If you want to add a few thousand bucks to your income each month, then a side job might be the perfect fit for you.
Having another income stream can give you some career cushioning—it can create opportunities that may flourish down the road, and if things ever go awry in your main hustle, you won’t land flat on your butt.
I’ve worked as an HR leader and career coach for decades, so I have a good understanding of what jobs are out there.
In this post, I’ll share with you the best 9 side jobs. None of these jobs require prior experience. And none of them are “get rich quick” schemes. But if you pick any one of them and commit yourself to learning the industry and building skills, you can make a solid income from it.
Let’s look at an overview:
Side Job | Time to First Dollar | Learning Curve | Income Potential | Personality Traits Required |
Career Coach | Few Months | Few Months | High ($137k/yr certified) | —Seeing the potential in others —Analytical thinking —Skilled at connecting |
Freelance Your Skillset | Few Weeks | Start Right Away | High | —Self-motivation —Pro-activity —Independence |
Video or Sound Editor | Few Months | Few Months | Medium-High ($20-150/hr) | —Aesthetic sense —Attention to detail —Technically inclined |
English Teacher | Right Away | Start Right Away | Low-Medium ($10-50/hr) | —Extroversion —Patience —Empathy |
Photographer | Few Months | Few Months | Medium-High ($150-400/hr events) | —Creativity —Aesthetic sensibility —A calming presence |
Social Media Manager (and Content Creation) | Few Weeks | Few Weeks | Medium-High ($35-100/hr) | —Creativity —Organization —Articulateness |
Writer (SEO, Ghostwriter, Proofreader) | Few Months | Few Weeks-Months | Medium-High ($20-150/hr) | —Analytical —Creativity —Research-oriented |
Virtual Assistant | Right Away | Start Right Away | Low ($24/hr avg) | —Organization —Reliability —Communicative |
Résumé Writer | Few Weeks | Few Weeks | $500-$1,000/gig | —Eye for design —Detail-orientation —English speaking |
Career Coach
If you enjoy having meaningful conversations with people and helping them with their goals, then working as a career coach could be a great side hustle.
This might be for you if you’ve gained some career wisdom over the years, or you know a particular industry pretty well, or you’re just eager to learn how to help people with their careers.
As a career coach, you’ll sit down with clients and help them dream big and get clear on what they really want for their work life. This can often be a deep process of helping someone connect with their north star.
Then, you’ll help them take the practical steps to make that dream a reality. This can include helping your client plot their career progression, practice interview skills, get a promotion, and negotiate job offers.
Time to first dollar: Few months (to get certified and find clients)
Learning curve: Few months (for certification and developing coaching skills)
Income Potential: $137,000/year (when certified with the International Association of Career Coaches)
Personality traits you’ll need:
Seeing the potential in others
Analytical thinking
Good at connecting with people
Where to get started: While you can hang a shingle without any training, it often helps to get certified and join a community of professionals. The Senior Professional Career Coach training at the International Association of Career Coaches is a great place to start.
You may also find this guide helpful: How to Become a Career Coach.
Freelance Your Skillset
Let’s say you work full-time as a project manager. You could also offer your project management services as a freelancer. You can pretty much find freelance work for any type of knowledge work.
Besides getting an income boost, this can be a great way to get diverse professional experience and boost your development. By working with different clients, you can’t avoid but to pick up new skills, tactics, and industry knowledge.
Not to mention freelancing is a fantastic way to expand your network of people who know and trust your work.
Time to first dollar: Few weeks (to find first client)
Learning curve: Can start right away (using your existing skills)
How to determine your salary: Take your annual salary from your full-time job, then divide it by the number of weeks you work per year. Then divide that by 40 (hours per week). Then multiply that number by 2.5. The 2.5 is to account for the fact that freelancers cover their own health insurance, taxes, and PTO. Not to mention they don’t get paid for admin work, travel, etc.
For example, if you make $100,000/year in your full-time job and take 3 weeks of vacation, and you want to offer those same services as a freelancer, then do:
($100,000) / (49 weeks) / (40 hours) x (2.5 for overhead) = $128/hour
Personality traits you’ll need:
Self-motivation
Pro-activity
Independence
Where to get started:
Here’s a weekly newsletter called Find Freelance Opportunities which has dozens of diverse freelance openings.
