China News Service, Beijing, November 11 (Hua Zhuoma) "At first, the driving force for doing a side hustle every weekend was to make money, but I didn't expect to finally find my own employment direction. Lin Jun, a "post-29s" who works as a video director in a technology media company, told China News Service. Nowadays, more and more young Chinese people like Lin Jun are starting a "second career" after work, and they have either found a career direction in a side hustle or improved the efficiency of their main business while doing a side hustle.
When he first graduated, with the expectation of becoming an excellent teaching and research staff, Lin Jun joined the education and training industry. However, she found that her ideal job was very different from her reality, she was more like a salesperson who followed the course content step by step, and the salary was low, so she began to try to do a side hustle. At the beginning, she didn't know what she liked and what she was suitable for, but after all, she studied radio and television editing and directing, so she tried to engage in side jobs such as video editing, actor, host, model, PPT designer, etc., basically earning about 2000,<> yuan (RMB, the same below) per month.
In the process of doing a side hustle, Lin Jun discovered her interest in the field of popular science and video editing. After a year and a half of intermittent video editing side hustle, she joined a technology media company and began to work as a science video director.
Like Lin Jun, with the purpose of increasing income, there is also Liang Chaoqun, the original artist of the "post-90s" game character, who started a side business. After taking orders to do the side business of the game character "Standing Painting" and game icons, practice makes perfect, and the efficiency of his main business has also improved. However, due to the time and energy spent on making an order, Liang Chaoqun receives relatively few orders, generally receiving an order in three or four months, and the income of each order is between 10000,20000 yuan and <>,<> yuan.
There are also "post-90s" who are preparing their own "second track" through side hustles in occupational anxiety. Yibo, who is engaged in channel business work in a large Internet company, said that because he always has to face the "35-year-old career crisis" of a large Internet company, he is now doing a side business of brand resource promotion with the help of the platform and resources of his main business, and plans to start a business after accumulating enough customers.
On social media, there are a lot of experience posts shared by "post-90s" and "post-00s" professionals, such as purchasing agents, video editing, self-media account operations, dubbing, and online writers. With the rise of script killing and pet economy in the past two years, side businesses such as script killing writers and pet door-to-door feeders have also appeared. From the perspective of income, many people's monthly income from side hustles is 4000,5000 yuan to <>,<> yuan.
Zhuang Jiachi, an associate professor at the Department of Sociology at the School of Sociology and Psychology of the Central University of Finance and Economics, told China News Service that the "sideline fever" shows that with the development of the digital economy and platform economy, some new occupations have emerged, giving young people more opportunities to do side jobs; On the other hand, it also shows that some young people have a sense of career crisis, and a side hustle can alleviate the impact of career changes.
In the view of Tong Zhigang, who has 12 years of career counseling experience, in the current workplace environment, the safety factor of the position is declining, but many people lack the awareness of professional risk control, so there will be a long career gap. Nowadays, young people are starting a side hustle, which can provide more possibilities for their careers, and if a full-time position encounters a development bottleneck, they can always turn the side hustle into a full-time position.
At the same time, Tong Zhigang said that the side hustle can also liberate himself from a single full-time work mentality, and avoid the decline of brain power and thinking efficiency in a single thinking environment.
In Zhuang Jiachi's view, it is a very positive signal that young people start a side business, indicating that young people are not "lying flat". But he also reminded that don't put the cart before the horse between the main business and the side business, it is best to choose the side business when the main business is done well and there is spare energy, otherwise the gains will probably outweigh the losses. (ENDS) (At the request of the interviewee, "Lin Jun" and "Yibo" in the article are pseudonyms.) )