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Key Takeaways Job-seekers are adding a one-line section to the end of their resumes.
The goal is to make a hiring manager sit up and take notice.
One recruiter said that the section adds character to resumes in a time when AI is “pushing out” resumes that look identical to one another.
In a tough job market, white-collar workers are doing everything they can to stand out. Lawyers and bankers are even emphasizing creative hobbies like building birdhouses on their resumes.
According to a recent report from The Wall Street Journal, job-seekers are adding a hobbies section to their resumes to humanize their applications and attract hiring managers’ interest. These candidates have worked at prestigious firms and gone to top schools, but beneath the accolades are human beings who have trained miniature dachshunds and worked on “perfecting restaurant-quality scrambled eggs.”
The goal is to make a hiring manager sit up and take notice. They should think, “Yes, this is somebody I’d like to be in the trenches with at 3 o’clock in the morning on a deadline,” Reder Sheikh, a partner at recruiting agency Major, Lindsey & Africa, told the Journal.
Sheikh added that more than half of the legal associates she matched with jobs last year had a hobbies section on their resumes, an increase from just a few years ago. She said that a unique side hobby can encourage recruiters to take a second look at a candidate’s application and make it easier to connect in interviews.
According to Sheikh, the section should come at the end of a resume and take up only a single line.
Meanwhile, another recruiter says hobbies add character to resumes. “AI is pushing out resumes that all look the same,” Richard King, who runs a corporate recruitment agency, told the Journal. “Let’s bring the human back.”
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