Resume sections
Hobbies: keep them only if they evidence a skill in the ad
Keep a hobby on the resume only if it proves a skill, license, language, or setting the job ad already uses. Workday and Greenhouse rarely search “hiking.” A UK CV can carry a thin interests line; a US ATS file should spend that space on a bullet. If the line could sit on anyone’s page, delete it.
Written by EnhanceCV Editorial Team·Editorial review: CPRW
Published August 27, 2026·Last updated August 27, 2026
Key takeaways
- · The test is the posting: does this interest name a tool, license, language, or volunteer setting they asked for?
- · Workday search does not rank “reading, travel, movies.” Greenhouse might hit “volunteer EMT” if you hold the cert.
- · Students can use one tight line when Experience is thin. Mid-career files almost never need a hobbies block.
- · Politics, religion, and party sports as identity statements are how you get filtered for the wrong reason. Keep them off unless the employer is that organization.
- · Cut the filler, then check the parse so a two-column interests sidebar did not eat your dates.
Keep a hobby only if it proves a skill in the ad
Key takeaway: Interests are not a personality quiz. They are optional evidence. If they do not change the hiring decision, they are decoration.
People add hobbies because a template had a box, or because a UK careers talk said “show you are human.” Humans already assume you are human. The recruiter opening Greenhouse at 7 a.m. is looking for a verb, a tool, and dates. “Hiking, Netflix, travel” is not a tool. “Weekend EMT, NREMT current, 12-hour shifts” is a license and a setting. One of those belongs on a US ATS file. The other does not.
The honest test: would you mention this in the first five minutes of a screen because it proves you can do the job? Marathon training might prove schedule discipline for a 4 a.m. bakery shift — still weaker than a bullet about opening the store. Captain of a club team might prove you ran a roster — still weaker than a dated volunteer treasurer line with a real budget. If you have the work proof, use the work proof. The hobby is a backup for thin files, not a brand.
Workday does not have a hobbies field that hiring managers filter on in most tenants. Taleo will still extract the words. That means a political club name can become a searchable string you did not mean to advertise in a conservative or progressive shop. iCIMS will not “understand” that you meant teamwork. It will store the tokens. Be boring on purpose.
For what belongs on the page at all, start with what to put on a resume. Skills that are real tools go under Skills, not under Interests — resume skills. Students with little paid work have more reason to keep one line; see student resume. This page is the keep-or-cut rule for the extras block.
Examples that usually pass the test
- A current license used off-hours that the posting named (EMT, lifeguard, private pilot) — as text, with the credential.
- Volunteer treasurer, coach, or dispatcher with a number (budget, roster, shifts) and dates.
- A language you actually use, if the ad asks for it — in Skills, not as “love of travel.”
- Open-source or civic tech you shipped, if you are applying to an engineering or data role — with a repo or a one-line result.
If you need a second page to fit hiking, you do not need hiking. You need to cut. See resume length and one-page resume. Enhance CV’s builder will not punish you for an empty interests section; empty is the correct default for most Workday uploads.
What Workday ignores, and the UK line that still wastes a US file
Key takeaway: UK CVs often keep a short Interests heading by custom. Once that file hits Greenhouse, the custom does not help the parse.
A British two-page CV can carry “Interests: fell running; community radio.” Some local readers still like it. The same file uploaded to a US Workday tenant is two lines that displaced a certification. If you keep a UK version for email applications and a stripped version for ATS portals, that is two files — same facts, different extras. Do not feed the fell-running line into every tenant “for culture fit.” Culture fit is a conversation, not a parser field.
Generic lists are noise in every country: reading, movies, travel, music, “spending time with family.” Family is private. Travel without a language or a regional job is not a skill. Reading is assumed. If you write a book review newsletter with 2,000 subscribers and you are applying to content roles, that is a project — put it under Experience or Projects with a date, not under Hobbies.
Sports: varsity or club captain with dates can live on a student file. “Gym, yoga, football” on a 12-year ops resume reads as padding. Competitive esports with a team name might matter for a community role at a game studio; it will look odd on a hospital Workday packet. Match the employer, not your identity.
