How to Leverage Your Side Projects for the Job You Want

 
Know how to work itBig things pop on the underground circuitMaintain til it surface-jadakiss feat. styles p: one more step

Know how to work it

Big things pop on the underground circuit

Maintain til it surface

-jadakiss feat. styles p: one more step

Corporate ain’t scary. It’s the land of good benefits and my personal favorite - paid time off. Have you ever gotten paid to take a day “off” from your full-time job to invest a day into your side projects? Doesn’t that sound dope? If you’ve been working on passion projects, maybe getting paid but mostly gaining experience, here’s how to leverage your skills for a gig in corporate.

First, stop identifying your work as a passion project. Refer to it as consulting work instead. Skills are skills, whether you gain them volunteering or in a corporate environment. And the dope thing about skills is that they transfer.

If you’ve been working on marketing for a small neighborhood bakery and have ambitions to work in global marketing at Coca-Cola, those skills can transfer. While you’re working for the bakery, think about how you can learn more about the beverage side of the business.

  • How is inventory managed?

  • Where is it purchased from?

  • What systems are used to manage it all?

  • What are the wholesale prices?

  • The unit costs?

  • The margins?

Learn the vocabulary and include it in your resume and messaging to Coca-Cola. You’ll appear to already be “one of them” and that’s what you want. Even better, make the connection between beverage consumption at the bakery and your marketing campaigns. What are the top beverage sellers in the bakery? Pair a beverage with a bakery item in your social campaigns and measure how sales shift. Then tell that story on your resume.

Sure, the biggest differences between what the bakery marketing role and the Coca-Cola roles will require will be a result of the differences in company scale. However, a motivated job applicant knows there are things they confidently know how to do, and there are things they are clear they want to learn. And knowing and communicating that difference is a valuable attribute.

Leverage your cover letter to explain why you want to pivot from marketing for a local business to marketing for a global one. Communicate your skills and curiosity about the beverage industry. Then apply for the job prepared, knowing you’re positioned well for the role you want.

 
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