If you’re a member of the new generation of millennials, meaning that you were born between 1980 and 2000, you’re probably at an age where you’re beginning to think seriously about your future, particularly in relation to your finances. While some of you may already be climbing the career ladder, others may be seeking ways to make some extra income.
It’s time to set your imagination free
While most of us may use the internet mainly for social and leisure pursuits, there’s a wealth of opportunities out there online to improve your career and prospects. From building websites to online gaming and selling your photographs, it’s easy to find ways of improving your financial situation by becoming a professional at something you may already enjoy doing for fun. Here are 12 ways how technology have helped millennials advance their careers.
- Â Become a Website Builder
The vast majority of businesses know the importance of having an online presence and whilst most big corporations can afford to hire experts to create their digital platform, many other smaller businesses may not be able to employ a large company to do it. If you have expertise in building websites, even if you’ve taught yourself, why not set yourself up as a freelance website builder? Just remember to make sure that you have a well-designed website to showcase your talents.
- Â Get Paid for Testing Websites
Many large companies seek feedback on the usability of their website and, while you may not get a job by approaching the company directly, using a site such as Usertesting.com will give you a springboard into this work. Signing up is free and once accepted, the pay is pretty good and the more feedback you provide, the quicker your earnings will add up. While blogging can sometimes be stressful for some, you might be surprised at how easily it comes to you once you get started.
- Â Become a Blogger
Do you love to write? Do you have opinions or knowledge to share? If so, you may want to consider setting up a blog. In addition to advertising revenue, it’s also possible to receive payments for ‘guest blogging’ on other people’s blogs or by creating stand-alone blog posts for other sites, which will both increase your presence on the web and drive more traffic to your blog. The extra traffic is also useful when negotiating rates with advertisers. Worried that you don’t know how to set up a blog? Try WordPress or Blogger, where you’ll find step by step guides to creating your own free blog site. When your blog is up and running, you can use social media to promote it.
- Â Join the World of Freelancing
Do you have a particular skill in graphic design, writing or editing? If so, why not set up a profile on one of the freelancer sites, such as Elance, where you’ll find thousands of gigs advertised, from translation work to writing, editing, website building, virtual assistant positions, data entry and more. It’s a great way to showcase your skills and can lead to you gaining a bank of regular clients. Signing up is free, but the site does take commission from any money you may earn.
- Â Become an Expert in Wikipedia
We’ve all consulted Wikipedia at some time in our lives. While it’s supposed to be an easy site to edit, if you’ve ever tried it you’ll know that it’s far from being easy. However, if you’re prepared to learn how to do it, you’ll become a very valuable commodity to those companies who are willing to pay editors to assist them in the editing process.
- Â Get Paid to Watch Videos
Does this sound too good to be true? Just take a moment to work out how many online videos you already watch, and then think about how great it would be if you were getting paid to watch them. InboxDollars allows you to do exactly that, although you do have to watch all the ads too. Plus currently it’s only available for U.S. residents.
- Test Your Online Gaming Skills
Thought online gaming was just for fun? So did Canadian Kyle MacDonald until he decided to invest $50 into Full Tilt. After an initial good run he entered a losing streak but, determined not to give up, he began to read all he could on how to play poker. With some careful playing, he managed to turn his investment into $40,000! Want to know how he did it? Read the full story here.
- Â Become an eBay Entrepreneur
 If you’ve got things to sell, then eBay is the place to do it. Whether you sell your unwanted possessions or you find a product that you can sell to the masses, once you’ve built up your reputation and figured out how to maximize your sales, you’ll be rewarded with all kinds of privileges. And don’t forget, you can even write a book on how to get rich by selling on eBay.
First of course, you should look at how others have maximized their sales. Take Dan Glasure for example. He turned his train collecting hobby into a business that earned over $2.5 million in 2006 selling brass trains. Dan’s Train Depot has been operating on eBay for some time now and has become a huge business. There’s no reason the same can’t happen for you.
- Or an Amazonian
When your aspirations for selling outstrip your eBay presence, why not consider using Amazon? They offer a captive audience, great shipping, and a reliable review system. You can even sell your iPhone on Amazon (or eBay) if you are ready to upgrade.
Becoming part of Amazon’s affiliate campaign can be fairly lucrative. Chris Guthrie used the program and made $90,000 by targeting a very specific product oriented focus.
- Â Work as a Virtual Call Center Agent
Many companies are now using virtual operators to man their call centers. While this means that you’ll need a dedicated phone line and a quiet workspace, you’ll be given an excellent training program and you can choose the shifts that you want to work.
It’s the perfect chance to work when suits you, and some call centers are actually finding staff turnover decreases significantly by using this model. Of course, that sort of role isn’t ideally suited to everyone, but it’s certainly worth considering.
- Â Become a Social Media Expert
Love social media? Many small business owners need some assistance to help them conquer the world of social media. Put your skills out there, and help them to join the in-crowd.
Social media is incredibly important in business today, and despite this, a lot of businesses aren’t using it effectively. That’s why they need you. According to Hubspot, 80% of businesses saw traffic increases when implementing social media, and that’s no surprise when 71% of internet users are active on social media sites.
It’s a job which takes little time if you know the market, with you able to schedule tweets and posts to engage with followers. “Easy money,†we hear you cry.
- Â Sell Your Digital Photos
And finally, if you consider yourself to be a good photographer, sites such as shutterstock.com will pay you for top quality digital photos.
What’s more, you can even open your own online gallery and help decorate people’s homes with your photos displayed on living room walls across the world.
Setting up an Etsy shop is like having your own small market stall, except it can be browsed anywhere from Baltimore to Baghdad.
Of course you don’t just have to sell photographs, you can sell all sorts of craftworks and prints, and what’s more, the shop is always open!