Volunteer work is not a hobby if it had a title, dates, and outcomes. Promote it to Experience or a Volunteer heading with the same block shape as a job — how to list experience. Leaving it in Interests is how Greenhouse never maps the dates. The opposite error is stuffing every weekend bake sale into Experience on a mid-career file. One relevant volunteer block beats six fluffy lines.
Parser failure modes unique to interests
- A two-column interests sidebar that Taleo reads before your jobs, shuffling dates.
- Icon rows (camera, plane, dumbbell) that extract as empty or as garbage tokens.
- A table of “5/5 passion” meters that are graphics, not text.
- Hashtags or slogan lines (“#hustle”) that look like a keyword dump.
If you keep one line, put it under Interests or Additional, in the body, same font as the rest. Not in a header, not as WordArt. Pair with best resume fonts and two-column ATS. After export, select-all. If the dumbbell icon does not copy as a word, it never helped Greenhouse.
Rewrite weak interest lines: three before-and-after transforms
Key takeaway: Most hobbies blocks become either a real credential line or empty space. Empty space on a mid-career file is the win.
Steal the cut or the promotion to Experience. Do not invent a club office you did not hold.
Before
Hobbies: hiking, travel, movies, cooking, spending time with friends.
After
Section deleted. The lines become a bullet under the current job naming a tool the posting asked for.
Before
Interests: amateur radio, photography, and “being a team player.”
After
Volunteer Extra: ARES radio operator, county emergency drill 2025 (FCC Technician license). Photography deleted unless the role is media.
Before
Two-column sidebar of icons: plane, book, football, plus “available for relocation anywhere!!”
After
No sidebar. Relocation stays in a cover note or the application form. Football stays off unless you coached a dated roster.
Career switchers sometimes hide the bridge in hobbies (“I code on weekends”). If you code, it is a project with a stack and a date — career change resume. If you do not have a project yet, do not claim a hobby as a job. Build one bullet of proof, then decide whether Interests still needs to exist.
Students: one line that names a leadership role with dates is enough. “President, 40-member robotics club, 2024–2026, built a competition robot in Onshape” is a block, not a hobby. Put it where dates will parse. See internship resume if the proof is a placement instead.
A 10-step playbook to audit Interests in twenty minutes
Key takeaway: Run this against one posting, not against your personality. The upload file is filtered. The master file can keep the long list.
Timer on. Job ad highlighted. If you are in the Enhance CV builder, leaving Additional empty is allowed.
- Copy every interest currently on the resume onto scratch paper.
- Next to each, write the posting noun it would prove — or write “none.”
- Delete every “none.” Delete travel, movies, reading, gym, and family unless the employer is that organization.
- Anything with a license, title, dates, or budget: promote it to Experience or Volunteer with a real header line.
- Anything left that still proves a named skill: one short line under Interests, no icons.
- If nothing is left, delete the heading. Do not replace it with “available upon request.”
- Strip two-column sidebars and meters. One column, system font.
- Check that cutting the sidebar did not pull dates out of order. Select-all on the PDF.
- If you keep a UK CV with a longer interests line, save it as a second file. The Workday upload stays stripped.
- Paste resume and job into the ATS checker. Confirm contact and dates survived the surgery.
Step 6 is where people panic and add “reading” back. Resist. A file that ends on Skills or Education looks finished. A file that ends on Netflix does not.
If you are applying to a camp, outdoor-ed, or recreation posting that literally asks for outdoor skills, then hiking with a Wilderness First Aid cert is on-topic. The posting still wins. Do not generalize that exception to a bank’s Greenhouse role.
Interest choices that evidence work versus ones that pad a UK CV
Key takeaway: If the choice is not in the table: would Greenhouse search this token, and would you defend it in a screen?
Keep this beside the extras block. References are a different extra — usually also off the file; references on a resume.
