There are so many different articles out there about hiring and “the great resignation” and emotional intelligence and blah blah blah. It seems everyone has something different to tell you about how to go about getting a great job. I want to apologize because I am going to add to the noise today. I am going to tell you what I think about your hobbies and how they can help or hurt your chances in finding a great job.
I used to list my hobbies on my resume as “fishing, whiskey drinking, and gaming”. I think it is a good idea to include some of your personal hobbies to help convey what kind of person you are and what you like to do. You might find a point of connection with someone through a shared activity. I just followed someone on Twitter who mentioned they are a metalhead in their bio. While I got my haircut along with my real job I still love me some metal. You will note that it also did not make the list. Why did I filter “listens to metal” out of my hobbies and yet included “whiskey drinking”? I would be lying if I claimed I could articulate the reasons fully.
Your hobbies identify who you are and what you like to do. They represent the kinds of things you would like to spend time doing and also spend time talking about. Having a few personal hobbies on your resume might help your resume stand out amidst a stack of identical candidates. It can also be a double-edged sword. In some places you might find there is a scotch club, and putting your enthusiasm for whiskey on your resume might indicate that you will fit in well with the team. On the other hand, there are some negative connotations for some hobbies that might flag you as a candidate that will not fit in well with the team. I think there is some deeper reflection now on what kinds of candidates exist and whether or not they are a diversity hire. I suspect self-identifying as a whiskey drinker could cost me an interview since I might come across as an outdated “tech bro”. Figuring out what is good and what is bad is certainly a challenge.
There is one other kind of hobby activity to consider. The professional hobby. This is yet another double edged sword, for a different reason.
I have two professional hobbies I actively maintain. I am building a small app at the moment, of which we will speak more in the future. I am also working as a mentor and advisor for up-and-coming engineering leaders. I have multiple reasons for doing both of these activities.
I am mentioning this here because I love to find people who have professional hobbies. I find that people who do some kind of professional hobby use these hobbies to learn new things. I embrace lifetime learners wholeheartedly. If you like to hire “best athlete” candidates as opposed to “best fit” candidates, it might be a good idea to look at people’s professional hobbies. Many of the best of the “best athlete” candidates I have worked with have professional hobbies.
There are also times that it can be a net negative to have a professional hobby. Some companies have very onerous intellectual property practices and have a very strong “put all the wood behind one arrow” approach to work output. If the job you are applying for is like this, then it might be considered a distraction for the job you are applying to and you might lose out to a candidate who does not have a professional hobby.
So what should you do?
You should use this information to help find the job that you want.
If you want to focus all of your work energy into a single company, then listing a professional hobby is probably not a good idea. In fact, it is probably not a good idea to have that professional hobby at all.
If you want to find a place that gives you space to explore your professional hobbies, then listing them will help filter out opportunities that are not a great fit.
So to recap, there are good reasons to include your personal and professional hobbies on your resume. There are also good reasons not to include them.
It is important to understand what you should and should not put on your resume. You should make a conscious choice about each element in your resume and the story that it tells about you.
Thank you again for reading along! Today was a really short writing exercise. I look forward to giving you more of my thinky thoughts next week. I should warn you that we are coming into the end of the year and I also need to spend some time working on my 2021 holiday poem which might fill a week of writing in the near future.
As always, feel free to Socials this article. Any form of digital social reciprocity for the entypening of my thoughts is greatly appreciated!
