One of the fastest-growing sectors of jobs for career builders are side hustles. From running your own business to clocking into a 5-9 after your 9-5, the hustles may be different, but the rules of engagement remain the same. Top Applicant shares some realities you should consider before signing up for a side hustle.
Check out all of our side notes on side hustles, or sign in to find a hustle that works for you!
Side Notes
- Finding Your New 5 to 9
- Opportunities Worth Applying For
- Applying for a Side Hustle
- Where Personality Meets Professionalism
Finding Your New 5-9
The first step to finding financial, emotional, and career success is narrowing down the list of side hustles that fit your needs. While everyone’s timeline is different, there are a few non-negotiables that everyone should consider when finding a 5-9 after their 9-5.
Take these important realities into consideration as you define your ideal side gig!
Work/Life Balance
In every stage of your career, a side job can be exceptionally helpful professionally. However, you should never let it overwhelm your personal life! One of the most valuable lessons our experts have learned in our own side gigs is maintaining a healthy balance. Before taking on an additional role, make self-care and maintaining relationships part of your weekly routine. This will minimize stress, and maximize the amount of extra work you can handle!
Amount of Extra Effort
Another important aspect of side hustles is the sheer amount of extra hours that workers put in every week. In a recent study by Self, they found that over 60% of people spend between 5 and 20 hours a week on their side hustle. Not only is a side hustle an extra burden on your schedule, it can come with other hidden costs as well!
The Real Costs
Some of the most important things to consider when looking for your ideal side hustle relate to real investments you’ll need to make to maintain your chosen path. In addition to the extra time it takes for day to day work, these roles also require additional money, energy, and emotional commitments. Between prepping an extra meal, running your own business, and regular ups and downs of any job, the real costs of a side hustle can add up to more than some are willing to pay!
Opportunities Worth Applying For
After carefully considering all of the aforementioned aspects of a side gig you still want to take on an additional role, there are a few benefits you can look forward to. The best parts about these non-traditional roles help shape success for career builders in every stage of their employment journey!
Additional Experience
Have you ever wanted to open your own business, learn a new skill, or have some really cool stories to tell? A side hustle can help achieve all of those and more! Many office dwellers find that physical side gigs help them work up a sweat, get some energy out, and score some extra cash. But wherever you’re clocking in extra hours, additional professional, emotional, and personal experiences can grow your references, in-demand skills, and essential soft skills.
Changing Career Trajectories
If those fruits are turning sour on your current career path, there’s always time to make a change. Whether it’s your second, third, or final act, a side hustle can keep you from calling it curtains for career development. By starting small with just a few hours a week doing something that fulfills you financially and personally, making a big move is a lot easier!
Check out our related blog to learn about making a change for the better.
Employees Ask: How Can I Change Careers?
Padding Your Nest Egg
While money isn’t everything, are you the type of person to reject some extra cash? We didn’t think so. For more experienced career builders working to secure a comfortable retirement, side hustles can be exceptionally helpful. To reach your goals we recommend starting by building an effective strategy and portfolio with a financial advisor.
The next step to successfully saving for retirement with a side hustle is saving. An expert from Nerd Wallet used the 50/30/20 system to make building his budget easy. In this method, he allocated 50% of his take-home income to needs, 30% to wants, and 20% to savings, debt, and investments. Through planning, budgeting, and discipline, they added over $100,000 to their retirement fund! Just a few hours a week could add up to thousands of ways to enjoy your time off later!
Applying for a Side Hustle
As you decide to apply for your short list of tempting side hustle options, there are a few things everyone should do before hitting submit. Available hours, mental preparedness, rock solid resumes, and customized cover letters are all essential to applying for any role.
These are 4 things you can do to land a side job or start your own hustle more effectively!
Manage Your Time
Before your time ends up managing you, make sure to plan your extra hours effectively to support the others who depend on you. With your full-time work, family roles, and the additional responsibilities of a side hustle, making every hour count is more important than counting every hour.
To manage each aspect of your daily schedule effectively, it’s time to actually use that calendar app on your phone! Structure your schedule to include both personal and professional priorities. For example, one of our contributing experts builds time into their calendar to remind them about recording sessions for their personal podcast. They regularly move these sessions around to fit in professional responsibilities and appointments, but this structure works to make the time for everything that’s truly important in a day!
Rethink Your Mindset
There’s a reason not everyone has a side hustle. Successful careers of any kind require workers to prioritize what’s important to them to grow. To apply yourself effectively to a side hustle, you may need to rethink your relationship with work. Instead of giving your work 110%, Top Applicant recommends a more balanced approach.
The fable of the hare and the tortoise teaches us that slow and steady wins the race. So even if you’re slow to start your side hustle, keep in mind that everyone experiences success at their own pace. To put this into perspective, let’s look at something as simple as going to bed at an adequate hour with some advice from a seasoned side hustler.
During WWI, the British government got rid of hour caps in factories working for the war effort. This led to a wide range of studies on productivity that shaped the modern ethical work week. In one set of data, we can see that after 65 hours, the vast majority of workers experienced negative productivity.
While this data draws this conclusion from a unique place in time, it still holds up today! Before burning out in your pursuit for success, make sure to mentally and physically prepare yourself to meet the additional requirements.
Update Your Resume
Before applying to any job, you should always update your resume to resonate with key words, company values, and requirements shared in the job description. Shaping an effective resume is one of the most important, but time consuming parts of any search. That’s why Top Applicant simplified this process for the modern age!
With our free resume builder you can create multiple unique resumes based on the unique needs of each application. When deciding how many years of work history needed, or how to explain a career gap, our blog has dozens of helpful resources to help you elevate your writing effectively! However, a solid resume is only half the battle for some side hustle applications.
Cover Your Bases
In most cases, a side hustle won’t require you to submit a cover letter, but while spending so much time to craft the ideal resume, why let it fall short without a cover letter? To increase your chances of securing an interview, a short, focused cover letter never hurts! For these roles, we recommend sharing your intentions, achievements, and including keywords from the job description to shape an equally effective cover letter for your resume.
Where Personality Meets Professionalism
With Top Applicant’s free features creating cover letters, resumes, portfolios, and other essential documents for any application is easier than ever! At the core of every innovation, there are 3 essential elements that make our platform incredibly effective. Here’s how you can use each to make the most out of your side hustle!
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In-Depth Culture Index
As you create your profile, you’ll share personal and professional qualities with sliders and short answers about things like desired salary, expertise, and other important qualities. Our platform uses your responses to serve a tailored list of opportunities that update weekly. This in-depth personalization takes the guesswork, heartache, and tedious hustle out of applying for side hustles.
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Find the Right Fit Fast
We believe the right job is out there for everyone. So whether it’s a 5-9 after your 9-5, or another type of hustle that fulfills you, we make it easy to find it fast! Your Top Applicant dashboard includes important information to centralize every application in one convenient location. No more jumping through hoops saves time so you can focus on building a career that matches your goals!
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Infinite Customization
No two career journeys are the same which is why every Top Applicant’s profile is completely customizable. Our resumes, cover letter help, and other helpful tools serve as a template for everyone to put their personality and professionalism on full display. To start customizing your profile, sign in, and get started!