And here’s a free course from the Freelancing School to help you get your freelance ventures going.
Video/Audio and Editor for Social Media YouTube
Every YouTube channel needs an editor to string together clips, align audio, add background music, and select b-roll footage. Same goes for Instagram accounts. And TikTok accounts and podcasts need an audio editor.
On many channels the creator does this work themself—but if you can show them that you can save them time and improve their quality, then you’ll make a great case for your work. Especially because, once a channel reaches a certain size, they need to outsource this work.
You will need some editing skills, but the good news is these skills are highly learnable! If you are a self-starter, there are plenty of courses and resources out there to help.
Once you pick up some skills, it’d be a good idea to make a short video to show off your skills when applying for roles.
To get work, it can be effective to reach out to YouTube, IG, and TikTok accounts personally to pitch your services.
Editing is also an introverted job, so you can create your own flexible schedule. It’s an excellent side gig for a gamer, someone techy who doesn't like a lot of people interaction but is great at pixel/sound perfection.
Time to first dollar: Few months (to learn skills and find clients)
Learning curve: Few months (to learn software and editing techniques)
Income Potential: Anywhere from $20/hour to $150/hour, depending on your skillset.
Personality traits you’ll need:
Aesthetic sense
Attention to detail
Self-motivation
Where to get started:
Pick a software to learn. Here are a few popular ones:
Video
Adobe After Effects
Wondershare Filmora
Final Cut Pro
Audio
Adobe Audition
Audacity
Then learn! Check out Skillshare. There are tons of editing classes.
Lastly, apply to work. In addition to reaching out to channels directly, try these sites:
Online English Teacher
English is a high-demand language. It’s the language of capitalism and the most spoken language in the world. So there is a huge market for those who want to learn it. But you’ll need to be a native speaker yourself.
When you start teaching online, some students will want grammar and structure, though many are just looking for a conversation partner to help them practice. So strong interpersonal skills will go a long way.
You can also take the conversations in other directions, as long as you’re helping them learn English I know a certified career coach who is on Italki helping people with ESL through the language of getting a job.
For many teachers, the work starts slow. But if you stick with it, you can build momentum and a client base.
If you try sites like Engoo or Cambly, you just plug into their system. You can get reliable work, but it’s only for about $10/hour.
If you work at Preply, italki, or Superprof, you can make about $20-$30 an hour. But it might take up to a year to build up your client base.
Once you establish yourself, you can also teach small private groups. You just gather all of your students together into classes, and your earnings can shoot up to $50/hour.
Time to first dollar: Right away (on certain platforms)
Learning curve: Can start right away (for native speakers), though TEFL certification is recommended
Income Potential: $10/hour to $50/hour depending on platform and experience
Personality traits you’ll need:
Extroversion
Patience
Empathy
Where to get started:
First, get certified in Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL).
Then, try finding students on one of these sites:
Photographer
Do you like snapping pictures? Got an eye for aesthetics? Photography might be your ticket to some extra cash.
That said, it is a fairly crowded field, so to make decent money, you’ll likely need to start off working weddings, events, corporate gigs, or sports. A single wedding can make you thousands of dollars.
But if you can eventually find yourself in an unoccupied niche, your earnings will skyrocket.
Photography is a skillset and an art form, so you’ll need some understanding of lighting and angles to do well. If you have previous experience with photography, great! You’ll have a leg up on the competition. And if not, it’s worth playing around with a camera for a while to see if you enjoy it enough to want to pick up the craft.
Most wedding photographers get their business through word-of-mouth, so if you decide to take up this side job, don’t keep it a secret.
Time to first dollar: Few months (to learn skills and build a portfolio)
Learning curve: Few months (to learn equipment, lighting, and editing)
Income Potential: $2,000-3,000 for a wedding (though the rate can go much higher). Event photography goes for $150-$400/hour. And portrait photography can go from a couple hundred to a couple thousand per session.
Personality traits you’ll need:
Creativity
Aesthetic sensibility
Focus
A calming presence
Where to get started:
Pro photographer Rachel Joyce suggests finding an established photographer and asking if you can shadow or assist them in a shoot. Once you learn the ropes, start to build your portfolio. And then you can venture into finding clients.
