This generation of young people really love to make money. Not only do you have to work and earn money on weekdays, but you also have to develop side jobs in your spare time. Some of them make money by information gaps, some make money by their own skills, and some make money by their hobbies. The author of this article selected several young people who made money by part-time jobs and side jobs to listen to their stories.
In 2022, in the wave of layoffs, the halo of "slash youth" has quietly faded, and side jobs have become the norm of life and even "necessary needs" for young people.
opens the social platform, and in the Douban side business group named "Congratulations on getting rich", more than 210,000 people share part-time experience; on Xiaohongshu, a note about "100 side business platforms for workers must have" has been collected by 100,000; 410,000 fans of the "side business part-time job" super talk on Weibo stubbornly use homophones, punctuation between pictures and words to prevent blocking, waiting for work on the other end of the network cable.
In the context of today's young people, work is far more than a cube from nine to five, nor is it the only way to make money. Amateur Tarot divination, reselling second-hand trendy toys, operating self-media, setting up stalls in markets... Out of hobbies and pressure from life, young people need to "do something" to balance their anxiety.
01 Luck and character, young people who make money by chance
htmlThe alarm clock rang at 18:53. Chen Lu knew that this was not a reminder of the work agenda, but her fixed first job every day - grab Moutai. Cross out the alarm clock , and she can find and open the "i Moutai " APP in a few seconds with the muscle memory.On March 31, 2022, the "i Moutai" APP, the official direct sales channel of Kweichow Moutai , began trial operation. As of May 18, more than 130 million people have participated in the subscription, and young people who are keen to resell Moutai have consumed 56.07 billion tons of liquor.
Chen Lu, who used to be stationed to work, now arrives an hour early every day just to concentrate on "pulling" at her desk with a more stable Internet connection. The official price of Feitian Moutai, which is 1,499 yuan per bottle, was once as high as 3,200 yuan. From the moment I walked out of the pick-up store, buyers, second-hand platforms, same-city websites... this bottle of liquor never lacks next.
i Moutai subscription interface
In this "grabbing Mao" war that seems to be cost-effective, no one does not want to be the next one.
For nearly six months, Chen Lu mobilized her relatives and friends, and she couldn't stop every day and applied for multiple mobile phone numbers at the same time. At the same time, she takes time to complete various activities on the i Moutai APP every day, so as to get the qualification for a special session with a high probability of subscription. After a few months, she has become familiar with the knowledge about Moutai liquor , and Moutai’s brand education is undoubtedly successful.
i Moutai APP small event
The best luck in July, Chen Lu applied for two bottles of 500ml Year of the Tiger zodiac Moutai with different accounts one after another. The official price of Tiger Grape, which costs 2,499 yuan per bottle, can be sold at a high price of 3,500 yuan by resale. But out of confidence in Moutai's appreciation, the two bottles of wine were locked in the cabinet by her.
"Lu Mao Party" is competing for luck and familiarity with Moutai's release rules and various original price channels. And another circle may need a little touch. Lightweight, shake the box, distinguish sound... blind box players try their best to pursue surprises and cheers when opening the box.
single blind boxes in China range from 49 to 79 yuan, while "end box" costs 800 to 900 yuan. "End Box" is a term for blind box players, which means buying a complete set of blind box products directly. In the eyes of players, "end box" can effectively avoid buying too many duplicate models, and the chance of winning hidden models will be higher.
is a second-hand trading platform, and the popular models of famous IPs are once priced several times to more than ten times. As a blind box player with a very good "character", Xiaoyu can often offer hidden models. She also passed the vacant period of changing jobs by "selling children".
After that, she began to consciously use her blind box hobby as a side business, place orders according to the trendy toy community, and stockpile various "popular models".
trendy toy app, second-hand trading platform
However, due to the repeated outbreak of the epidemic, the cold air in the market has been transmitted to everyone. On second-hand platforms, the overall price of blind boxes has declined, and player enthusiasm has also declined.In the first half of 2022, the domestic leading blind box company Pop Mart had a net profit of 333 million yuan, a year-on-year decline of 7.23%.
