Have you ever thought that a YouTube channel could help further your career journey? You may not want to be a professional YouTuber, but there are plenty more benefits to be reaped from a YouTube channel than just followers and AdSense. Here are the benefits of creating a YouTube channel as a side hustle project to strengthen your career skills, boost your experience, and stand out to future employers.

Perfect Your Passion

Centering a YouTube channel around your hobby, skill or career goal will make sure you’re improving your talents in an enjoyable way.

For example, say you want to be a stylist for film and television – come up with video ideas themed around costumes you’d like to style and dive into your own wardrobe to show off your skill in this area. Don’t have the resources for this? Well, there’s a place on YouTube for analysis and criticism of styling in existing film and television, too. There are options for every channel genre – you just need a camera and some creativity.

Consider what passions you’d like to pursue in the workplace and research how they manifest on YouTube – from there, you can find the perfect niche in that YouTube genre that you fit into. Plus, you get complete creative control – you decide which of your skills and ideas you’d most like to show off.

Develop Your Skills

Teaching yourself new skills to take to future jobs can feel like a chore. However, if you enjoy making YouTube videos as a hobby, this allows you to learn plenty of soft and hard skills in a more enjoyable way than doing research and taking certification courses.

Maintaining a YouTube channel requires constantly developing skills. The most obvious are things like filming and editing video. But, beyond that, YouTube forces you to learn a lot about advertising through factors like general social media marketing, graphic design for your thumbnails and the SEO you’ll need to scatter throughout your titles and tags. Seeing which of your marketing experiments help your personal YouTube audience grow is a low-stakes way to test different digital marketing tactics before you take them into an actual workplace.

Soft skills are crucial to YouTube, too. Once you win an audience over, you’ll have to constantly communicate with them and create a friendly rapport – something important for nearly every job you can think of. Maintaining your channel will also force you to stay consistent in your work, keep on top of a schedule and push yourself creatively to think of fresh ideas for your next videos.

On top of this, you’re growing in the skill you’ve chosen to center your channel around. Maybe the DIY projects you make for your fashion videos are strengthening your sewing ability, or the scripts you write for your video essays have helped to sharpen your written voice – whatever it may be, it’s constant practice, and therefore a huge help.

Prepare Your Portfolio

So, you’ve got into the groove of making videos and have a catalogue that you’re proud of, but you’re not rolling in sponsorship money yet. Don’t worry about not blowing up, but continue to focus on making the best content that you can make. Why? Well, you’ve now got a portfolio at your fingertips that you can take with you to future jobs!

Employers are always looking for people who are extremely dedicated in their field, and they want to see proof of the abilities on your resume. Your YouTube channel dedicated to a skill you’d like to take into the workplace is now the perfect way to show both the passion and talents you’d bring to a job – after all, it says a lot about you if you actively work in the field in your spare time.

Use Your Channel as an Application Asset!

If a job requires a portfolio, you can throw in the most applicable videos you’ve made to show off your skills. If not, job applications often have an option to add an extra link, and linking a YouTube channel is sure to pique an employer’s curiosity.

Although not a job, your channel is welcome on your resume, too. Aside from adding the direct link, show off the skills you’ve developed through your channel. Drop your channel’s growth rate, your newfound graphic design expertise, the SEO implementation and everything else you’ve learned in an “Other Experience” section. YouTube is especially a great way to gain more skills and pad out your resume with little experience.

More than anything else, YouTube offers you a place to express yourself. If there’s something that you’re passionate about and would like to share with the world, there’s no reason not to go for it. It’s the type of hobby that will always keep you learning and being creative.

Are you a creative who needs help piecing together a portfolio? Try Style Nine to Five’s One Page Portfolio service to create a professional asset that will strengthen your application package.

Emily Morrison is a media professional with passions for writing, film and popular culture.

Feature Image: Adobe Stock