Our hobbies are catalysts for promoting our skills, just like our professional experience. Mentioning them in your CV or cover letter can increase your chances of being invited for a job interview. Drawing parallels between your hobbies and the job to be filled during an interview is also a good way of boosting your application, showing another side of your personality and reducing the tension.

So, how do you showcase your hobbies? Find out below.

Can hobbies make a difference in recruitment?

Hiking, playing the piano, photography, astronomy, gardening, history, etc. We all have hobbies that we enjoy privately. Whatever you think, a recruiter who enjoys the same hobby as a candidate or who has a positive impression of a hobby, will feel receptive and associate a skill with this activity (e.g.: the candidate plays football, so he or she is a team player). This is known as similarity bias and stereotype bias.

Mentioning your hobbies in your CV can be a ‘plus’ that offers a glimpse of the soft skills and qualities you may possess. As Jean-Noël Chaintreuil, analyst of the future of work, lecturer at the Sorbonne and Talents Tech Programme Director at LVMH, explains, “the nature of the hobby provides an indication of the candidate’s qualities and cross-disciplinary skills.”

For Jean-Noël Chaintreuil, hobbies can even make the difference between two equivalent profiles: “depending on the position to be filled, I try and understand how the candidate transposes what they gain from their hobbies to their professional life.”

Talk about your hobbies, but only under certain conditions

The rule is simple: you should only talk about your hobbies if they are of genuine interest to your application. This means being able to explain in your cover letter or during the interview how your hobbies are activities that have enabled you to acquire and develop skills, in the same way as your professional experience, that will help you to be operational and successful in the post to be filled.

For example, if you are applying for a managerial post but have never had to manage a team in a professional context before, don’t hesitate to highlight your role as captain of a sports team or leader of a local association on your CV and during an interview if, and only if, you have learned to successfully manage a group of individuals. Bear in mind that to be convincing, you need to illustrate your points using results. What aspect of your personal activity clearly demonstrates that you know how to manage a team?

What if, during an interview, the recruiter asks me what my hobbies are?

Even if you haven’t mentioned them, during an interview some recruiters may ask you about your hobbies. It’s a way of helping you let go of any tension and to relax so you can continue the interview under the best possible conditions.

This question about hobbies may also be motivated by a desire to find out more about you and your ability to fit in with the company, because as Jean-Noël Chaintreuil points out, “an employee stays with the company because he or she fits in with the corporate culture.” Don’t forget to find out about the company’s practices and culture. For example, does it support certain causes? If so, which ones? Does the company organise sporting challenges? Does it sponsor an annual event? The answers will help you identify the interests and hobbies you want to promote.

How can you talk about your hobbies to your advantage? Our advice

1/ Talk about your hobbies with passion, but don’t overdo it

Talking about your hobbies with enthusiasm and passion is an excellent way of showing a positive side to your personality. However, “what you say should give the recruiter a better idea of who you are and what motivates you,” says Anne-Line Baron, founder of the Kairos Business School. Take the time to ask yourself what you like about the activity. How do you feel when you’re practising it? What does this mean for you on a day-to-day basis?

And don’t forget that dedicated leisure time is good for your physical and mental health. What’s more, taking care of your health is much appreciated by recruiters, as it’s a sign that you’re in the right frame of mind to be focused, efficient and successful at work.

2/ Don’t confuse hobbies with pastimes

Did you mention on your CV that you were passionate about football when in fact you only play a match every six months and don’t watch any sporting events? Be careful, this could backfire if you’re faced with a recruiter who’s a football fan. In fact, he’s likely to start a brief discussion on the subject by asking you what your favourite team is. Or what you thought of PSG’s last match.

“It’s a situation I encountered not long ago. The candidate had mentioned in her CV that she played handball. But during her interview, she admitted that it wasn’t true. Obviously, her lie didn’t work in her favour,” says Anne-Line Baron. So it’s best to be sincere and cautious, only indicating the hobbies you are really passionate about.

For Jean-Noël Chaintreuil, it’s important not to be generic: "it’s better to give brief details of the sport you practise by, for example, indicating the number of years you’ve practised it, your level, etc.”

3/ Be transparent from the outset if the leisure activity involves constraints

Anne-Line Baron recommends that candidates mention any constraints from the outset: “if, for example, you play sport at a certain level and you have to attend three training sessions a week, the recruiter needs to know this, because it’s an activity that will dictate the pace and hours you work.”

4/ Be brief, don’t go into too much detail about the subject

When you start talking about a hobby or passion, it’s easy to get caught up in it. This subject should nevertheless be kept to the margins during a job interview or in your cover letter. It is important to make an effort to summarise so as not to inundate the recruiter with details and sidetrack you from the job for which you are applying.

Here’s an example of a concise paragraph on leisure activities: “I run two or three times a week with the aim of running a marathon in a different city once a year. It’s an activity that energises me as much as it challenges me physically and mentally. When I’m not running, I enjoy watching news reports and reading books about politics and the American political system in particular.”

So now you know that the most important thing when highlighting your hobbies is to be sincere and talk about what really motivates you and what your actual hobbies are, to be concise and link them to the position to be filled and the company’s culture.