Professional scalpers have flocked to "big kids" with more trendy toy attributes and more expensive. For part-time players like Xiaoyu, their enthusiasm has faded, and the blind box that cannot be taken off and has nowhere to place seems a bit useless. In the end, she sold all the blind boxes she had saved with great difficulty at a low price, and only retained her favorite "Jungle Castle" series, completely retreatment.
June Castle Series Official Picture
In addition to Moutai and blind boxes, which have long been marketing hot, the "gold" with subcultural attributes has also formed a resale boom in the circle. "Guzi" is a homonym of Goods (commodities), generally refers to peripheral decorations (such as badges, standing cards, hanging cards, etc.) centered on anime characters, while "Guzi" is an interest group that collects, buys and communicates "Guzi".
Guquan emphasizes copyright. The purchasing method of Guzi is mainly based on genuine channels, but producers often set pre-order, limited quantity, blind draw and other means, and do not conduct re-sale. Some hot IPs have limited supply in the surrounding area, which has created a second-hand market. The cost of "Mulberry" is not high. Taking the main surrounding "Baji" (i.e. badge) as an example, the original price is only 20 or 30 yuan, but the high-priced Miulberry, known as "sea view house" by people in the circle, can be sold for hundreds or even thousands of yuan on second-hand platforms.
millet unboxing.
Source: B station @一个号@一个号
As a scalper outside the circle, it is difficult to choose valuable peripherals. However, a "old second dimension" can relied on selling idle "grilled grains" but can get good returns. After "recovering blood", it continues to buy new models. For fellow enthusiasts, reselling millet is not only a side job, but also a way to communicate and gather together to keep warm.
In fact, the supply and demand secret of most niche circles lies in this - because of your love, I understand it.
02 Eighteen martial arts are worse than polishing core skills. The profits of reselling
are often dominated by uncertainties such as market, timing and luck. Focusing on polishing the "martial arts" of the main business and relying on their jobs to obtain additional income, it is more sustainable in the eyes of many people.
As the employment "curve" upgrades, a mature resume has become a must-have for applying for jobs, and the job of "resume optimizer" has gradually entered the public's vision. No one has a better say when dealing with resumes than HRs.
Li Li’s resume optimization usually charges 50 to 100 yuan per copy. To be fair, such a charging standard is not high for senior HRs who have worked for 7 years, but it is often "despised" by customers.
In Li Li's view, how to maximize the highlights of job seekers, adjust and effectively improve each content on your resume is actually no less difficult than a professional consultation. However, the market does not seem to have developed enough understanding of the professionalism of resume optimization.
Platform for modifying resumes at a low price
HRs may still have a way to go to get their expected income on part-time jobs.
Compared with the niche optimized resume, it is no longer uncommon for designers and photographers to "take jobs" outside. In the field of graphic design, picture editing, poster production, web design, graphic marketing, brand logo... as long as you have the skills, the side job seems to be at ease.
However, according to designer Liu Feng, no one can stop working on the sidelines. When I was working, Liu Feng discovered the business opportunity to design PPT templates. He has made dozens of exquisite PPT templates and paid downloads are available on the website. However, the 19.9 yuan template was downloaded thousands of times, and Liu Feng only got less than 2,000 yuan. At the same time, his PPT was pirated and transferred at will, mixed with the network disk link of the "free PPT template", becoming a means for merchants and public accounts to attract traffic.
A large number of PPT templates on the platform
Liu Feng learned from his mistakes and decided to find and focus on part-time jobs that have sufficient respect for design skills. After investigation, he finally determined a more reliable side job - part-time job to beautify different company proposals, project books or brand planning PPTs. In Liu Feng's view, this profession is more formal, growth-oriented and reasonable returns. After the personal brand gradually started, the beautification fee of 40 pages PPT can reach 5,000 yuan.For people who are engaged in the same type of work in the main business and side business, they value their personal long-term development more than money.
