Volunteer your way to success

Katie Ryan

By Katie Ryan, history student

Hi! I’m Katie and I am a new Careers blogger for 2025/26! I am a third and final year history undergraduate and I have an interest in pursuing international relations and diplomacy as a career. However, this is something I have discovered recently and have had one thousand other career ambitions before this, so I hope to provide some interesting insight for you all.

My journey to volunteering

For me, I have found CV building incredibly difficult, I have constantly received feedback that I needed more relevant experience. But how do you get experience if you need experience to get it? The answer: volunteering.

I have quickly found that volunteering is a perfect means of gaining invaluable experience as well as giving back to the community. 

Volunteering creates accessible opportunities for experience in a plethora of sectors. This is because the opportunities are endless and are always required by many sectors. Volunteering can be completed not just through the classic ways such as charity shop volunteering or scouts, (as valuable as these are), but also through more varied means such as education opportunities, social change groups, and local organisations.

My experience

Citizens Advice

For me, I have experience volunteering with Citizens Advice, at a primary school, and as a tutor. I have found these either through my educational institutions (that is, school and university), or by my own research.

Volunteering for Citizens Advice meant that I worked in a ‘walk-in’ setting, in which members of the public visited us in our centre for help with their day-to-day issues. These include issues such as problems with landlords, eligibility checks for universal credit and benefits, plus family and immigration issues.

This role was extremely rewarding to me, offering a new level of insight into the issues faced by my own community, as well as the help and resources available. Working in conjunction with food banks, and charitable organisations was extremely rewarding, and demonstrated the functions of local government. For instance, how local governments approve winter fuel payment allowances: how much is available and how often? These are all decisions made at the local level to influence those in the community.

The problem-solving nature of this role also offered genuine skill enrichment, as well as customer service skills. Volunteering with Citizens Advice was therefore a genuinely beneficial and interesting opportunity, which has offered a multifaceted enhancement of my CV.

Primary school

My other main volunteering effort was in a Nottingham primary school as a Literacy Support Volunteer. I discovered this opportunity through the university, as they offer the Nottingham Advantage Award (NAA). This award requires you to complete extracurricular activities to contribute to the local area and in return recognises your efforts and provides you with the prestigious award.

For more information on the NAA, read these other career insights:

• My journey with the Advantage Award. The Importance of Representation in the Students' Union
• Learning culture outside the lecture hall through the Advantage Award

So, what can you do?

The university as well as the local area provide some incredible opportunities for students.

1. Nottingham City Council publicises its volunteering opportunities on its website
2. Careers webpage on volunteering opportunities 
3. The Students' Union has a volunteering section on its website
4. Societies also run volunteering efforts, such as the UoNSU Food Bank, Food Runners, Inspiring Women in Engineering, and much more to boost CVs and help people. On the Student's Union's website, you can even filter societies down to volunteering only
5. Each faculty’s placement team advertises semester or year-long opportunities which provide opportunities to students which are advertised on respective Moodle pages. Here is an example of the current Faculty of Arts opportunities

If you want to discuss volunteering options with an adviser, perhaps you want to look for a specific opportunity related to a future career, book an appointment with an careers adviser or call into a drop-in during term time.