Whether or not to include your hobbies in your resume is a question that is open to debate.

While your hobbies are usually something best left out of your resume, mentioning a particular hobby during the interview process can sometimes help your cause during the interview process. Heres why:

1. Sometimes a hobby can help to distinguish you from other job searchers, and for a good reason. Hiring managers often look for something unique about each candidate since it can be hard to remember each person they interviewed especially if theyve interviewed many people for the same job. If youre the candidate who speaks four languages or travels to a new country every year, mentioning this might help to keep you top of mind in the interviewers memory.

2. It can help to build up a rapport with the interviewer. Again, when a hiring manager is interviewing numerous people for a job, anything positive you do to distinguish yourself from others can help to get your foot in the door and separate you from other candidates. If you play the guitar and notice that the hiring manager has a picture of themselves playing the guitar hanging in their office, mentioning that you have the same hobby as they do can help to break the ice and build up a rapport with the interviewer that other candidates wont achieve.

3. Your hobbies and interests can help to indicate that you are a balanced person with a life outside work. If you volunteer your time for a charity or coach a kids sports team, it can help to show a potential employer that you are a well-rounded person who understand the importance of having a work life balance. It can also have a positive effect if the hiring manager has the same interests you do or at least sees the value of your hobbies and interests.

Carl Mueller

My name is Carl Mueller and I'd like to thank you for learning a bit more about me!

I feel that I have numerous relevant experiences during my career that come in useful when helping people with their careers:

I know what it?s like to work internationally, having worked overseas (in New Zealand, from 1994-1998).

I've survived several corporate downsizings while many of my colleagues were being laid off.

I have also experienced being laid off twice myself during corporate downsizings.

I know what it?s like to be self-employed.

I've helped many people find better jobs. I started to work as a professional recruiter in 2000 first as an Information Technology (IT) recruiter and then in general recruitment across many industries including IT, manufacturing and marketing. Since this time, I have helped many people find their dream career and it?s a great feeling.

I experienced one of the slowest hiring periods in recent memory especially during the general hiring slowdown that followed the Y2K frenzy in 1999, the bursting of the dot com bubble in early 2000, and then the employment market bottoming out following September 11, 2001.

These were certainly not great times to be a job searcher in most industries nor was it a particularly good time to be a recruiter.

Following this, I began running the day to day operations of an Internet-based company in early 2003 that focused on developing online software and subscription-based websites for consumers. It was then that I fully realized the power, usefulness and potential of the Internet which really spurred me to set up my own website which you can view in my Personal URL section below this bio.

I?m also a Platinum Ezine Articles Expert as recognized by EzineArticles.com, one of the most visited websites on the Internet. This special designation is earned by having consistently high-quality articles published and viewed on their website. All of my submissions are related to helping you find your dream career and many of my articles get reproduced on other websites by their webmasters.

Good luck with your career and I hope I have been of assistance to you!