Xiaohongshu dressing blogger Jasmine, who has less than 5,000 fans, is a "ankle" blogger with a low influence in self-media. For business manuscripts that are usually "just-fried" only cost 500 yuan per order, you also need to complete the entire process of shooting, editing pictures and writing copy alone.
By chance, Jasmine helped her friend and took a temporary product picture for the big blogger. As a blogger, Jasmine, who is also a blogger, has received unanimous praise for her high-quality shooting needs for business orders. From then on, Jasmine opened up a part-time job in supporting bloggers with her side job in photography.
material details taken by professional photographers.
Image source: Xiaohongshu@Blue Light
In Hangzhou and Shanghai, a 9-picture outfit with clothes and photos can be photographed and edited, Jasmine can get 600 yuan. The style is more advanced or more complex, and one set costs more than 1,000 yuan. Recently, Jasmine received a shooting notice from a certain brand, with 15 films produced in each set, 30 sets of product pictures with simple photo editing and color adjustment, and the contract price of the whole order was 15,000 yuan.
photography sidelines has brought greater traffic to Jasmine's self-media, and her profile has also become "dressing + photography blogger".
's solid core skills create more income opportunities for part-time groups, and side jobs can also increase the investment in the main business in reverse. For skilled talents with a skilled skill, a part-time job with considerable income comes from the marginal benefits of generated by core skills.
03 Slash youth, hobbies are the main theme of life
More and more young people are no longer satisfied with defining themselves with a single profession, but choose to embrace multiple identities. " slash youth" often uses hobbies to enrich the boundaries of life. Outside of work, life is inherently unlimited.
When "Niba" becomes a new unzipped toy for young people, "Playing with Mud" naturally becomes a part-time option for enthusiasts. Crystal mud "Slime" is a semi-solid kneading toy formed by mixing glue, water and borax and , which can bring players a tactile and auditory decompression experience.
walked out of the door of state-owned enterprises, and Luo Qing's identity after get off work became a "mud-playing" expert. When the market was booming before the epidemic, Luo Qing could make his nightly turnover reach thousands of yuan by selling homemade slimes. In
slime, "fake water" and "love thread" are classified by feel.
Image source: Douyin @ What to do if you make trouble tomorrow
"mud" is not high. You can make 4 to 5 liters of slimes for about 200 yuan, while the price of finished slimes is 15 yuan/100 grams. If you add some flash and color tuning, the price will be higher. When Luo Qing sets up a stall in the night market, his customer base is usually a "outsider" who wants to be fresh. As long as the "mud" is beautiful, a small box can be sold for 25 yuan.
In addition, online stores and "playing with mud" bloggers have also become side job choices for people in the "milion circle". As long as "milion" looks online and has unique creativity, a simple mud video can also gain tens of thousands of views.
Using hobbies as a side job not only sounds happy, but also broadens the possibility of career development.
Bai Wei is an entertainment industry practitioner who works in artist promotion in Beijing and her salary is just enough to make a living. After entering the industry, she found that whether people in the circle are working changes, emotional problems, financial situation or recent fortunes, they must first calculate the hexagram when facing questions such as whether they will "collapse the house". So, she, who likes tarot cards since she was a child, began to try to divine her friends around her.
At first, she used interactive videos to divine friends at a price of 88 yuan per time. Because she successfully predicted a certain star " collapsed house ", she became popular overnight and her reputation instantly became popular.
Nowadays, Bai Wei's single charge has increased to 488 yuan. Not only has the Tarot card equipment been fully upgraded, but he has also opened a second WeChat account to specifically calculate cards, and has also recruited a small assistant who is responsible for communicating and docking matters for himself.
Because the income from the side job has far exceeded the salary of her job, in order to better develop her career, she has begun to prepare for the opening of a Tarot + Aromatherapy Studio.
