Hobbies and interests for CV: what to include, with examples

Only when they help. A hobbies and interests section isn't compulsory on a UK CV, and an experienced candidate can drop it without anyone noticing. It earns its place in three cases:

• Your work history is short. For a first job, the National Careers Service suggests adding interests and hobbies that show your skills: captaining a sports team, for example, shows leadership and organisation.
• The activity relates to the job. Prospects gives examples: writing a blog or a community newsletter if you want to be a journalist, a drama group for a sales role, climate activism for an environmental job.
• You're changing career, and the hobby is where you've built the new skills: coding at weekends, coaching a youth team, volunteering with a charity.

Prospects is just as clear on the other side: “socialising”, “listening to podcasts” and “reading” won't catch a recruiter's attention, and if you have no relevant interests, leave the section out.

A hobby is something you do: play five-a-side, bake, restore furniture, run a book club. An interest is something you follow or learn about: local history, renewable energy, Premier League stats, design. On a CV, both go in the same section, usually headed “Interests” or “Hobbies and interests”.

Hobbies tend to prove more, because you can describe what you did. An interest becomes useful when you show how you pursue it: a course, a blog, a club, a project.

1. Read the advert and note the skills and qualities it asks for: teamwork, attention to detail, patience, leadership, digital skills.
2. List what you do outside work or study, including things you might not think count: caring for a relative, helping at a food bank, running a group chat for a club.
3. Match them: keep the two to four activities that show a quality from the advert.
4. Add a detail that proves it: a role, a number, a result, how long you've done it.
5. Check you can talk about it for two minutes at interview. If not, cut it.

Each example says what it can show. Pick the ones that are true for you, then add your own detail.

The names, places and figures are examples: replace them with your own. For a full CV that uses interests this way, see our student CV examples.

• Passive pastimes: watching TV, socialising, going out, browsing social media, “listening to music”.
• Vague one-word lists: “sport, music, travel, reading” tells the employer nothing.
• Anything you exaggerate: if you write “fluent Spanish” or “marathon runner”, expect a question about it.
• Activities that could worry an employer without context: gambling, risky extreme sports, controversial groups.
• Personal details you don't have to share: your religion, politics, health or family situation. You can keep them private.

That last point matters. The Equality Act 2010, which covers England, Wales and Scotland, lists the nine protected characteristics on which discrimination law is based, including age, disability, religion or belief and sexual orientation. Nothing obliges you to reveal them on a CV. If a church choir, a Pride network or a disability sports club is your strongest example, you can include it, describing what you did rather than who you are: “Organise rehearsals and concerts for a 30-member choir”.

• At the end, after work history, education and skills. It's the last thing a recruiter needs.
• A plain heading: “Interests” or “Hobbies and interests”.
• Two to four items, on one line each or in one short line separated by commas.
• One detail per item: a role, a number, a frequency, a result.
• Volunteering with real responsibility can move up into your work history, under “Volunteering”, where it counts as experience.

In the Kandiq CV builder, interests have their own field in the “Your skills” step: one interest per line, with the reminder that “Running (2 marathons)” beats “sports”. They appear under the heading “Interests”, as the last section of the CV by default; you can drag them elsewhere in the section order. The “Skills as tags” option, set by default in the Pill template, shows skills, languages and interests as rounded tags to save space.

Write your key skills first, then choose the two or three interests that back them up. The AI CV checker reviews the rest of your CV against the job advert before you send it.