Whether to supplement your budget, pursue a passion outside of a professional career, or transition to a self-owned business, many individuals are taking up “side hustles” – a piece of work or job that you receive payment for alongside a primary professional position.
While incorporating side hustles into their income acquisition and professional skillset, many don’t realize that these efforts should also be exemplified on your resume.
Not all side hustles should go on your resume, but many extraneous opportunities and projects utilize skills and strategies you can demonstrate to elevate your resume and reveal an additional facet to your professional brand.
Incorrectly incorporating these side hustles, you can adequately demonstrate the skills and proficiencies that you can bring to a future employer.
How to include my side hustle?
Include your side hustle like any other job. The same way you show a company name, position, and tenure for standard positions, you should list your side gig in the same way.
While some may have established business names, it is certainly valid to simply refer to your hustle as “Self-Employed” and utilize your position title to better demonstrate the precise responsibilities and functions.
Once the general information of your side hustle is established, you can approach your routine responsibilities and accomplishments in an identical way as the rest of your resume. When considering the language utilized in referencing these operations, ensure to establish a direct connection between positions you are interested in applying for and your side hustle.
For instances where your side hustle is being utilized as a transition to your professional goal, this connection will be easily formulated. In other cases where there is an apparent disconnect, it may pose more of a challenge.
For example, a professional writer additionally performing freelance writing tasks as a side hustle will not find much trouble in building those essential connections. In contrast, an accountant may have more difficulty referencing, say, freelance photography opportunities. While it may not be as apparent, the connections are certainly present and can be built upon to demonstrate an additional subset of skills.
In this hypothetical case, it would be instinctual to primarily exemplify the art and action of photography and photo editing. For our hypothetical accountant, though, it is much more crucial to focus on business management and development tasks, including client relationship management, financial and budget control, and business reporting operations. This strategy allows you to develop direct links from your primary professional position and you side gig – also providing strong additions to your resume.
Numbers, Data & Achievements
To ensure your resume stands out from your competitors, it is essential to quantify your experience whenever possible. Relevant data could include current sales, amount of growth, reach response rate, and any other relevant statistics to provide context and concrete metrics to your side hustle.
Tangible resumes of your side hustles are an essential way to show your skills and abilities in action and provide a real-world example to your future employers.
In quantifying your experience, you are able to exemplify your work and dedication to your craft, demonstrate progress over time, and define concrete achievements – not only defining these attributes to future employers, but providing insight into what you can do for them. Side hustles not only provide additional income and opportunities to expand your skillset, but it provides a novel facet of your professional brand and career to future employers and expands prospects of new positions when correctly demonstrated on your resume. Harnessing a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of your side hustle will allow you to best portray these operations and responsibilities in alignment to your professional objectives and forecast.