Multiple Careers, Multiple Incomes? They're Closer than You Think

(This is a guest article by Andrew Johnston*)

In a time when joblessness is a global threat and the employment market is apparently comatose, there’s another option: Create your own job. Whatever you do, you can usually do it online in some form. If you’re an HR person, you can do online advisories and work on the big HR sites. If you’re a gardener, you can probably make more money doing gardening advice and articles than you could working in a garden. If you think you lack training or need more, you can always get it, online or at a community college. A great new career is as close as a computer with an Internet connection.

The New Economy, explained

The New Economy is an almost totally different economy to the traditional job market, which is rapidly becoming obsolete, as well as disappearing through its own inefficiency.

The new approach is almost revolutionary:

• High pay


• High value work


• Outsourcing to freelance experts


• Low business overheads


• Less business infrastructure

The "high pay" may be selective, but everything else is taking off in every industry. "Work" is now business between you and a client who’s no longer an employer but a contractor. This process has been welcomed by those trying to escape the grotesque workplace stress factories. The first people to take on the New Economy model, ironically, were all professionals like accountants, architects, business consultants and other people who stood to make a fortune simply by no longer working in an office.

Multiple jobs and multiple incomes

The New Economy also lets "workers" loose. All that’s required in these types of jobs is to do the work as per contract. The rest of your time is your own. You can run several contracts in the course of one day. You’re no longer dependent on the single stream income, and free from the constant stress of the workplace.

If you’ve got good client relationship skills, do good work and respect the interests of your contractors, you can wind up with more work than you’d believe. Imagine a job where you work 5 days a week, for 5 different contracts, and make the same money or more as you did in a day job.

Note that it’s a good idea to do any relevant business courses and learn the basics of running your own business. It’s also extremely useful when dealing with other businesses, because you can speak their language and understand their priorities more effectively.

Building multiple careers

The greatest thing about the New Economy is that you can literally develop your skills and business in so many directions. Unlike the single stream career types, you can actually build several careers, and integrate them.

For example:

Say you’re a web designer. You develop your skills base so you can also do mixed media, graphics, audio, animation, web content, and advertising. This is far easier than it sounds, and even the training is fun.

The result of all this self indulgence is that you now have a business capacity with six extra services. That means more business, both from your existing clients and new clients.

This is the biggest growth area in global employment. If you want a job, make a great one (or several) for yourself.

*About the author: Andrew Johnston is a freelance writer specialized in articles about Business Courses.

*Image Credit: Photograph by akeg [via Flickr Creative Commons]