don't have any jobs via both sources. I'll continue to look online every so often obviously, but given up with looking irl.

I'd like to ideally go to university yes haha. Not sure what courses I'd opt for but I'd be very interested in law or a branch of philosophy (pretty impossible to volunteer in anything philosophy wise + i think most legal stuff is for 18s although I'm not 100% sure), apart from that a "back up" would be animal psychology (such interesting taste in courses) which is why I looked into volunteering with animals :P Suppose any form of volunteering looks great on a cv or uni app. really.

I'd either look into charity shops or animal-based volunteering. Charity shops are retail. so i suppose it'd s good experience if i applied for a paid job in a shop in the future.

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Originally Posted by Intersocial

Hey

Tried looking online and in-stores as well haha, quite a lot of the places either want full-time/experience/don't have any jobs via both sources. I'll continue to look online every so often obviously, but given up with looking irl.

I'd like to ideally go to university yes haha. Not sure what courses I'd opt for but I'd be very interested in law or a branch of philosophy (pretty impossible to volunteer in anything philosophy wise + i think most legal stuff is for 18s although I'm not 100% sure), apart from that a "back up" would be animal psychology (such interesting taste in courses) which is why I looked into volunteering with animals :P Suppose any form of volunteering looks great on a cv or uni app. really.

I'd either look into charity shops or animal-based volunteering. Charity shops are retail. so i suppose it'd s good experience if i applied for a paid job in a shop in the future.

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if youre looking for animal based go to vets and do experience there :) any volunteering is good. I wouldnt really say that retail experience was THAT useful tbh. as long as you have experience with people and working in a team (which youd get with veterinary experience) it doesnt really matter where you got it from

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Glen Coco

if youre looking for animal based go to vets and do experience there :) any volunteering is good. I wouldnt really say that retail experience was THAT useful tbh. as long as you have experience with people and working in a team (which youd get with veterinary experience) it doesnt really matter where you got it from

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Oh ok, cheers for the help! :D x

Depends. Skimmed your original post but:

If you need money, look for a paid job. If you can't find one (after looking properly) then do volunteering for work experience.

If you don't need money, think about whether you want a high-pressure paid job or a more relaxed volunteer job, that would make you feel good about yourself!

If you don't want money then I'd go down the volunteering route as it looks better on a university application. School etc. may be able to help with this.

I would keep looking for paid, its around Christmas and many stores should be taking on Christmas temps just have a look around and paticularly online or even your local school/college should have a list of part time jobs as I remember mine did.

it's good for taking up your time and maybe in some cases for your cv, but if you're constantly thinking about just getting your foot into paid work then it is better to just get a paid job. But it's definitely good to do whilst you look.