Including your interests, hobbies and likes are not that interesting as it seems to you, until you grab the reader's attention. However, many individuals believe that involving your interests indicates positives about your personality and is considered to be beyond your regular work. Interest's shows your passion about the things that interests you other than official or personal work. Though there is no defined rule for adding your interest, yet we will learn how many areas of interest a person should include in a resume.
Know your Interests
Before writing down anything about your interests, figure out the things you are really passionate about. Some people make out time for their passions because that's the craze they have about their hobbies. Therefore, it is important to know what your interests are to make it sound interesting. It is not necessary that the things you are crazy about, has to be the same with the front person. But, if you feel strongly for your passion, you are bound to make the front person curious to know what it is like. Know your hobbies and make a prominent note of them.
The Advantages
Your hobbies or personal interests highlight your skills or knowledge about a particular thing. For some it could be cooking, for others it could be watching wild life. For the ones who love cooking, that individual must be having a good knowledge of ingredients or a good taste and for the one who loves to watch wild life, he/she may have a good geographical knowledge. Of course, you haven't come in this world just to work and work. There is life beyond office. If you share your interests with the interviewer, there are chances of an interesting conversation between the two and you never know, you could end up sharing your common interests.
The Disadvantages
Any advantages are always followed by some disadvantages. The biggest disadvantage or a drawback of revealing your interests is that generally they are considered to be irrelevant to your job aim or objective. They do not support the purpose of your resume and could be meaningless at times which could turn off an interviewer's attention. Many interviewers are simply interested in knowing about your work profile or the qualities that are restricted to the job. Nevertheless, there is no harm in adding your interest section.
How Many
Now that you know the positives and negatives of listing your interests, you have to choose the ones which you can talk well about. If your interest lies in browsing net, the expected question would be what kind of stuffs you browse on net and their details. This is how the interviewer comes to know that you really like doing that thing and have complete knowledge about the same. However, try to limit your interests to not more than five things. Make sure you do not mention them for the sake of it. If you have an interest, you should be able to showcase it.
Basic Rules
Read through these basic rules while writing your interest in a resume:
After reading through, I don't think you should be wondering how many areas of interest a person should include in a resume. If you do not have any interest, create one. Make your life interesting with your interests.