Sometimes, work experience directly unrelated to your specialty can impress and impact your hiring prospects. For example, working as a remote customer support specialist shows patience, persistence, and the ability to understand clients’ needs. Yet usually, whether side hustles make it onto your resume becomes a dilemma.
Most of the following side hustle business ideas have the potential to impress HR specialists with your innovative thinking or your ability to quickly embrace the latest technologies.
How to properly introduce work experience on resumes/interviews
Besides being clear about your work experience, such as job titles, companies, and tenure, you can spice things up with side hustle details. That includes describing your professional activities outside your main role, such as running e-commerce websites, freelancing, or publishing ebooks.
Each side hustle can be relevant to the job you wish to apply for, but it’s important to distinguish between an irrelevant entry and a meaningful one. For example, know exactly what type of skill or attribute you wish to highlight with the side hustle you mention. Essentially, the following reasons should convince you to include side hustle details in your favor:
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Nearly all side hustles showcase your interest in aiming higher than sticking mainly to your stable income.
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Mentioning side hustles can also explain some gaps in your resume, especially if you took time off. ResumeCoach is one option for organizing side projects and side hustles in a way that shows how they contributed to your skills and career development.
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If you’re making a career shift, maybe a side hustle had a lot to do with it? So, it can become a big part of your career story during interviews.
Side hustles to include in your resume
Of course, some side hustles are more impressive on the entrepreneurial side. For example, finding ways to earn money online is excellent, but it can require and highlight different skills. Using services like JumpTask to find microjobs and get paid for watching videos or testing mobile games requires no expertise. Yet, you can mention it in a way that showcases your ability to find new ways to earn or improve yourself.
Running an online store
Selling products online can involve many professional skills, such as affiliate/influencer marketing, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social media ads, WordPress management (or another CMS), and general website upkeep, as well as creation if you use your own programming skills to build your shop.
Freelancing
Freelancing can showcase your expertise in a new field, especially if partnering with a few independent clients inspired you to pursue a full-time job in the same industry. If a company contacts your references, happy, satisfied clients from your freelancing business can also positively impact your hiring prospects.
Experimenting with the latest technology (for example, AI)
Many employers are highly interested in using AI, but they have little human power to dedicate to establishing and reinventing procedures. If a person has already experimented with using AI at a deeper level, rather than asking random, casual questions, they become a very desirable candidate.
For example, many developers can use AI for inspiration or get easier things done faster, but do they work with it directly in their terminal? Such knowledge and expertise from your side hustle (or even general/personal effort) is incredibly beneficial.
Graphic design/editing
Pursuing additional skills, such as graphic design and editing, using tools like Adobe Photoshop, can help you stand out as a candidate. For example, many companies might include such abilities as nice-to-haves, meaning they are not essential but can put you higher on the preference list.
When to skip them for a tech position
Sometimes, listing all of your side hustles and other attempts can overload your resume. So, we highly recommend judging which opportunities add something to your resume and increase your hirability.
Additionally, consider that an incredibly busy schedule after work might not be that appealing to an employer. They might prefer a person who sticks to their main work and avoids distractions that keep them from dedicating all of their time to work. Whether such a position is even acceptable for you should be your first question.
Another important aspect is the potential conflicts of interest, especially if your business directly competes with your potential employer. While you should disclose such relations, you do need to understand that they eliminate you from the running.
Be vocal about your side hustles
Another tip is to use platforms like LinkedIn to showcase your professional growth. So, don’t be shy about sharing your experiences, participating in networking events, and generally building a story around your career. So, hiring specialists will become more interested in you for open positions.
Conclusion
All in all, side hustles can be excellent additions to your resume. If they showcase your skills, put your time in perspective, support your career growth/change, and are relevant to the position you apply for, don’t keep them to yourself.
In many cases, having a side hustle is an advantage over other candidates, and it would be unwise (to say the least) not to use this card. However, do some research on the company, its values, and former employees' opinions. Sometimes, companies might be skeptical about additional side hustles, as they prefer their employees to view their jobs as their main career. Whether this aligns with your views and goals is up to you.
