Hobbies on your resume. Smart move or an unnecessary risk?

Hobbies on your resume can create connection but also bias. Here’s how to decide whether the potential benefit is worth the risk.

Key Takeaways

To add or not to add, that is the question. Whether or not to include hobbies and interests on a resume is a weirdly controversial, hotly debated topic.

Adding fuel to this, research on the subject can seem contradictory arguing that yes, they can help you but be careful because they can also harm you too.

If you are trying to decide what to do, you need to separate fact from fiction and then add your situation.

So, let’s start with a few facts.

Evidence that hobbies can help you

In 2012, Lauren Rivera, a professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, published a landmark study in the American Sociological Review called "Hiring as Cultural Matching."

She conducted 120 interviews with hiring professionals at elite investment banks, consulting firms, and law firms, then spent nine months embedded inside one firm's hiring committee, observing every stage of the recruitment process.

What she found was surprising.

Cultural fit was the single most important criterion at the job interview stage, rated above analytical thinking and technical ability. More than half of evaluators said it was the most important criterion and “fit" was assessed primarily through shared leisure pursuits, background, and self-presentation. In other words, the hobbies section on candidate’s resumes was not just a footnote, but a game changer.

A related two-year longitudinal study from Kellogg found that approximately 51% of employers used hobbies and interests to select candidates. Some rated them as important as qualifications and experience.

Evidence that hobbies can harm you

Four years later, the same researcher published a second study that shows a clearer picture.

Rivera and András Tilcsik (2016) conducted a resume audit study for the American Sociological Review. They sent identical fake resumes to 316 law firm offices across 14 US cities, randomly varying social class signals. The hobbies they used were things like sailing, classical music, and polo. Basically, activities associated with higher socioeconomic status.

They found that higher-class hobby signals gave male applicants a significant callback advantage. Much the same as the first study. However, the same signals penalised female applicants, who were stereotyped as less committed to full-time careers.

Let’s unpack this for a moment. We are looking at the same hobbies, same credentials, same fictional candidate but opposite outcomes, purely based on gender.

Then there is the gaming example. A 2025 study by Johannes Basch and colleagues, published in the Journal of Personnel Psychology, tested how hiring managers evaluated identical resumes where the only difference was the extracurricular activity listed. They chose volleyball versus gaming.

The gaming applicant was rated significantly lower in hireability and resume quality. Even when the gaming candidate was described as a Prime League competitor (an elite competitive level in League of Legends), they still scored worse than a non-competitive average volleyball player.

This is curious because gaming requires problem-solving, strategic thinking, rapid decision-making, teamwork, and communication, but it didn’t count as a positive. Instead, the gamer stigma overwhelmed the facts.

So, this is why blogs and articles that argue a hard yes or no to including hobbies on a resume are incomplete.

The truth is that the same mechanism that makes hobbies powerful can also make them harmful.

For example, it would be reasonable to assume that the hobbies seen as a perfect fit for the elite companies in Rivera’s research may also position applicants for non-elite companies as a less than perfect fit due to cultural differences.

Bias now has an official stamp of approval

In September 2025, a UK employment tribunal dismissed a case that should make you seriously consider what you choose to share with employers about your personal life.

Maia Kalina took legal action after losing out on a role with a marketing agency because she didn’t "vibe" with her interviewer. She claimed she was discriminated against for not being outgoing and not enjoying pub culture. She lost.

In his ruling, employment judge Daniel Wright went further. He explained that employers have the right to consider whether a prospective employee would "damage office harmony," and offered an example to illustrate just how far that right extends.

A small company where everybody supports Arsenal, he said, could reasonably reject a similarly qualified Tottenham Hotspur season ticket holder. The decision, in his words, would be "perfectly lawful."

This is not unconscious bias anymore. It is legally sanctioned discrimination based on cultural fit. The judge did not hide behind nuance. He stated plainly that who you are outside of work, such as your allegiances, your pastimes, and your ‘vibe,’ can lawfully cost you the job.

The legal system has now told hiring managers that their instincts about who "fits" are legitimate business judgment. The mechanism Rivera documented in 2012 is now operating with judicial approval.

But do recruiters and hiring managers want to see your hobbies?

I’ve been recruiting for many years now, and I’ve seen my fair share of trends and fads come and go. But at the end of the day, recruiters want the same thing today as when I first started. That is, a concise snapshot of your skills and experience so they can decide whether to proceed with your application or not.

