How YouTube Got Me A Job

Every scrap of experience you have in your life is important, meaningful and adaptable. How you demonstrate your skills when approaching a new career opportunity is crucial in the application process.

I never became a full time ‘YouTuber’, but the skills I attained from many years in this space allowed me to adapt them to my professional career.

I started YouTube in 2006, uploading videos of me playing guitar and attempting to sing. This is around the time where Justin Bieber took the platform to a whole new level, his videos landing him the start to his career. YouTube became a well known platform soon after, and many of the most popular content creators, or ‘YouTubers’ in the present day started around this period.

In my teenager years then, I thought uploading a video to YouTube would mean instant fame. I was wrong.

It took until six years later, 2012, where I truly got stuck into the YouTube rhythm. Starting my channel, named ‘ReviewThe1’, that focused on gaming videos. From learning how to edit, use professional adobe software to create channel graphics and learning how to manage an online community, I wasn’t aware of the valuable skills I was learning.

The Channel, in 6 years, reached over 1 million total views, and around 8000 subscribers. The numbers are not huge, but they demonstrated craft and my passion in the digital space — this is really important.

I kept YouTube a secret for several years, my passions were spiraling into the communication and digital media realm, but there were no jobs in the space. I was a full-time University student, and part time shelf-stacker at a supermarket — I was desperate to make the jump from my studies into the full-time employment realm.

The reason I kept YouTube quiet, away from my CV and job interviews (even my peers and colleagues), was due to the ‘embarrassing’ nature of the videos. I was researching, editing for hours and doing ridiculous things in these gaming videos to try to understand the YouTube algorithm.

Basically, how do I grow my brand?

The answer, realistically, is: trial and error.

To this day, the YouTube algorithm remains unknown and consistently changing. Audiences are more demanding and aware, and so your content has to match that. From 2012–2018, I plugged away on YouTube to understand these skills, and my biggest regret is not revealing these earlier on in my career.

There is no magic wand to make your brand grow, you have to work at it, research and understand your audience. All these are valuable skills, especially to major businesses in the modern day where the digital world is absolutely everything to their image, reputation and marketing.

I have worked full-time since 2014, I also graduated in 2014, and my roles have always been Communication and Stakeholder Engagement focused — because these were my strengths. Digital engagement,and the drive to learn about how social media works all came from the hours I sat in my room on a half-broken laptop making videos and marketing them.

Sure, I didn’t ‘apply’ for these roles, but I seemed to gravitate towards these projects. In fact, from 2014–2017, all my roles were focused around administration, until I took the steps to reach out and help out in projects that were more interesting to me.

Only now in 2018, have I finally landed work fully in the social and digital media space. I love it.

Use the skills you have picked up from your YouTube work, understand how you can adapt them to your particular career choice.

I suppose the true message in this journey so far, for me, is to not look at your YouTube Channel as a bunch of numbers. Sure, numbers may represent audience, but they don’t represent the incredible skills and craft you are constantly working on.

Your passion and your interests are your biggest value, don’t be afraid to share them with the world.

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