Career News 24/7: The Cynical Girl: How Do You Earn Money?

Thursday, August 9, 2012

The Cynical Girl: How Do You Earn Money?

Posted: 08 Aug 2012 03:45 AM PDT

I have no idea what you people do for a living.

I used to be a Human Resources professional. I hired, fired and coached people. I did that for about 12 years. Now I have a few jobs.

I am a blogger, writer and speaker. That’s actually three jobs in one. I am a columnist for The Conference Board Review. I am a freelance writer. I earn income on this blog through advertising and paid text links. I get paid to speak about careers, social media and/or Human Resources strategy. I do quite a bit of speaking at corporate HR events where I talk about the future of HR.
I am the Director of Social Media at The Starr Conspiracy. I work for a marketing and advertising agency that is based in Texas. I create the social media strategy for our agency and for our clients — Human Resources technology companies. Sometimes my clients have big budgets but no real marketing roadmap. Sometimes my clients have solid, internal marketing teams but no real budget allocated for social media. Everybody wants stuff done for free on the Twitters. [sigh] I do quite a bit of listening, training and educating. I am downright obstinate and insist on doing crazy things like auditing, benchmarking and collecting data before even assuming that we can talk about a ‘social media strategy’. I can geek out about platforms and social media trends and dashboards and analytics. I prefer not to do that because I am not a douche.
I am a Human Resources consultant. This is a crazy role. I am paid to mentor and coach HR professionals who are high performers and have high potential but struggle with interpersonal issues. The HR Director who doesn’t get a long with the CFO? The HR Manager who can’t inspire her own team? The recruiter who fights with the IT guy? I’m here to help. I have also coached large HR teams on infusing social media into their recruiting strategies. As a recruiter, I’ve done it all: sourced, screened and sorted through resumes without any technology. Before HR teams spend money on ATS products or even building a career page on Facebook, they call me for the scoop on technology. I also charge not-for-profit associations for advice on social media. (That part of the job isn’t too shabby, either.)

Good grief. This portfolio career of mine — which is really just several part-time jobs — can be exhausting. When I think about the future of work, more and more of you will have a career like mine. Pieces of work here. Pieces of work there.

If you are lucky, you will travel and see the world. You will meet really great people. You will have little adventures where you end up at a tattoo parlor on a Tuesday night at 9:45 PM in some desolate town and have fun.

And you’ll make bank like I do.

How do you earn your money? What do you do for a living? I’m sorry I never thought to ask until now!