A Tarot Studio in Nanjing is Bai Wei’s reference sample.
Source: Dianping @Cheng Lei_9811
When the income of a hobby is enough to stand alone, the main business and the side business may even exchange positions.
Three years ago, Wang Shuang was also a full-time fitness coach. At the invitation of his friend, he symbolically invested in his friend's restaurant and took time to help take care of him in his spare time. He loves to chat, knows how to eat, and has some research on nutritional matching. He seems to be born suitable for the catering industry.
After work every day, Wang Shuang stays in the restaurant, busy studying ingredients, developing dishes, and chatting with customers. It seems like a simple dish, and he can tell all kinds of interesting tricks from the ingredients to the methods. Wang Shuangji's emotional intelligence and gourmet skills gradually became special, and he managed the restaurant into a very humane "living room".
In this process, Wang Shuang gradually had the idea of going deep into the catering industry. In order to be able to express your ideas more at will and restore the food in your heart, Wang Shuang chose to reverse the "All in" catering industry during the epidemic. Now, fitness has become his side job. The 10-hour private tutoring class per week has become a remedy for Wang Shuang's life and also provides him with the opportunity to reach more customer groups.
new dish developed by Wang Shuang: rice wine choking shrimp.
Source: Interviewed
04 Young people gain a "sense of security" by side jobs
How did these young people start their side jobs?
The answer is actually not the same for different people.
For Chen Lu, the original intention of choosing "Lu Mao" was just out of curiosity - before she was lucky enough to win Mao Tai for the first time, she never thought that "Lu Mao" would become her "side job". According to Chen Lu, applying for the original price of Moutai on the i Moutai APP is like placing new debts in the stock market. It is very suitable for "mothers" who are still young and cannot disperse their energy. It doesn’t take much technology or time, and you can exchange some milk powder for money by relying on just some luck.
htmlOn October 1, Chen Lu won another set of 375ml*2 Tigermao. Source: interviewee
and Liu Feng’s part-time job was a last resort. As an unknown studio designer, his monthly efforts and gains are completely disproportionate. If he does not have other sources of income in first-tier cities, it will be difficult to save money.
At the same time, for the design industry, to establish a personal brand and accumulate enough works, we can have better bargaining power and break the ceiling of "assembly line" design. Under such realistic conditions, salary and career development are forcing Liu Feng to do part-time jobs.
His latest side business order, the contract amount is approximately equal to two months' salary. It is precisely because the side job was developing smoothly that Liu Feng saved money and paid the down payment for the house in his hometown.
Luo Qing has different views on part-time jobs. In his eyes, state-owned enterprises are just "going to work", and the hobby of "playing with mud" is the career.
For Luo Qing, the reason why he chose to work in a state-owned enterprise that is "9 to 5" is because he is attracted by the looser working hours of state-owned enterprises, which allows him to have more energy to devote himself to his personal hobbies. He hopes to "play with mud" on social media one day and successfully create his own personal IP.
For more young people, part-time jobs are not just for making money. On a deeper level, what they pursue is actually a sense of security that resists anxiety. The pressure of life may come from the epidemic, housing prices in first-tier cities, tightening of the employment market and the 35-year-old workplace ceiling. When efforts and the premium of education are only enough to "maintain" the status quo, young people need side jobs to alleviate their "upward" heart that has nowhere to be placed.
In the eyes of more and more people, the boundary between the main business and the side business is no longer clear, and the side business is no longer in a subordinate position. Diversification of personal income structure means better risk resistance, and also more choices and better development space.
In the limited energy, a reliable and growth-oriented side job is indeed a way to break the deadlock.
Author: Brenda, Editor: Maggie
Source public account: Xiaguang Society (ID: Globalinsights); see the bright light of the new economy.
This article is authorized and published by the cooperative media of @Xiaguangshe. Reproduction is prohibited without permission.
question picture comes from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol
The views of this article only represent the author himself, , are both product managers and only provide information storage space services.
