As a career coach I often get the question, 

“Should I put my side hustle on my resume?” 

This question comes from a variety of clients. 

Sometimes it’s from clients who still have plans to turn their side hustle into a full-time gig, but in the meantime need to find employment to help fund that dream.

Sometimes it’s from clients who started their side hustle to keep them afloat during a lay off or temporary time of unemployment.

And sometimes it’s from clients who have their side hustle strictly as a hobby or a passion.

In fact, I previously wrote a similar post, Should I Share My Passions on My Resume?

Is It Relevant?

Just like in my previous post, the answer to whether you should put your side hustle on your resume can be either “yes” or “no”. Of course this depends upon your own unique situation.

The best way to answer the question is with a question. Always ask yourself, 

“Is it relevant?”

Is your side hustle relevant to the job for which you’re applying?

Or is it relevant to the skills needed for the job for which you’re applying?

Is it relevant to show you have the “soft skills” employers now seek? (I.e. curiosity, the ability to learn, the ability to take initiative, etc.)

Is it relevant to help you land your next client?

How Your Side Hustle Makes You Marketable

In today’s job market, side hustles are no longer seen just as employment gap fillers. 

In a recent article in Fast Company magazine, the CEO of Quizlet Matt Glotzbach says that by discussing your side hustle and other self-driven learning projects in an interview, you’ll show employers your ability to understand today’s technology and to learn new skills and subjects.

And this is what employers are currently looking for!

So if it’s important to discuss this type of work experience in the interview, why wouldn’t you include it on your resume? Especially if it’s relevant to the job or it demonstrates your transferable skills.

How to Market Your Side Hustle on Your Resume

Unfortunately, a lot of people miss this opportunity. That’s because they think a resume should still look the way it did when they conducted their first job search 20 years ago.

They assume they can only include their full-time paid work under the “Experience” section of their resume.

This simply is not true. 

If you created a side hustle for whatever reason, you can include it under the “Experience” section of your resume as well. Even if your side hustle hasn’t earned you a lot of money, you’ll want to include it for the new knowledge and skills you’ve gained from it! 

Don’t worry so much about how much money you’ve made. Instead focus on what you’ve accomplished in that time. This includes:

• The skills you’ve gained.
• The software programs and platforms you’ve learned.
• How you’ve been able to build relationships with strategic partners.
• The number of clients or customers you’ve gained in a short period of time.
• The things your customers have recognized you for.
• Customer satisfaction feedback.
• Any funding you’ve been able to raise.

The same thing goes for volunteer work. If you’ve volunteered your talents to a cause that’s near and dear to you AND you’ve learned a new skill while doing so, you can still include this under your “Experience” section with the job title of “Volunteer” (or whatever official title the organization gives to their volunteers). 

Connecting The Dots

Including such experience on your resume, however, does require you sometimes to connect the dots for the reader. 

While it may be obvious to you how your skills transfer to the job at hand, it may not be so obvious to the reader of your resume. 

Therefore, you need to make sure your wording is clear about how your skills transfer over to the job. 

One way to do this is to use some of the same language from the job ad.

Practice Connecting the Dots

For example, I like to challenge my own resume writing skills. I take a job ad I see posted and write a resume that includes my own experience as an entrepreneur and how the skills I’ve gained from that and other experiences are relevant to the job.

Since I personally am not looking for a job, I don’t submit my resume. I just use the job ad as a way to practice connecting the dots for the reader. 

This not only sharpens my writing skills by helping me put myself in the reader’s shoes, it also sharpens my skills in helping my clients do the same with their own resume.

In fact, just recently I saw a job ad for an E-Commerce Lead Generation Specialist with a stand up paddle board manufacturer. Many of the sales and marketing skills required for this job are ones I’ve learned from marketing my own career coaching services. 

My past speaking engagements also meet their requirements for someone with public speaking experience, and the fact that I have my own business meets their need for someone who’s a self-starter.

Not only that, my passion for stand up paddling and my previous side-hustle of teaching beginner standup paddle boarding lessons helps me understand the needs and desires of their target market, and also shows I’m immersed in the lifestyle they’re company promotes. 

I simply re-wrote my resume to address the top concerns listed in the job ad and used similar language from the job ad to show how my experience is a good fit for this specific position. 

It’s a good thing to practice even when you’re not looking for a job. By doing this simple exercise it will teach you how to write better marketing copy to your unique audience, no matter what kind of work you do.

For more resume writing tips, check out my on-demand video program Resumes That Get You the Interview: Surprising Secrets to Getting Your Resume Noticed.

Risk is something that can instill fear in all of us. The risk of rejection, the risk of failure, and so on and so on.

My clients often express fear of starting something new in their careers. My friends are sometimes afraid of making a major life change. I too have experienced fear of certain risks.

I’ve had several people say to me they admire the fact that I wasn’t afraid to risk traveling to the other side of the world by myself, risk ending a sub-par relationship, or risk starting my own business.

