The number of unemployed Americans has risen by 14 million, from 6.2 million in February to 20.5 million in May of 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study by Pew Research.
As college students, we are faced with a rather dreadful question: How we are to make ends meet in a crumbling economy where jobs are constantly changing in nature as well as becoming increasingly scarce? Perhaps equally important, is how we can find some sense of purpose in this work that comes from necessity. To help to address such concerns, I interviewed Evergreen students who have found other ways of making rent and paying their bills that do not necessarily rely on finding an employer. These folks told me about their freelancing work and how they have been able to find some sense of financial well-being, and even a sense of happiness and fulfillment amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Xander, a senior this year, has been working landscaping and nannying gigs for many years now. They find most of their work through sites like Nextdoor, where users are assigned a neighborhood feed based on their address. Here, they post ads for their services and can reach thousands of people. While nannying jobs have dried up since most people are staying at home, landscaping and gardening gigs are still around, with a few changes in people wanting to take precautions such as sanitizing tools and wearing masks while working. Xander’s advice to others interested in pursuing this kind of work on their own is to post your own ads and to sell your abilities. Even if you don’t have lots of experience in this type of work, sell your work ethic, and do not be concerned with being “boastful”—hype yourself up and “work with what you’ve got”.
Kira Benson is currently working 3 jobs, 2 of which are freelance work. They have been a freelance musician for 6 years now. Before COVID-19, that meant lots of writing their own songs and playing gigs at venues. However, the circumstances of the pandemic have brought them to now do recording work for people requesting violin tracks for different songs. “A lot of independent venues aren’t going to survive”, they said, “which is why I’ve started refocusing my music career to be very studio based and recording based, rather than live-gig based”. Aside from their music career, Kira and their partner have also started doing social media marketing for small businesses. They originally gained some experience doing this work through promoting their own music on Instagram, but since the pandemic, Kira realized that there was a big demand for this type of work. Plus, it is work that they can do from the comfort of their home.
“Anyone who spends a decent amount of time on social media, like, that’s knowledge, and you might not think of that as knowledge because it’s something you just do as part of your everyday, but that’s knowledge and that’s a marketable skill that a lot of people don’t have.”
Most of their clients are people in their 50’s or 60’s who are successful business owners, but don’t have the time, energy, or desire to branch out into social media, but they recognize it’s an important way to reach young people. Kira stressed the importance of seeking this work out for yourself. They also urged for people looking for work in social media marketing to utilize Skillshare. This site has lessons which can help keep you up to date on how platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram operate. These platforms change very quickly, so staying current with various updates is crucial for such work. “It’s one of those cool jobs where it doesn’t really matter what your degree or background is, as long as you are capable of teaching yourself something–it’s more about being flexible than about being college educated”.
There is an important thread to draw between these fundamentally different fields of work– manual labor, musicianship, and social media marketing. That is, that the success of those within the field is dependent not necessarily upon, as Kira put it, “your static abilities in a certain skillset” but rather, your ability to sell yourself as a competent and confident person. And, if you need a boost in competency or confidence as a freelancing-whatever-you-want-to-be, you can find plenty of resources on Skillshare and Lynda.com.