Hobby decisions that can survive a parse versus ones that only fill paper
| Topic | Do | Don’t |
|---|---|---|
| Default US ATS | No hobbies heading, or one line with a credential. | A list of generic weekend sports on every file. |
| UK CV | A thin, specific line if local custom expects it. | Pasting that line into Workday “for personality.” |
| Volunteer | Promote to a dated block with a title. | Hiding a treasurer role under “likes charity.” |
| Politics / faith | Only if applying to that organization. | Party or congregation as a culture-fit signal to a random tenant. |
| Layout | Body text, one column. | Icon meters, sidebars, hashtags. |
| Students | One leadership line with dates if Experience is thin. | Ten clubs with no dates and no role. |
Skills bars next to hobbies are a double miss: graphics plus irrelevance. Spell skills that are tools. Leave interests empty if they are not. For the rest of the extras audit, how to write a resume is the sequence; this page is only the interests gate.
Edge cases: students, elite sport, creators, and identity
Key takeaway: The gate stays the posting. Only the kind of proof you promote into a real heading changes.
Elite or semi-pro sport. If it is your job, it is Experience (team, dates, role). If it is unpaid but the posting is in sport science or coaching, a Volunteer/Athletics block with dates. If it is a bank analyst role, it is usually off the PDF unless you need to explain a gap of training camps — then one dated line, not a medal list.
Creators. A YouTube channel with real analytics can be a project for a media job. “I like making videos” is a hobby. Put the project under a Projects heading with a URL as text, not as a QR code image Workday cannot read.
Identity hobbies (church, party, union) belong when the employer is that body, or when omitting them would hide a required affiliation. They do not belong as “culture” on a Fortune Workday packet. Discrimination law aside, you cannot control who searches the extract.
Disability-related sport or clubs: you do not owe a diagnosis on a US resume. If a leadership role is the proof, list the role and dates without medical detail. Country rules differ; the ATS still wants text, not a story in an image.
What to do today: run the 10 steps on one posting, export selectable text, check the parse. If a sidebar deletion scrambled Education years, fix columns before you apply. The Enhance CV home page takes you back to the builder and the checker.
FAQ
Should you put hobbies on a resume?
Only if they prove a skill, license, language, or volunteer role the job ad already uses. Generic hiking-and-movies lists do not help Workday or Greenhouse search and they burn space a bullet needed. Mid-career files can almost always delete the heading. Students may keep one dated leadership line when paid work is thin.
Do ATS systems read hobbies?
They extract the text. They rarely have a hobbies field that recruiters filter on. That means tokens still land in the database — including political or religious club names you did not mean to advertise. Put real tools under Skills. Put dated volunteer titles under Experience. Leave Interests empty unless a noun in the ad matches.
Are hobbies more acceptable on a UK CV?
Some UK readers still expect a short Interests line on a two-page CV. If that same file will be uploaded to Workday or Greenhouse, strip or tighten it for the ATS version. Custom is for humans on email. Parsers do not score fell running.
Can volunteer work go under hobbies?
Not if it had a title, dates, and outcomes. Promote it to Volunteer or Experience so the parser maps dates like a job. “Likes charity” under hobbies hides the treasurer role that would have gotten you the screen.
What hobbies should you avoid on a resume?
Anything generic (travel, movies, gym), anything that only states identity to a random employer (party, congregation), and anything you cannot discuss without oversharing. Also avoid icon meters and two-column interest sidebars that scramble Workday’s extract.
Should students list clubs and sports?
Yes when there is a role, dates, and a skill the posting uses — captain, treasurer, builder, editor. No when it is a membership list with no dates. One strong club block beats ten unexplained names. See student resume.
Where should interests go so an ATS can read them?
If you keep them at all: in the body, under a normal heading, as selectable text, one column, same font as the rest. Not in a header, not as icons, not in a sidebar. Then run a parse check. If the extract is cleaner with the section gone, delete it.
Is it bad if my resume has no hobbies section?
No. Most US ATS files look more finished without one. Recruiters do not reject people for missing Netflix. They reject files that hide dates, email, or the tools in the ad. Spend the line on proof. Enhance CV will not force an interests block.
Put the recovered line into work, in a layout parsers map
Open the Enhance CV builder, drop generic interests, and spend the space on a bullet that names a tool. Then score the file against the posting.