Should you put hobbies and interests for a CV or resume?
Two government careers services give two different answers, and both are right for different readers:
- Canada's Job Bank: “It is not recommended to mention hobbies because of the judgments potential employers can make. However, if your hobbies relate to the position, you may include them.”
- The UK's National Careers Service: “You can also include your interests and hobbies that show some of the skills you have.”
Put together, the rule is: a hobby earns its place when it shows something the job needs. In practice that means you should include them if:
- you are a student or recent graduate with little work experience, and an activity shows teamwork, leadership or commitment;
- a hobby is directly related to the job (coding projects for a developer, photography for a designer, a cooking blog for a food brand);
- your market expects them: Indian resumes usually end with a personal-details block, and hobbies often sit there;
- the company's culture is a selling point and the ad says so (outdoor brands, sports clubs, community organisations).
Leave them out when your experience already fills the page, or when the hobby says nothing about you as a worker. A section that reads “Reading, music, travelling” takes space and proves nothing.
Hobbies vs interests: is there a difference?
A hobby is something you do (play the tabla, coach a junior football team). An interest is something you follow or study (behavioural economics, Philippine history, electric vehicles). On a resume the line between them hardly matters, and most people use one heading for both. Hobbies tend to be more convincing, because doing something regularly is easier to prove than being interested in it.
How to choose which hobbies to list
- Read the ad for the soft skills it asks for: teamwork, leadership, attention to detail, creativity, stamina. (See soft skills for a resume.)
- Match a hobby to each one you can honestly claim. Team sports for teamwork, chess or puzzles for analysis, organising events for leadership, long-distance running for discipline.
- Keep only the ones that match. A hobby that shows nothing the job needs is padding.
- Make each one specific and checkable. “Play the tabla; performed at 6 college cultural events” is a hobby; “music” is a word. The interviewer may ask about it, so choose ones you can talk about for two minutes.
Hobbies and interests examples, with the skill each shows
The detail column shows how to make each one specific. The figures in it are illustrative.
| Hobby or interest | What it can show | Written specifically (illustrative) |
|---|---|---|
| Team sports (cricket, football, basketball, volleyball) | Teamwork, commitment, handling pressure | College cricket team vice-captain, 2 seasons |
| Running, cycling, swimming | Discipline, setting and meeting goals | Completed two half marathons; run 25 km a week |
| Yoga, gym, martial arts | Consistency, self-discipline | Taekwondo, green belt; train three times a week |
| Chess, puzzles, quizzing | Analytical thinking, patience | Rated 1650 on an online chess site; captain of the college quiz club |
| Coding side projects | Technical skill, initiative | Built a bus-timing app used by 300 students on campus |
| Writing or blogging | Written communication, research | Write a monthly blog on personal finance; 2,000 readers a month |
| Photography or video | Creativity, attention to detail, tools | Shoot and edit events for the college magazine in Lightroom |
| Drawing, painting, design | Creativity, visual sense | Designed posters for 10 college events |
| Music (instrument, choir, band) | Practice, performing, teamwork | Play guitar in a four-piece band; 15 live gigs |
| Dance or theatre | Confidence, teamwork, presenting | Lead in two college plays; ran rehearsals for a cast of 12 |
| Cooking or baking | Planning, care, creativity | Bake for a weekend home stall; about 40 orders a month |
| Gardening | Patience, planning | Grow vegetables on a terrace plot; supply three neighbours |
| Volunteering | Service, organisation, reliability | Teach English to children at a weekend NGO class, 2 years |
| Organising events or clubs | Leadership, coordination, budgeting | Organised the department fest for 800 visitors on a $4,000 budget |
| Mentoring or tutoring | Explaining, patience | Tutor two high school students in math every weekend |
| Learning languages | Communication, persistence | Learning Japanese; passed JLPT N4 |
| Travel (specific) | Adaptability, planning | Planned and led a 10-day trek in Himachal for 8 friends |
| Reading (specific) | Curiosity, depth | Read and review a book on behavioural economics each month |
| Public speaking, debate, Toastmasters | Presenting, persuasion | Won the inter-college debate final, 2025 |
| Robotics, electronics, DIY | Problem-solving, hands-on skills | Built a line-following robot for a state-level contest |
Twenty more, by the kind of job they suit: community radio, podcasting, debate (media and communications); stock-market tracking, budgeting apps, investment clubs (finance); first aid, lifeguarding, blood-donation drives (healthcare); scouting, NCC, NSS (leadership, government jobs); open-source contributions, hackathons, competitive programming (software); sketching, 3D modelling, interior styling (design); coaching a junior team, teaching Sunday school (teaching); and hiking, trekking clubs (outdoor and tourism roles).
How to write the hobbies section
- Put it last, under a heading such as “Interests”, “Hobbies and interests” or “Activities”. Experience, education and skills come first.
- One line each, or one line in total: “Interests: half-marathon running (2 completed) · tabla (6 college performances) · personal-finance blogging” (illustrative).
- Move strong ones up. If a hobby involves real responsibility (you ran a club, captained a team, organised an event), it may belong under Activities or Leadership with a result, or even under Experience if it was substantial. See a resume for your first job.
- Be ready to talk about every one. Interviewers often pick the last line on the page to break the ice.
Hobbies to leave off a resume
- Ones that invite the “judgments” Job Bank warns about: political or religious activity (unless the job is with such an organisation), and anything that could be read as risky or divisive.
- Passive or vague ones: watching TV, scrolling social media, “listening to music”, “surfing the internet”, “hanging out with friends”.
- Ones you don't really do. If you list chess, expect a question about it.
- Ones that suggest you will be away a lot, unless the job is related: “travelling the world” on an application for a desk role can read as a worry rather than a strength.
India, the Philippines, the UK and the US
| Market | Usual practice |
|---|---|
| India | Resumes usually end with a personal-details block: date of birth (optional), languages known and, often, hobbies. Keep the hobbies to one line there. |
| Philippines | Keep personal details to contact details and languages; civil status, religion, height and weight belong on a biodata, and only if asked. An interests line is optional: add it when it shows a skill. |
| UK | An interests section is optional; include it when it shows skills, as the National Careers Service suggests. |
| US and Canada | Include an interest only if it relates to the job, as Job Bank advises. |
Hobbies in resume for freshers in India, and area of interest
Indian fresher resumes often carry two separate lines that look alike. Hobbies in resume are what you do for pleasure, written as two to four concrete items: cricket captain for the college team, solving chess puzzles, sketching. The area of interest in resume is different: it names the kind of work you want to do, such as data analysis, embedded systems, retail banking or digital marketing, and it helps a recruiter place a fresher who has no job history yet. If you write both, keep each to one line, and make the area of interest match the role in the advert.
Hobbies examples that read well on a fresher resume are specific and checkable: “Trekking: led a four-person Sahyadri trek and planned the route and budget”, “Quizzing: regional finalist, college quiz league”. A hobby for cv use that shows a skill the job needs is worth one line; a long list of interests in resume form, with reading, music and travelling, adds little and uses space you could give to a project.
In CVEmber, the personal-details block (date of birth, languages known, hobbies) is optional and appears only when you fill it in, so the same resume works with or without it. For each market's full layout, see the fresher resume format for India, the resume format for the Philippines and the UK CV format.
Sources
Checked on 4 October 2026.