I never said I wasn’t afraid to do those things. There was some fear involved in all those things because each of them came with certain risks.

It wasn’t about being unafraid.

It was about pushing through and overcoming the fears in order to get to something better in my life.

7 Ways to Overcome Your Fear of Risk and Improve Your Life

A couple of years ago I read an article entitled “7 Ways to Control Your Fear and Advance Your Career” by bestselling author Harvey Mackay.

The seven things he outlined can be applied to any area of your life, not just your career.

I’d like to expand on the seven things he mentioned, but I’m going to slightly change the order of them.

1. Try new things.

Yes, you’ve heard me say that more than once. But, it’s always worth repeating.

Why? Because there are always new things to try.

And you never know what new thing is going to become the thing that gets you over your fears and improves your life until you try.

Mackay says,

“There is only one thing worse than a quitter, and that is someone who is afraid to begin…Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic. Think about it.”

Trying new things will lessen future fears, build your confidence, and increase your ability to handle future risks.

So, let me ask you the same question Darius Rucker is asking in his recent hit song,

When was the last time you did something for the first time?

2. Review your risks

If taking future risks will help you overcome your fear and build your confidence, then certainly any past risks you’ve taken and fears you’ve already faced have built a certain level of confidence in you.

Spend some time reviewing all the times you’ve stepped out of your comfort zone or done something you were afraid of.

What was the result?

How did you feel after you did it?

Even if it failed, what was the biggest lesson you learned from it?

What was successful about the experience?

How did it help you overcome fear?

Chances are the outcome wasn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be and most of the risks you took turned out to be okay.

Mackay says,

“Figure out what made them work. Can you duplicate those decisions that led to success and apply them to other situations?”

3. Explore your memories

Since you’re already looking back, take some time to also look back over your life and career to explore what exactly instills fear in you.

What do those situations look like?

What are their common denominators?

What happened when you were afraid to do something but did it anyway?

4. Look at your responsibilities

Regardless of your age, marital status, work situation, etc., you have a lot of priorities and responsibilities in your life.

Sometimes I think my friends who are married with children assume I’m not as busy as them or don’t have as many responsibilities, but it’s not true. I just have a different set of responsibilities and pressures.

As a single person who owns and runs her own business, I have a lot of pressures on me to get everything done without the help of a partner (or children old enough to earn an allowance). All the household responsibilities fall on me, and all the finances and expenses are covered by only one income.

It’s my name and reputation that’s at stake when something goes wrong in the business. The business is sometimes like a baby in that, on some days, it’s a never-ending 24–7 job.

Your challenges might be the same or might be totally different.

You can’t compare your situation to someone else’s because it’s likely you’ll be comparing apples to oranges.

Just look at your own responsibilities.

Which ones make you feel afraid or anxious?

Why are you afraid of them?

Keep digging and ask “why” until you’ve discovered the root of your fear.

5. Construct a worst-case scenario

Mackay says,

“When a certain situation makes you nervous, try to think of the worst thing that could realistically happen. Chances are the reality won’t be as devastating as you think, and examining the possibilities ahead of time will prepare you to avoid the potential pitfalls.”

Yes, I agree, it is good to do this.

However, if you’re the type of person who already has a bad habit of immediately going to the worst-case scenario, I suggest limiting the amount of time you spend constructing the worst-case scenario.

Instead, spend your energy shifting your focus, as described in #6.

6. Shift your focus

After you construct a worst-case scenario, you want to shift your focus to potential best-case scenarios.

Think about all the possible benefits and positive by-products of facing your fear.

By focusing on the potential positive outcomes, you reduce your anxiety and worry less.

7. Expect your fears to occasionally resurface

Mackay says to accept the fact that there will still be times when you feel fear or a lack of control.

This is true. There are still things that cause me to panic or become afraid. But because I’ve faced my fears in the past, new fears don’t have as strong of a grip on me now days.

Prepare yourself as best you can (by using the tips above and the ones in the related posts listed below) to handle potential risks that may cause anxiety or fear.

Mackay’s Moral:

“Don’t let your fears get in your head — get ahead of your fears.”

Once you begin to overcome some of your fears, you’ll be eager and ready to set more goals for yourself.

And if you want to not just set goals but achieve them, I invite you to subscribe to my newsletter. When you do you’ll receive a complimentary 8-Step Goal-Achievement Plan.

Related Posts:

• How to Make the Risk of Starting Your Own Business Doable
• How to Hack Your Way to a More Passionate Life and Career
• How to Enrich Your Life With New Passions
• When Was the Last Time You Challenged Your Limits?
• 10 Lessons I’ve Learned From 10 Years of Freelancing
• Be Honest: Is Your Comfort Zone Really All That Comfortable?
• Make 2018 the Year of the Right Regrets
• 7 Small Things You Can Do to Have a Good Life