Nowadays we are witnessing an increase in volunteering programs. There are many different domains across which volunteers are called for, and one of the most rising categories has been Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that are carrying out volunteering programs in order to bring a specific change to society.
There is also a broad division of categories under them. A prominent example is raising fundraisers. Many different organisations look out for volunteers to gather donations for a specific cause, be it education, medical treatments, or simply gathering funds to provide underprivileged people with the basic necessities of life. Another side of volunteering involves working for other issues faced by the world, such as coming together and taking practical actions to help solve the climate change catastrophe that is going on.
However, a lot of students are compelled to enrol themselves in these volunteering programs for the primary reason to gain enough experience to add to their CVs. The overly saturated job market of the country has created an employment dread amongst youngsters, and for this very reason, young people are forced to find loopholes around certain activities that could possibly act as a ‘standing out’ feature in their CVs. This is one of the reasons that many students are joining volunteer programs to gain experience, which they hope would act as a convincing enough reason for companies to later find them a good fit for a vacancy.
We have been seeing social media promote this new concept of creating a “Personal Brand”. According to many creators on the internet, creating a personal brand is a necessity to build a career in today’s world. A personal brand acts as an asset that is entirely yours, helping you showcase your skills in an organised way and making it easier for you to apply for job applications and different opportunities.
This is also a reason a huge chunk of young students have started creating their own NGOs, where they carry out and host different volunteering programs — this adds up to their resume building. However, the margin of success is relatively low here because most of the students stop working on them after a certain time period.
Volunteering programs have become easier to find and apply for, creating more opportunities for young people to gain practical experience in dealing with real-life problems and helping them practice their problem-solving skills. However, the rise in volunteering programs has created a deeper concern, which states whether students volunteer out of their passion for the cause, or if it is done only for the sake of adding that experience to their resumes. The answer can be subjective and highly nuanced.
There are several reasons that come up when we are questioning youngsters on why they work as volunteers. Everyone has their own motivations and purposes behind the volunteering curtain. Volunteering is an experience that allows people to connect with like-minded individuals and take steps further to achieve a specific goal. This helps people gain a sense of control, and it gives them an optimistic view of the world — that certain things can be changed if worked consistently towards.
In a country like Pakistan, where we have witnessed political clashes, state failures, and eventually entire cities and their problems being ignored, we often feel helpless about certain issues, such as poverty, and it makes it hard to believe in the brighter side of things. Volunteering programs help overcome this state of numbness that we feel towards our collective societal issues, and they provide a roadmap for a group of people to work on and eventually take tiny steps moving towards change.
In early 2026, content creator Suleman Sohail called for volunteers and organised a food drive during Ramadan. Many people stepped forward to volunteer for on-ground distribution of food, whilst many others gave donations for the drive. By the end of the food drive, it was concluded that the group distributed around 13,000 meals, and far greater than that, the volunteers viewed the experience as a really inspiring idea. However, the question still remains in the picture, because there is also a portion of people who volunteer for the sake of experience and an addition to their CVs.
Is it for the change, or is it for the extra line on the CV?
Volunteering experience is considered to play a pivotal role whenever hiring students. Volunteering and internship experiences are highly expected of students to have as they enter the new career world. This is why many students are advised early on, through their teachers and mentors, to take part in activities besides academics, and one of the encouraged activities is to volunteer for an NGO.
Through their high school years and college, many students immerse themselves in different causes that would help their resumes and their university applications after they finish college. As discussed earlier, many students, for many different reasons, join as volunteers for certain companies or groups to gain experience that would help them enhance their skillset and add practical experience to their resumes.
There are different ways people perceive volunteering. Some people see it as playing their part in the betterment of societal affairs, but there are also many students who enrol in as many programs as they can, regardless of their interests, to build up promising resumes. Because let’s be real, extracurricular activities are highly rewarded when it comes to hiring interns or even for university applications.
Either way, be it for genuine interest or for the sake of the CV, students are trying their best to do what they can in order to survive in a catastrophic economy. The job market is crumpled with students getting fewer and fewer opportunities with every moving day, and in this case, having a strong resume is non-negotiable. So, be it through any form of experience, students should be allowed to go out of their way to build strong resumes.
However, an improvement in the employment sector — where students no longer have a fear of missing out on opportunities if they do not have experience in volunteering — would highly help these volunteering agencies take on people who are genuinely passionate about the cause. This way, even volunteering can create an impactful change in society, because people would no longer be purposelessly entering programs just for the sake of experience.