4 Reasons To Work For No Pay

This post originally appeared as issue 102 of the Daily Job Hunt email. Sign up for kick-butt career hype in your inbox each morning.

Start a YouTube Channel

What can you teach people? What unique knowledge can you share?

The topic could be video games, dog breeding, barefoot walking, or how to get awesome airline deals.

Whatever it is, share it out loud. Start a YouTube channel! Just shoot a 3 minute video each day and see what happens.

This will be a powerful signal of your creativity. Employers will want to work with you.

Do Free Work

If you're new here, be sure to catch up to this fact: free work is in your self-interest.

From Derek Magill, four reasons Free Work works:

1. It lowers risk and upfront cost for the employer. Free work is a sort of testing period where you can let the employer see the kind of value you create for them and earn their trust.
2. It lowers initial expectation and lets you learn on the job. Free work gives you a buffer period where you can get used to working in a new environment, build your skills, and learn to be a valuable employee.
3. It makes you more competitive. Free work decommodifies your application and lets you compete against people with far more skills.
4. It makes it easier for you to walk away. With a free work arrangement, you can walk away anytime you want without feeling guilty.

Top posts on free work:

• Do Free Work on Your Own Terms (podcast with Charlie Hoehn)
• A Complete Guide to Building Your Career Using Free Work (article from Derek Magill)
• Why Working for Free Won't Work for You (article from Derek Magill)
• Free Work is Not Exploitation (10 min. video with Isaac Morehouse)

Quote of the Day

"Lack of time is actually lack of priorities."
— Tim Ferriss