How Can I Get the Experience I Want When My Current Job Won’t Let Me?

“I’m stuck. How can I get the experience I want when my current role doesn’t provide the opportunity I need?” 

That question haunted me some twenty years ago while I was in the early stages of building The SERO Group. I wanted more experience to better serve my clients and to better understand how to lead my employees and contractors. I wanted to be stretched. I wanted to be challenged and to be mentored as I assumed more and more responsibilities both from a technical and from a business-leadership perspective. Yet, as a young entrepreneur, I didn’t where to start.

I’ve since learned that many technical professionals wrestle with the same question. “How can I prove myself without being given the opportunity to do the job?” 

Fortunately, I stumbled upon a great opportunity. As the leader of a local SQL Server User Group, I was presented with a complimentary registration to the Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS) Community Summit. At the time, PASS was a fledgling group started by key individuals in the SQL Server community with the organizational backing and financial support of Microsoft and Computer Associates.

While at the association’s second annual conference in San Francisco, I met and got to know some of the leaders of the group. They asked me to help the organization grow by volunteering some of my time. I started by communicating with other local user groups from around the nation. Later I served on the Board of Directors and was responsible for conference operations. After five years on the board, I became the organization’s Vice President of Marketing and eventually the Executive Vice President of Finance. 

During my tenure on the Board of Directors, I was presented with the exact opportunities (aka challenges) that I had so desperately sought before. I was stretched beyond my comfort zone and guided in my growth. Before passing the baton to the next generation of leaders, I had: 

• Helped set the strategic initiatives and direction for a 250,000 member global organization.
  
• Provided the financial oversight and fiscal responsibility for a multi-million dollar budget.
• Worked with an incredibly astute group of colleagues to fundamentally transform the association’s management which helped to create a budgetary surplus for the first time in the organization’s history. 
• Gained a better understanding of business, leadership, and team dynamics.  
• Become an 8-time recipient of the prestigious Microsoft MVP Award for sharing my knowledge and experiences with the SQL Server community.  

Most years, it was time-consuming. Often, it was stressful. Sometimes, it was frustrating. But, looking back it was one of the most rewarding professional experiences of my career and provided an opportunity for unparalleled growth that I could not have achieved on my own.

Why volunteer your time?

I would encourage you to look outside their day jobs for career-enhancing experiences and opportunities. Why?

1. Gain and share your technical experiences. Local non-profits are often in need of professional assistance yet do not have the financial resources to pay for them. By volunteering your time with a local charity, you may have access to technical projects that are not available to you at work. Perhaps you can offer to help a local organization with some data analytics so they can better understand their donor demographics?
2. Grow and develop your leadership experiences. Leadership is a skill that can be learned and developed. However, this skill, like all others, requires practice and patience. Volunteering your time with a local Boy’s or Girl’s Club, the Boy Scouts of America, or Trail Life USA Troop can help you observe accomplished leaders in action while doing a good deed.
3. Broaden and share your business insights. Although charities and non-profits exist to serve their constituents, the organizations must remain solvent in order to accomplish their missions. By volunteering your time with a non-profit, you’ll be exposed to the business challenges and decisions that the organization is facing. 
4. Strengthen and extended your project experience. One of the benefits of working with multiple organizations is that you see different ways of doing things. Different strokes for different folks as the saying goes. By volunteering, you can quickly see a variety of different approaches to business and technical situations.
5. Make professional and personal connections. The world is full of really great people who want to “pay it forward” by unselfishly helping others. By offering your time and experiences to others, you’ll undoubtedly meet people like this. You can learn from them, perhaps even teach them something, and do more good together.  
6. Broaden and share your perspectives. Although we can learn from others, being immersed in an environment and personally walking through an experience further underscores and solidifies in your mind the lessons learned. With more exposure, you’ll have a broader set of experiences from which to draw. Plus you’ll be able to share your experiences with others. 
7. Create shared experiences. Life is enriched by the shared experiences we create. Social media is no substitute for a personal interaction with others. By volunteering your time, you’ll create more shared experiences with and for others. 

Don’t know where to start? I’d suggest starting with what interests you. Have a passion for helping local youth? Volunteer for Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Want to get into information security? Check out your local ISACA chapter. Love backpacking, contact the local hiking group. Follow your interests. 

By the way, the organization where I got started, PASS, is currently soliciting applications to serve on the Board of Directors. If you’re interested, check out the application form. 

Have a volunteer experience that you’d like to share, drop me a line or leave a comment. I’d love to hear it.