Building a Career? 4 Places Where Side Work is Plentiful

Side gigs and part-time work were once a way to make ends meet while waiting for a real career to launch. Today, side work and side hustles are plentiful across a variety of age brackets, especially among millennials. According to a report by Bankrate, 50 percent of millenials have a side job.

A side gig may be a financial necessity, but you can still leverage the skills you learn and experience gained to build a flourishing career. Pair your side gig with one of the best cities for millennials to kickstart your career and enjoy a relatively low cost of living. Here's are four ideas to help you get started.

Micro-Influencer

You don't need an Instagram following worthy of a reality star to launch a micro-influencer career. Micro-influencers have a smaller, engaged following of just a few thousand that are attractive to brands looking to raise awareness of their products. The best part is you can live anywhere like the up and coming Jefferson City, Missouri or Ames, Iowa attracting a new wave of millennials and Generation Z. Curate your audience and share an authentic look at your life and areas you're passionate about from wellness to self-care.

Partner with brands to work on paid campaigns, or sell products you love and use directly to your audience. Consider the items you already use around your house like Amway wellness products and promote them to your audience. Use your platform to publicly address questions about the now defunct Amway scam claim and show your audience how you earn a viable living selling their products.

Tech Junkie

Tech junkies with start-up ambitions can look beyond the prohibitively expensive San Francisco and toward up and coming tech cities. Head to Madison, Wisconsin's emerging tech hub and look to coding boot camps while working on your start-up dreams. You can also consider pitching yourself as a personal assistant to area tech founders and angel investors to learn everything about the business.

Remember to keep your tech skills sharp by taking courses on sites like Lynda or Skillshare to help prepare for your dream career. You can even take your skills pro by bidding on jobs at Upwork. But stay strategic along the way. Set your search criteria to browse gigs that will give your career a boost like computer coding, UX experience designer, or web developer.

Artist

You can still make a living with your creative pursuits in millennial hot spots like Cleveland, Ohio. The city boasts a thriving music scene, arts district, and hip neighborhoods like Lakewood. Look to jobs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland Museum of Art, or Playhouse Square among others. Theater buffets and aspiring actors may be surprised to learn that Cleveland boasts one of the biggest theater scenes outside of New York City.

To bolster your artistic endeavors, look to Cleveland’s boutiques and flea markets to sell your wares, play your guitar at one of the many microbreweries, or turn to Etsy to sell your original photographs and artwork. With Cleveland’s reasonable cost of living, you’ll have your pick of viable creative pursuits.

Entertainment

Struggling actors and performers are a common tale in L.A. and New York City, where the creative class struggles to make ends meet. Instead of looking to traditional entertainment cities with an astronomical price tag, make a move to one of the best cities for millennials. Orlando, Florida is home to a thriving tourism industry where actors, musicians, and performers are in demand for theme parks like Disney, Universal Studios, comedy clubs, hotels, bars, restaurants, and more. In the meantime, you can even supplement your income with sites like Voices or VoiceBunny to flex your voice over talent performance muscles.

Wherever you decide to relocate, make sure it supports both your career goals, side gigs and quality of life. In a world where side gigs rule, forge a new path in one of the emerging cities for ambitious millennials.