Hobbies and Interests on a Resume: When to Include Them, With Examples

Only when they earn the space. An Interests line is optional, and it is the first thing to cut when your experience fills the page. Ohio State's Arts and Sciences career office sets a clear test: include an Interests section only if it shows personal accomplishments or high-level skills that complement your industry.

Interests help most in three cases. You are a student or early in your career with a short work history. The interest is a skill the job uses, such as a coding side project for a developer or bread baking for a pastry cook. Or the employer is small and culture-focused, and reads the whole page to picture the person. UMGC's career office suggests reading the company's "about" page before deciding.

They help least for experienced candidates whose page is already full, in conservative fields such as law, banking and government, and when the items are generic. Bentley University's career office notes that hobbies are often used to fill a page when experience is short, which is exactly how a generic list reads.

Hobbies are things you do: woodworking, rock climbing, playing in a community orchestra. Interests are subjects you follow: urban planning, behavioral economics, the history of computing. Extracurricular activities are organized commitments, usually through a school, with a role and a schedule: debate team, student government, robotics club.

On a resume, one "Interests" line can hold both hobbies and interests. Extracurriculars are different: for students they work as experience, so they get their own section with titles, dates and bullets, covered below.

Good interests are specific, active and easy to talk about. "Reading" tells the reader nothing; "Reading every Booker Prize shortlist since 2020" starts a conversation. The best ones show a skill the job uses, sustained commitment, teamwork, or a result someone could check.

Add a detail in parentheses that proves the interest is real: a ranking, a distance, a number of years, something you built or published. Bentley's career office advises being ready to explain and discuss every interest you list, since the point of the line is to start a conversation. If you have not done it in five years, leave it off.

• Endurance sports with a measurable result: marathons, triathlons, long-distance cycling
• Team sports and coaching, especially if you captained or coached
• Making things: woodworking, sewing, 3D printing, restoring cars, home renovation
• Creative work with an audience: a blog, a podcast, photography, a band that plays gigs
• Strategy games with a rating: chess, bridge, competitive esports
• A language you are learning, with your level
• Volunteering that is too small for its own section

Leave off passive or generic items (watching movies, hanging out with friends, social media, "travel" with no detail), anything you would not discuss with a new manager, and anything you listed only because it sounds impressive. If the interviewer asks about your chess rating and you have not played in years, the line costs you.

Be careful with interests that reveal religion, political affiliation, age or health. EEOC guidance tells employers to avoid questions about club memberships or anything that could reveal race, sex, national origin, religion or age, because those traits cannot be part of a hiring decision. There is no reason to volunteer that information unless it relates to the job, such as church music experience for a worship director role.

Context changes the answer. UMGC's example: video games and comic book collecting are best left off an application to an established accounting firm, but the same interests can help at a pop culture website or a game studio.

Treat substantial extracurriculars like jobs: organization, your role (or "Member"), dates and bullets for what you did. The University of Pennsylvania's career services suggests placing them in Experience when the responsibility and time commitment resemble a job, under Education when they are minor but tied to your field (an honor society), or in a dedicated section such as "Leadership Experience" or "Extracurricular Activities".

Leadership roles carry the most weight, but membership counts when you can show what it took: rehearsal hours, competitions, a project you built. Penn also gives a useful end date: once you are more than five years past graduation, most extracurriculars come off unless they are highly relevant, for example during a career change.

Put interests at the very bottom of the page, after skills, on one or two lines. Use the heading "Interests", or "Activities and Interests" if you combine short club entries with hobbies. Three to five items separated by semicolons is enough.

Write them as text, not icons. Icons look tidy in a design tool, but they carry no words for an applicant tracking system or a screen reader, and they use the space a short detail could fill.

If the line pushes a one-page resume onto a second page, cut it. A student with two part-time jobs usually has room; a candidate with ten years of relevant work rarely needs it.

Two versions of the same section. The people and details are fictional.

How students list clubs and teams. Organizations are fictional.

• Skills to Put on a Resume: Examples and How to List Them
• Volunteer Work on a Resume: How to List It, With Examples
• College Student Resume Example and Writing Guide
• High School Student Resume Example and Writing Guide
• How to Write a Resume With No Work Experience
• Soft Skills for a Resume: Examples and How to Prove Them

We opened every page below on that date. Pay, rules and requirements change, so check the source before you rely on a detail.

1. University of Maryland Global Campus, Career Services: Hobbies and Interests: Should They Be on Your Resume? (when interests help, researching company culture, the accounting firm example)
2. Bentley University Career Edge: Some Hobbies and Interests for Your Resume (bottom placement, be ready to discuss every interest, hobbies as page filler)
3. The Ohio State University, Arts and Sciences Career Success: Resumes and Cover Letters (include interests only with accomplishments or skills that complement your industry)
4. University of Pennsylvania Career Services: How to Add Extracurricular Activities to Your Resume (where to list extracurriculars, entry format, drop after five years)
5. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission: Prohibited Employment Policies/Practices (pre-employment inquiries about club memberships and protected traits)