How to Put a Mission Trip on a Resume — All You Need to Know

Sharing is caring!

Adding a mission trip to your resume is a good way to show the transferrable skills and relevant experience you gained.

A mission trip is a wonderful experience for improving communication, problem-solving and leadership skills, while simultaneously helping others.

The planning of the trip is a skill itself as you would have to do sufficient research for it.

Listing it is can give you a chance to highlight your work ethic, motivation and adaptability.

Putting it on your resume will also explain the gap in your work experience.

So overall, unless you do not have space on your resume for it, it is beneficial to include your mission trip experience.

The following tips will help you do it effectively and help your resume stand out!

 

Where to put a mission trip on your resume?

If the duration of your trip was for more than a year and you gained much relevant experience, list it alongside your work experiences. If it was for less time or you have other significant volunteer work to add, add it in your ‘Volunteer Experience’ section or a separate ‘Missionary Work’ section.

 

List your mission trip in your ‘Work Experience’ section

Going away on a mission trip most likely means you will have a gap in your employment.

Your trip away could have also consisted of work experience relevant to the job description. 

If that is the case, add your mission trip to your ‘Work Experience’ section.

List it like you would any other work experience, with the job title, location, date and achievements.

 

Add your mission trip alongside your other volunteering experience

If you are someone who has been volunteering for a while and has gone on many mission trips, it might be a better idea to add all these experiences together.

You can create a ‘Volunteer Experience’ section and list them there.

Putting volunteering experience on your resume follows the same format as your work experience.

The main thing to keep in mind is to focus on your individual achievements over everything.

 

Create a new ‘Missionary Work’ section in your resume

You can even dedicate your mission trips their own section if you have quite a few to list or if it is very relevant to your target job. 

If you do have only one mission trip to put on your resume, fit it in another section so as not to take up unnecessary space by creating a new section.

Make sure that when you are adding your missionary work to another section, it makes sense and reads smoothly.

 
 

How to add a mission trip to your resume?

Title it as Missionary/Volunteer Representative. Add a sentence describing the organization’s goals. Focus on your individual achievements and list quantifiable impacts. List the skills correlating to your target job. To make space for more relevant experience, keep the trip’s description short.

 

Title your mission trip position as ‘Missionary/Volunteer Representative’

You can either title your mission trip as ‘Missionary Representative’ or ‘Volunteer Representative’, whichever you feel is more appropriate based on the job description.

You can also add ‘Full-time’ to the title so that the reason for the employment gap in your resume is more evident at first sight.

 

Provide a one-line summary of the organization’s goals

You have to focus on yourself more than the organization, but you can still add a summary of their vision. 

If the organization’s goals are not well-known, you can add a sentence explaining them underneath the organization’s name.

Any recruiter would appreciate not having to search themselves.

 

Mission trip organization summary example

 

Volunteer Representative

Open Arms International | Kenya | Summer 2019

Open Arms International is a non-profit organization empowering and helping local communities in Eldoret, Kenya. 

 

Emphasize your individual achievements

When adding a mission trip to your resume, you must keep in mind that the focus is on you and your achievements. 

The organization you volunteered for may have done great things, but a recruiter can very easily look their accomplishments up.

They cannot, however, figure out how your contribution made you valuable to their cause.

Therefore, always focus on your own individual achievements and talk about how your impact made a difference.

 

Mission trip individual achievements example

 

Full-time Missionary Representative

Bellevue Christian School | El Salvador | March 2018 – August 2019

• Distributed over 300 medical and hygiene kits to families.
• Managed construction of house remodels.
• Oversaw the delivery of hot meals to those in need.
• Managed social media and increased donations by 25%.

 

List the quantifiable impact of your mission trip

As with any other experience that you put on your resume, your mission trip’s achievements should be quantifiable.

Providing quantities gives a clearer picture of what your accomplishments consisted of.

It is also a more efficient way of displaying the proficiency of your skills without having to specify it.

 

Mission trip quantifiable achievements example

 

Full-time Missionary Representative

Hope 4 Kids International | Guatemala City, Guatemala | June 2016 – June 2018

• Led a group of 20 in aiding multiple Guatemalan villages.
• Raised over $35,000 donations through social media marketing.
• Assembled and distributed 100 medical and nutritional kits weekly.

 

Leave space for more relevant volunteering experience

Always tailor your resume to the job description in front of you. 

When you are noticing that the hiring manager would prefer another volunteering experience over your mission trip, prioritize accordingly.

Sometimes, you may have many volunteering experiences that you would have to include to the point of not having much space for your mission trip.

If you still want to mention your involvement, be very brief.

You can even omit the bullet points with your achievements and just list the organization’s name and date.

 

Mission trip brief mention example

 

Volunteer Experience

 

Hospital Volunteer

Froedtert Hospital | Milwaukee, Wisconsin | Summer 2019

• Performed administrative tasks that included answering the phone, responding to emails, scheduling appointments and entering patient information into the database.
• Greeted and admitted over 200 patients.
• Prepared beds, restocked supplies and sterilized medical equipment.

 

Missionary Representative

LDS Mission | Maputo, Mozambique | April 2015 – April 2016