Making My Own Work Experience

The Job Hunt Sucks

Unemployment in america is low … but I live in literal Silicon Valley. You’ve heard of all the tech layoffs. I was impacted by that when AVerMedia laid me off!

Those layoffs have made the job market SUPER competitive—a hiring manager is definitely going to lean more towards someone with Google or Meta on their resume than AVerMedia.

I’ve had plenty of interviews over the last year, but invariably, I’m told, “sorry, we picked someone with more experience”

So eff it, I’m making my own experience.

This whole strategy was really inspired by reading on Stoicism, specifically some of the books by Ryan Holiday. The whole concept of The Obstacle is The Way really resonated with me here: what’s in your way is the way. If the path is obstructed, that informs what the new path must be.

If the job market is prohibitively competitive in my area, what can I do? The job market is the obstacle, so my my way constitutes:

• Creative projects on YouTube
• Freelance work for clients
• Education in grad school

But first, how does that fit with my career objective?

My Career Objective

My work experience is in social media management, influencer relations, content creation, copywriting, and marketing in general.

What do I want to do with that?

First, I do enjoy each of those things. I wouldn’t be opposed to dialing in on any of them. However, if you go a step higher than these roles, they all fit in to the world of creative marketing and branding.

In the long term, I want to be a more strategic creative marketing or branding person. That helps determine the way a company operates its social media, how it works with influencers, what content it makes, and what the overall vibe of the marketing is.

Creative Projects

In many interviews I’ve had, I’ve been told my YouTube channel is exactly what sets me apart—it shows I am a creative person who can build an audience, use creative tools, be a self-starter, and hold myself accountable in work.

Making videos and running a youtube channel requires a lot of skills, ranging from…

• Creativity
• Writing
• Videography
• Technical camera skills
• Video editing
• Social media management
• Content marketing (you literally need to make your content marketable)
• Public speaking
• Graphic design for thumbnails

I could go on, but a YouTube channel can be a great way to Show Your Work, like the book of the same name by Austin Kleon suggests. The gist is, if you share your skills and passions, chances are, it’ll bring you opportunities.

Opportunities aside, I make a few hundred dollars a month from YouTube-related income while having close to 5K subscribers! That’s ad revenue, people using my Songbird Ocarina code, Patreon, and Amazon affiliates—this won’t replace a job, but it’s WAY more than nothing.

If you can make content relevant to your job, or if the act of making content is relevant work experience, make videos!

Freelance Work

To actually make money, I’ve been doing freelance work. I’m making sure the work I’m doing is in line with my career objective, so if you pursue this path, what work can you do to give you good experience?

Social Media & Content Creation

First, for clients, I do freelance social media and content creation—this is directly in line with my career goals! I have a few clients I work with, ranging from just editing their videos to managing their social media presence.

I charge a LOT more hourly than I’d get working a full time job, but it’s just a bit comparably inconsistent—I only have work if clients give me work, and I don’t get benefits However, this focus on content and social media is the exact kind of work I want to do, and things like this tend to have a snowball effect—the more clients I get, the easier it is to get clients

On top of that, I gain skills understanding multiple business models, doing a wide variety of social media and content work, pitching my services to businesses, and frankly learning to make money rather than just do a job—if I want to be a strategic marketer, it helps to create lots of experience building other people’s strategy and executing it.

Given the relative inconsistency here, I also have work I can more or less do whenever I have down time

MakeUseOf.com Tech Journalism

I also write about creative tech, content creation strategy, and more. This gives me a paid portfolio of work to show I know what I’m talking about when it comes to content—I can say I know my stuff, but it’s more trustworthy if those ideas are hosted by a major publication.

It also keeps my writing sharp, since I work in an editorial setting. I work on deadlines, write to make my editors’ lives easier, and have become very comfortable with criticism and feedback.

I’m also really efficient, and since it’s pay-per-submission rather than hourly, the pay isn’t bad either. Better than literally any part time job I could have per hour, but not as much as my own freelance rate.

I can also use the topics I get paid to write articles about as the basis for structuring a video on my channel—obviously not reading the article or copying my work, but it’s very easy to transfer the ideas when I’ve already structured and workshopped my thoughts

In any case, writing for MUO gives me a strong public portfolio and makes me a more capable writer, and writing is arguably the most useful meta-skill for marketers.

If you have niche skills or knowledge, try to find ways to apply them in a freelance setting! Whether going broad on Fiverr, reaching out to local businesses, or finding a structured site to work for like I do with MUO, this is a great way to build your work experience.

…and my freelance work is perfect to do alongside my MBA!

Education

I’m doing my MBA soon!

If I had known I was going to get laid off last summer, I actually could have been done with this by now, since I could have applied for the 2022 term. Alas, I start in August.

I generally think skills and experience are greater than education, but here’s my rationale for pursuing an MBA:

1. An MBA would help me reach my career objective of being a more strategic creative marketing/branding person, even if I end up staying freelance
2. The local corporate job market sucks and seems like it’ll continue to do so for a while
3. If I get a job, I can still do my MBA
4. If I get a job or get major traction with my freelance work, I can slow down my MBA after the 1st semester
5. If I don’t get a job and maintain my freelance work, I can do my MBA faster—it costs basically the same regardless of pace
6. Flexible freelance work and content creation fits in really, really well with this schedule

I’m really privileged to be able to turn to higher education when the job market isn’t going so well, and I definitely recognize that privilege. That said, education can also be earning certifications, reading relevant books, or teaching yourself skills, which is much less prohibitively expensive than grad school.

In any case, I’m…

Making My Own Experience

I’ve been facing obstacles in my career, constantly being told I “don’t have enough experience” or “don’t have the right experience”

Thus, the obstacle is the way. Between my YouTube channel, freelance work, and pursuing a graduate degree, I’m making that experience myself! Granted, living with parents and not paying rent makes this approach easier, and I am truly coming from a fairly privileged position to be able to do what I’m doing. That said, when faced with similar obstacles of being told you’re not good enough, how can you get around that or prove them wrong?

How can you make your own experience and build the career you want? It’s not easy, it takes discipline to literally be your own boss, manage your own time, and hold yourself accountable, but it seems to be working for me so far. How can you find your way in the face of obstacles, in any scenario in life?

Next, I recommend checking out my post on building your passion rather than following it—that’s largely informed my approach here!