The Side Hustle Revolution: Start Hustling to Replace Your Day Job
More and more workers are augmenting or replacing traditional work with “side hustles,” work that is done outside of one's day job to supplement income. Often, those side hustles evolve into full-time careers. People with multiple side hustles are gig workers with "portfolio careers." While gig opportunities may seem limitless, competition is fierce. If you are thinking about joining the gig economy, start your journey now!
This week, Becker’s Hospital Review featured a story entitled “50% of new nurses plan on transitioning out of field to pursue side hustle.” More than 1,300 U.S. nurses were surveyed; "about 50 percent have side hustles outside of nursing to earn extra income — and many of them plan on making side gigs their full-time job," with 80% hoping to start their own businesses. The driver for doing these side hustles is to maintain their mental and physical health, spend time with family, and have work life balance. The gig economy is rapidly becoming the norm rather than the exception and competition is fierce. With that in mind, you should begin planning for it before making the leap.
How do you identify your “gig”?
Gig opportunities vary, including things like project management, consulting, web development, social media and digital marketing, and a variety of writing opportunities. Writing options include creative, business or scientific writing, as well as editing, proofreading, translating and blogging. Other “jobber” opportunities are housework, gardening, dog walking, driving, delivery services and caregiving, especially for the elderly and disabled community.
The important question is not what work is available, but what you are good at. Before jumping head first into a competitive pool of gig workers, figure out what you enjoy doing and do well. You will have to sell yourself. If you don't believe you are better than thousands of others at whatever it is you do, then you will have a hard time convincing others to hire you. The same concept is true even if you are looking for a full-time job. Employers will always ask, “why should we hire you?” This is no different with gig work.
How do you find work?
Once you land on the gig work that is right for you, there are a few ways to find the work.
Sign up with online gig platforms: the most common are Upwork, Fiverr, TaskRabbit and GigX.
Join networking groups on Facebook, Discord, NextDoor, Alignable, etc., or consider joining a meetup group in your specific skill area.
For project management, system implementation and consulting work, consider registering with staffing firms. Robert Half is one of the most established firms and they offer project work as well as a number of contract-to-hire positions.
If you choose the route of registering with gig sites, spend some time reviewing the types of jobs that are posted, and the money being offered. If possible, look at other workers’ profiles to get a good sense of the competition. You may need to ask around in chat groups (like the Facebook “Side Hustle” group) to find out what people recommend as the best way to get seen and recognized on the different gig sites. Upwork allows freelancers to purchase extra “credits” to send your application to the top of the applicant list. If the job is well paid and popular, though, you may be quickly outbid and your application will move further down the virtual pile, so use your credits wisely. It will take awhile to get noticed and hired. However, once you have done a couple gigs well and exceeded expectations, your reviews will get you noticed.
Initially, you may need to sacrifice your weekends or evenings to support “urgent”/immediate need jobs so that you can build your gig work resume. It’s reasonable to do this in the short term but, eventually, you need to set clear boundaries between work hours and personal time. Hopefully, several years of working remotely during the COVID pandemic has helped you develop the self discipline to step away from work and enjoy your personal time, either alone or with family and friends. After all, work life balance is the primary reason for choosing to have a gig career. Most important, be sure you love whatever it is you decide to do. It’s always easier to commit to doing what you love.