The one thing that has changed is the sheer volume of applications due to the rise and dominance of online job boards, Applicant Tracking Systems and AI assisted application services.

In its 2018 Eye Tracking Study, Ladders Inc revealed that the typical time recruiters spend for an initial scan of a resume is just 7.4 seconds.

That is why, unless explicitly requested otherwise, you should concentrate on the quality of the rest of your resume content. Your resume has one job and one job only and that’s to get you an interview.

Your social resume, LinkedIn, and whatever else is public, will tell them what they want to know about you on a personal level.

Examples of recruiter and hiring manager bias

The main issue with hobbies and interests is the same as adding a photo to your resume. They will cause a human reaction. What is normal to one person is weird to another. What is positive to one person is negative to another.

For example, I recruited for an influential CEO in the UK who rejected all applications that listed golf in their interests because he didn’t like "the type of people that play golf."

Another client in Australia will not entertain applications from surfers because she feels they can’t wait to get off work early or pull a sick day if the surf is up.

An American HR Manager I work with has a problem with classic car enthusiasts because his neighbour renovates cars into the early hours, keeping him awake every night.

There’s also an Irish People & Culture Manager that I have huge respect and admiration for but has an almost pathological hatred of mamils, that’s middle-aged men in Lycra in case you didn’t know, cutting him up in Dublin's city centre roads on his commute to work every day.

Here’s what you need to think about.

All of these people want to remain professional but all of them cannot help letting these things cloud their judgement.

Golf, surfing, car maintenance, and cycling, are hardly controversial, but they still elicit a strong reaction in these individuals.

So, could your ‘perfectly normal’ out-of-work activities do the same?

Do you really want to take that risk?

Based on evidence like this, there are so many posts on LinkedIn arguing "never include hobbies on your resume” that get plenty of likes from people who agree. After all, this advice is clean, safe, and easy to endorse.

But it's not quite that simple.

Why some recruiters still support hobbies on a resume

If you dig a little deeper in the comments sections of posts arguing that you should never put your hobbies on a resume, you’ll also find that some recruiters and HR professionals push back, and they push back hard.

Comments like "If you play any sport, 100% add them” routinely draw big reactions.

Others argue "I always like to see hobbies on a resume. It means candidates aren't afraid to show what they're about, and it's a useful conversation starter."

Another common refrain: "Many people have been hired because they have similar interests to the hiring manager. People gravitate toward hiring people like them."

Now, just in case you were wondering, these are not from cranks or outliers. They are experienced hiring professionals saying the opposite of what the "never include hobbies" camp advises, and their comments consistently attract significant backing in the threads.

So, the reality is that the jury is out.

For every recruiter who tells you hobbies are a liability, another tells you they are the thing that got someone hired.

Plus, the research supports both positions, because it all depends on who you are, where you are applying, and what your hobbies signal.

There is no universal rule.

There is only the calculation of risk that you need to make for yourself.

When it makes sense to add hobbies to a resume

Unacceptable hobbies and interests for your resume

Now that I have given you reasons where you might add hobbies and interests, here are the ones you should never include.

Under no circumstances put any of these on your resume.

• Generic fillers like "socialising, watching films, spending time with family" tell the recruiter nothing and is outdated;
• Those that could be considered violent or dangerous;
• Anything that could be labeled antisocial behaviour or activities based on strong contrarian opinions;
• Humorous pastimes that could be misinterpreted;
• Anything revealing your political or religious affiliations.

This isn’t about hiding who you are but making sure you’re not setting yourself up for a stranger to disqualify you before you have even met.

Your personal risk analysis

As I said at the beginning, you need to consider facts, fiction and situation when you are thinking about adding hobbies and pastimes to a resume.

We’ve covered the facts and concluded that they can both help and hinder your chances of gaining an interview.

The fiction is that there is one definitive answer, because there simply isn’t.

So that leaves us with situation.

Each time you apply for a job, ask yourself whether the benefits of adding them will truly likely outweigh the risks, because the risks are very real.

If you are just starting out, career changing, needing to fill in career gaps or have hobbies that directly align to a role or company then they may help you.

But if you can’t think of any specific reason to include them, there is your answer.

Play it safe and leave them off.

FAQ