During a recent run as a content creator in an SEO-focused area of a CBD manufacturing company, all the research kept showing how far hemp/CBD oil had come while quickly morphing into a product sector.
How much online information there is about a LOT of things – monetizing writing skills draws me – is like tapping Will Smith’s SHAZAM! genie for assistance, with less craziness.
Having read plenty of online material about CBD and ‘less than 0.3% THC industrial hemp’ over several months, it’s been chillingly good to develop a handful of online possibilities related to writing style and experience, in exactly the same way.
Having a beer for lunch while you work the proposal systems? Not a problem.
Post-college (for me), you were expected to blanket the world with resumes about experience you didn’t have, today its keywords and SEO. Face-to-face with an employer is still desirable, but three consistent days on a keyboard can set up a future course in bigger ways, and your doggie is the only one seeing you work.
When your materials (like PDFs and links) are set – let’s add ‘interesting’ cover letters for the heck of it – and you followed submission directions, qualifying oneself with four good prospects in a couple half-day sessions could become a kickin’ week towards achieving quality critical mass.
Commission-based companies promote a ‘You want it, go get it!’ mantra, set at high levels. You’re working for yourself in The Gig Economy – conduct yourself accordingly about wanting.
There are a plethora of help sites of course, but without schilling, I like FlexJobs. It kicks butt with results, quantity and quality possibilities, support functions are out the wazoo, and its a super-reasonable price.
Boomers to the rescue?
There are still problems with the recruiting process, and thankfully, more awareness of ageism as diversity, a topic for another day. Employers think tech-kids know all the latest tricks, BUT… that talent thing doesn’t disappear when silver foxes appear in the hairline.
It’s no lie to say experience and perspective still counts.
Ask a Boomer, the Forever Young generation. We’re not all DeNiro, starting a late career as ‘The Intern,’ but while the Great Recession messed up a lot of Boomers timing on retirement, some of us never intended to go quietly into that good night.
If you recognize some of your professional skills are actually sub-par though, online is a great teacher, my Boomer brethren. Checking what the market looks like is legitimate. At many points we all probably got “what the position paid,” and in Charlotte, NC, the going rate for content creators is almost $56k, about 6% less than the national average.
My first gig of the year produced just under 25% of that. I’ll be conducting myself appropriately going forward.
Glenn Shorkey
CDTalent Enterprises 