How to create a successful CV for a digital charity role

Tech skills candidates should develop

Many tech skills don’t require a candidate to brandish a university degree, although that no doubt helps. The skills you’ve learnt on the job can often be far more valuable than formal qualifications.

When it comes to digital fundraising, for example, knowledge of search engine optimisation (SEO) is as important for a charity as it is for a publisher.

Charities today also need staff with social media savvy, who don’t just understand Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram like ‘digital natives’, but who are capable of using the various social media management tools fluently – both for fundraising and, often, for reaching potential donors.

It goes without saying that experience of Google Analytics, GoSquared, StatCounter, and other online analytic tools is highly desirable for any organisations.

Charities’ fundraising arms have been professionalised for many years. So a good working knowledge of some of the following tools, or widely-used equivalents, will stand out on any CV:

• Salesforce, the standard for cloud-based customer relationship management across the private sector
• Eventbrite, an online registration tool for events
• MailChimp, for running and managing email campaigns
• Google for Nonprofits, a suite of tools for charities provided via the popular G-Suite of office tools
• Most commonly associated with game streaming, Twitch can also be integrated with third-party tools, such as Tiltify, Funraise, and DonorDrive, and can be used for online events and fundraising drives

At a technical level, it would be ideal for candidates to be able to demonstrate a fundamental knowledge of web development and programming.

You may not need to maintain a website 24/7, but an understanding of HTML, CSS, and other web development technologies will be invaluable, while knowledge of what it takes to put together, publish, and promote Android and/or iOS mobile apps will also be an advantage.

And many charities today are recruiting, specifically, for data specialists, such as data analysts and data scientists. Like any organisation, charities collect a wide variety of data and need to put this information to work to make their marketing, fundraising, and service delivery more effective.

All of this needs to be done in a GDPR-compliant manner and the results of such projects need to be measured to identify gaps in the process and to make sure they provide value for money.

Finally, the world’s cyber hackers are rarely that concerned about the missions of the organisations they target. Computer security, like GDPR and data protection, is a big issue for charities today.

Simple tips to make your CV stand out

Here are some simple and effective tips you can use to perfect their CVs.

• Anyone can list qualifications. Try to think in terms of what you’ve learnt and the skills you have to offer. Always try to show that you’ve met targets, demonstrating your skills in a quantifiable way
• Organisations need people to solve problems and to overcome challenges. Consider the problems you have helped to solve and add them to your CV
• Use your CV to tell stories that illustrate why your qualifications, skills, and character could be invaluable to a prospective employer
• Don’t make your CV any longer than it needs to be. That means, you don’t need to list your bronze swimming certificate, nor the Saturday job you worked when you were 16
• Make sure your CV demonstrates that you’re a team player. Being a team player is something that should be reflected in your experience, not specifically spelt out
• Bullet-point your key skills and attributes – these won’t necessarily be formal qualifications – that you think you offer. Put them right at the top of your CV so they stand out

Reasons to work for a charity

Given how challenging many of these roles might be, what’s in it for the applicant in addition to compensation?

First, roles in the third sector can make a real difference to people’s lives. Mainstream careers in IT can often feel divorced from the real world, but every job in a charity can contribute to improving someone’s life.

Second, even if you don’t plan to spend an entire career with a charity, a CV with one or more charities on it will always be a door opener to future employers. It can also open the doors to entirely new opportunities.

And, finally, there’s the opportunity to grab advancement far earlier in a career than in other sectors. You can be the first to implement a new technology or tech-led initiative for a charity. And there are invariably more opportunities for tech leadership positions and to demonstrate your competence as a technology leader.

Taking on a digital role in a charity, therefore, is also a good way not just to supercharge a career with a wide range of IT and leadership opportunities to grasp, but one that demonstrates the kind of rounded individual that every organisation is always on the look-out for.