There are plenty of people in the tech industry who are making ridiculous sums of money by having multiple jobs at the same time. Listening to their stories might make you think that having more than one full-time job is only for the those in tech.
Not True!
You don’t have to learn how to code – although this is a very valuable skill set to have, and I would recommend that you gain this skill, if you want. But it isn’t necessary, and you can get jobs that are not in the tech sector – and get paid quite well.
I will admit, though, that all the tech people are having their day currently – and more power to them. I’m glad for you. Let’s all make some extra income together.
So, this is for all those people who look at the tech people able to work multiple jobs, remotely and get paid full time while doing it, and wanting to do the same. You can do this too. I have been there – my husband is in tech and he works 100% remotely, I was in awe, inspired and a tiiiny bit jealous of the fact that he was able to avoid having to go through traffic to get to work. And now I do the same! and I’m excited to share this with you all.
I’ve already talked about what jobs I have undertaken in a previous post, so if you’re interested in hearing about that in more detail – head on over there.
But if you’ve found this as a first listen, please stay on – glad to have you here!
So the following jobs I have found are easy to juggle at the same time:
Task based roles: medical writing, content writer, editor, technical writer so on and so forth. These are essentially task based roles (which is what many tech roles involve), where a deadline is set (another thing I’ve talked about in a previous post). These are also perfect for those of us who enjoy not being in the forefront. If you’re an introverted personality type, you can get multiple ones of these roles at different agencies.
The issue that I have with these kinds of roles is that they start off paying quite poorly. However, the more you stay in the role, you’ll eventually get promoted, the more you’ll get paid. It is very stable, though, and you can guarantee you’ll have an income.
Management roles: project management, project coordinator, product management, project lead, communications manager, operations manager, stakeholder engagement – you get the gist, essentially anything in business development. The only pre-requisite for these roles are that you will need a formal, industry-accredited project management qualification and operations. These can be really expensive, but if you’re in a role where you can get some support from your employer for these, then this can help you out in the long run.
This is essentially what I did using J1. They paid for two courses worth £4000 total, and now I have two fully accredited and industry recognised qualifications which helped me quite a lot in getting those commercial PM roles.
I would recommend you getting them, if this is a role that interests you. You can get into a more leadership position, so if you’re more of an extroverted personality, this could be pretty good for you.
If you pick this correctly, these roles can pay you quite well. A project coordinator tends to not require any formal qualifications, which is why it will pay less. A project manager, dependent on the sector you get into (e.g., finance, tech, pharma), pays quite well, and the more senior you get the more you get paid. Stakeholder management pays extremely well.
Having multiple jobs allows you to be a bit more flexible about the jobs you can apply to. If you really enjoy creative work, but you know the pay isn’t great in creative jobs, and you have a stable job already; you can have the extra flexibility to apply to a more creative role, without having to give up your stable role.
Alternatively, if you’re not enjoying one of your roles, you’re less inclined to worry about leaving it.
The benefit of being overemployed and not in the tech sector, is that you can do roles that don’t require you to do overtime and give too much of your attention to. This, for me at least, has meant that I can juggle a work/life balance and keep on top of everything. Business development or management roles allow you to bat any balls in your court early enough in the day – people tend to get back to you in 3-5 working days anyway, so the delay is almost inevitable – this means you have more time to flit into your other roles, and be finished by 5pm.
This can also be true for non-tech task based roles, like medical writing and the like, because like I’ve mentioned before, take the deadline your line manager gives you and add tax.
With both of these types of roles, over-communication is important. Make a point of visualising your efforts . Tell someone, anyone, everyone what you’re doing. That way someone will vouch for you. But I can go into further details on this for a separate post.
I’ll see you at then, yeah?
Love & laissez-faire! x