Social Media Manager
To find work as a social media manager, reach out to businesses and offer to run one or more of their social media accounts for them.
You’ll write social media posts, schedule them, choose hashtags, study analytics, and respond to comments and DMs. Your ultimate goal is to increase follower count and engagement, and possibly to help the brand find their voice.
Keeping on top of social media can be a lot for a small company to manage if they don’t have a role designated for it, so there are lots of companies and creators that could use your help.
Depending on what social media platforms they use, your scope could also increase. For example, Instagram users tend to expect higher quality edits than TikTok users.
Time to first dollar: Few weeks (to find your first client)
Learning curve: Few weeks (to learn platform best practices/analytics). Though I’d recommend continuing to study digital marketing to improve.
Income Potential: The average is $35/hour, but rates can go up to $100/hour depending on your skills and the scope you offer
Personality traits you’ll need:
Creativity
Organization
Articulateness
Where to get started:
If you have a favorite local business (like a coffee shop or their local gym), try offering your services there at a lower rate to get started.
Alternatively, you could also volunteer to manage a non-profit’s social media for a few months. If you can increase their metrics, that will be an incredible selling point on your résumé.
Online Writer
If you enjoy putting thoughts into words, there is a range of opportunities for writing online.
You could ghostwrite, copywrite, or write search engine optimization blog posts.
It can take a while to build a network and credibility. But once you find some momentum with freelance writing, it’s a viable way to make money with very flexible hours.
Time to first dollar: Few months (to build a portfolio and find clients)
Learning curve: Few months (to pick up writing skills specific to your target niche)
Income Potential: An average of $41/hour, though rates for freelance writers can range from $20/hour to $150/hour depending on your skillset and clientele.
Personality traits you’ll need:
Analytical
Creative
Research-oriented
Where to get started:
Check out the Freelance Framework newsletter, which sends out dozens of writing gigs a week collated from posts on LinkedIn and X.
Virtual Assistant
If you are organized and on the ball, you might make a great Virtual Assistant (VA).
Typically VAs will help with a variety of tasks, including email, scheduling, research, and admin work. But you may also take on more complicated assignments—really, your work will consist of anything your employer trusts you to do that will save them time.
VAs work for all kinds of people. Your employer may be a creator, a lawyer, an entrepreneur, or a small business.
Time to first dollar: Right away
Learning curve: Can start right away
Income Potential: Average of $24/hour. Can get up to $40/hour
Personality traits you’ll need:
Organization
Reliability
Communicative
Where to get started:
Join The Virtual Assistant Savvies Facebook Group for advice and resources on finding work.
Additionally, here are a few websites where you can get hired as a VA:
Résumé Writer
If you’ve applied to your fair share of jobs over the years, then you know how important a résumé is.
Pretty much anyone who is applying for jobs, and not getting any traction could use the support of a résumé writer. Especially given that 73% of job seekers report that one of their biggest life stressors is looking for a job.
As a résumé writer, a client will explain to you their career history, and you’ll help them translate that into a dossier. Which includes their résumé, cover letter, and LinkedIn profile.
Building a practice will take some entrepreneurial spirit. But with time, you can develop a client base. That said, it will help expedite momentum if get certified and join a directory. Here’s one option for certification.
Time to first dollar: Few weeks (to find your first client)
Learning curve: Few weeks (to learn best practices and which grammatical rules to break in a résumé)
Income Potential: $42/hour. Though you can charge more depending on your clientele.
That said, the range for résumé writing is usually by the gig. The not-great ones earn up to $500. Once you get into the $500 - 750, that is someone who has experience. Then $800 on up is someone really good. The highest I've seen for a resume is $2000 for one resume.
Personality traits you’ll need:
Eye for design
Detail-orientation
Solid English writing skills
Where to get started:
Consider getting trained (though it’s not mandatory). One good option is the Senior Professional Résumé Writer training through the International Association of Career Coaches.
Support Finding a Side Job
If you want support clarifying what type of work you want to take on, or the best way to find that work, then you may consider hiring a career coach.
Career coaches are trained to give you clarity, help you build a roadmap to reach your career goals, and teach you the skills to get there.
If you’re interested, just fill out this form, and we’ll send you the email addresses of a few career coaches. You then get to pick if you want to reach out to any of them for a session.
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