Hobbies versus Personal Achievements

I gave a presentation today to Year 2 Students on the Multimedia Design and Technology course at the University of Kent. The topic was "What Employers look for when recruiting students and graduates."

In the presentation, I referred to my pet hate of lists of hobbies added to the bottom of CVs, and understand this may have caused some confusion amongst the presentation attendees. A presenter on a previous occasion had advocated the listing of hobbies, so:

Hobbies vs Personal Achievements

To clarify, my pet hate is for those CVs that have a paragraph at the bottom reading something along the following lines:

"In my spare time, I like to read, cook, ride horses, play board games......"

A hobby is something done in one's leisure time for pleasure - gardening, sewing etc.

Compare that to "Personal Achievement". Those students who attended my presentation will recall (hopefully) that I had a slide or two entitled "What have you done today, to make you feel proud?" An achievement.

I came across a news item recently that sums up what I mean by Personal Achievement:

http://www.justgiving.com/charliesimpson-haiti

This little chap is only 7 years of age, but what an achievement. So, his CV? "In my spare time I like to ride my bike..." OR "In 2010, I rode 5 miles and raised over £200,000 for Unicef's Haiti appeal." Hobby vs Personal Achievement.

Many of you will undoubtedly follow pursuits in your spare time, but personally, I am looking for your achievements. How have these pursuits made you different? How have they made you stand out from the crowd? What have you achieved that makes you feel proud?

The two are not mutually exclusive.  A hobby can still be a pursuit through which you achieve something.  You enjoy reading as the hobby, but getting a review of a novel published in a respected magazine is an achievement.