As the owner of Love Work at Home, a blog in the niches of ‘make money online’ and ‘work from home’, I was recently interviewed by Tim the Online Teacher Dude to share 5 great side jobs for teachers.
As it turns out, the 5 side jobs I shared are also great for just about anyone.
There are high paying options, non-phone options, global options and much more.
So whether you’re an onine teacher, a tutor, in accounting or marketing, a freelance writer or a UFC fighter (WHAT!?!), here are the best paying side jobs that you can start today!
#1 Become a test scorer
As a scoring professional you would evaluate written short answer tests, essays, spoken response tests and the like.
The requirements vary from company to company, however some companies that hire for this role include Pearson and ETS, which stands for Educational Testing Service.
To hone in on ETS, they hire people to plan, develop and score over 50 million tests every year.
That’s a whole lotta tests!
You can earn money online with ETS which they title “total cash compensation”, which is comprised of base salary and variable pay. And you can earn individual and group performance awards for being awesome at what you do.
Now according to Glassdoor.com which has 19 salary reviews for the role of test scorer at the time of filming, the average base pay was $16/hr. Not bad at all. But keep in mind that this is not the highest paying of the 5 that I’m sharing with you. We’ll get to that in a moment.
ETS offer benefits plans, and from what we’ve read they encourage work life balance and community contribution, with flex-time arrangements, access to health and wellness programs and volunteering opportunities.
Now if you do happen to be a teacher or tutor, you’re in luck because “At ETS, we recruit people who love learning and teaching and strive to maintain the highest standards in the field of education.”
In terms of requirements, you need to:
- Reside and perform the work within the US, Hawaii, Alaska or Puerto Rico
- Pass an in house certification once you’ve learned about the scoring process
- Check with ETS what tech setup you need in terms of hardware and software”
And it isn’t just a sign up, score some tests, take it or leave it kind of affair. They have a fairly comprehensive ‘online scoring page’ that shows the process of System Training, Content Training, Certification, Scheduling, Calibration, Scoring & Mentoring. So it’s nice to know that you’d be signing up into a professional company.
Do they have opportunities right now? Absolutely. Just Google “ETS test scoring opportunities” and have a dig around.
#2 Freelance writing
I know firsthand that this is high paying because as a blog owner I’m paying for writers every month, and they produce great content so they’re worth their weight in gold.
As a freelance writer you can:
- Write blog content that’s optimised for search engines, like what we have at Love Work at Home
- Write web content for online magazine style websites or content sites like Bustle for example
- Become a copywriter and write for brands to market and sell their products
- Be an article writer, a ghost writer, or many other niches that you can get into
In our article on how to become a freelance writer we have a 7 step process that includes defining your niche, upskilling, creating a portfolio and so on. And in that same article we recommend 4 sites to help you find freelance jobs including iWriter and upwork.com.
However, one we don’t mention in that blog is ProBlogger.com, which is a great site and it’s where I found my 3 writers who are from the US and UK.
According to Payscale, the average base hourly rate for freelance writers in the US is over $23, so definitely a high paying option, although keep in mind that as a freelancer there’s a good chance you’ll be paid per word, rather than per hour.
#3 Customer service
I’ve chosen customer service for those who don’t mind chatting on the phone and have a quiet home office, which is typically a requirement for those in customer service.
Needless to say this is a massive industry and there are a massive number of opportunities in this space, many of which are part time.
Similar to freelance writing there are a range of different options including call center agent , live chat agent, inbound customer support, customer service scheduler, fraud specialist and several others.
In terms of the requirements for customer service, typically requirements include things like a dedicated home office that is away from noise and interruptions, a dedicated phone line and a high speed connection, an updated PC, and a phone headset.
In terms of salary expectations, Payscale notes an average base salary of almost $40k/annum. Meanwhile, glassdoor notes $35k/annum, but what I like about glass door is the list of companies a bit further down from the salary estimates, so you can see who’s paying the most and check out their careers pages to see if they have anything available that suits your needs.
In terms of where else to find jobs, if you head to our blog and search “customer service”, we list 15 sites from customer service specific companies to jobs boards to freelance portals and more.
#4 Freelance social media manager
This option takes the prize for the highest paying side job out of the 5 I’m sharing in this list.
To be honest I put this one in because it’s at the forefront of my mind as I’ve been trying to outsource my Pinterest marketing for Love Work at Home, and I believe that this could be a self-taught industry that you could break into.
The reason I say that is because in my search for a freelancer, I’ve found some pretty bad ones, so for anyone with a bit of smarts behind them I don’t think it would be hard to beat a lot of the competition on the freelance sites like Freelancer.com or Upwork.com.
Not so long ago I had a writer with social media experience reach out to me. She wanted to write a guest post, and she wrote a helpful blog post with 15 tips to help you become a freelance social media manager.
To point you in the right direction, again head to our blog and search “social media” and it will be at the top of the list.
The writer identified things like brands to work with, outreach, building your own brand, following others, knowing the platforms and so on and so forth. Well worth checking out.
In terms of pay both Payscale and Glassdoor agree to the upwards of $50k per annum mark at $52 and $54k respectively.
#5 Transcription
The final remote job on this list of ours that you can fit in around your life is transcription.
Some of the more common transcription avenues include general transcription, medical transcription or legal transcription which all have their own skill sets, requirements and rates of compensation.
There are some great sites that you can sign up to as a transcriber, captioner, translator or the like, including Speechpad.com, Rev.com, Scribie.com, and TranscribeMe.com.
If you want to take it seriously then you’d want to invest in a foot pedal which comes with software that helps you speed up, slow down, and edit your transcriptions for maximum efficiency and hence maximum compensation given these sites typically pay you per minute of audio that you transcribe.
Speaking of, glassdoor notes an annual salary of $44k, while Payscale is a little more conservative at $40k.
Now keep in mind that these numbers are probably more for general transcription, but if you specialise then you will certainly earn more!
I hope you got something out of that. If so don’t forget to check out many other options to make money online, start an online business or find remote jobs at Love Work at Home.
In costumer service i like company that switched you from calls to chat. I would love to do chat majority of a shift compared to calls.
Your blog looks great! It’s amazing how you’ve organized it so well. You make blogging seem very easy, but I can imagine that actually takes some time to organize everything into one place like this. Has there been a reason why you decided on the theme and layout of your site?