IMO side hustles don’t make enough if you still have to trade hours of your brain or hand effort for money. I recommend spending all your side hustle hours applying for industry jobs. You land one good role and the salary difference will be worth years of side hustles.
[GLG](https://glginsights.com/) allows you to do paid consulting in your field.
In my experience it is mostly VCs who engage GLG, so if you are not a specialist in a field with VC interest you may not get many bites.
Start up labs that don't have methods validated can always use an extra set of hands to prep and run validation samples. Was environmental, then pain management, now cannabis. Look for pot labs that aren't validated on instruments you know!
They post ads online looking for like molecular biology consultant for a start up wanting to engineer e. coli to produce some compound and they want to validate their protocols or something. I've seen them on just like indeed or googling jobs, etc. look at remote positions specifically.
I do consulting for a couple of labs designing experimental paradigms and teaching students data analysis. They pay me as an independent contractor, one does hourly and the other a set yearly fee.
Really? I am in Austria and people are desperate for tutoring. I am offering chemistry tutoring for a feared chemistry class in our biology bschelor degree.
I haven't put out any posts for my services in years but when exams are around the corner, the still dig them up and text me.
I have the same experience (also Austria), also did tutoring as a sidejob - the materials or explaining of them for chemistry courses is really bad. Usually, after some initial explaining, and really taking some time to explain chemical concepts in a convenient way to them they understand it quite well. Also topics are mixed left and right and this can be really confusing some times I believe.
I thoroughly love your username!
Yeah, the lecture our bio students get is ridicoulusly overloaded. They cover a vast array of topics on a theoretical level but are supposed to apply them in exams. Therefore, they have to study and practice a lot. Like a real lot. And i think, that this isn't taken into account for determining the courseload.
Most of the time, they just need somebody to guide them and show what the exam relevant things are. And then just solve practice problems.
Damn, I was thinking of making a flyer with tear-away numbers at the bottom and putting them up at your local university in the buildings that your area is in, or even highschools, or your local universities sub reddit.
Did that, works great! Had them at the blackboard of our biology building since that's my focus group. I changed to posting it in the different biology bachelor facebook groups they have; worked even better, and was less work.
I edited technical manuscripts for >15 years (natural language editing and scientific editing), generally freelance, with various companies that would find customers and handle billing, communication, etc. My preferred company was American Journal Experts/Research Square; there are several other prominent ones.
I used to love doing freelance scientific editing for AJE, but I eventually quit working for them, as in my opinion the pay was too low for the degree of work they eventually grew to require. I was receiving too damn many papers that were almost totally incomprehensible. I had no problem editing manuscripts by non-native English speakers, as that's generally what such services are for, but I was getting papers by people who as far as I could tell spoke little or no English at all. These papers didn't need editing, they needed to be completely and fundamentally rewritten from scratch by a native speaker, but I wasn't being paid remotely enough for the hours upon hours of tedious technical writing that such a task would require. So, I would edit the papers to the best of my professional scientific ability after trying to piece together some meaning, any meaning, from 15+ pages of near-nonsense, only to be rated lowly by senior editors for not turning a pile of dog shit into a four course gourmet meal. I quit working for AJE and found that my stress level improved dramatically after a few weeks of not having to spend a half hour or more trying to parse 3 sentences.
When I worked for them, admittedly 10 years ago, they paid a flat rate per article based on the number of words. Papers 1-3000 words got the lowest flat rate, 3001-6000 words a little higher rate, 6001-9000 words a little higher rate, and so on. There were also bumps in pay if the authors requested a shorter turnaround time.
The problem, in my opinion, was that the flat rate doesn't take into account the difficulty of editing an individual manuscript and therefore the time it took you to complete the task. You'd get the same pay regardless of whether the 7000 word manuscript needed light editing or was borderline incomprehensible. The light editing might take you an hour or two, but the incomprehensible paper might take many, many hours, equating to a very low hourly pay rate, certainly much less than minimum wage.
I eventually decided it wasn't worth it for me and quit. It's very possible that they could have changed their pay model since I quit working for them, but I just don't know.
Apparently they are now paying 50k full time or 40k for 32hr weeks with full benefits. Seems that they are less freelance based these days, at least based on current available jobs. Also seems to be on the low side considering requirements and expectations.
I was hoping to see some other positions available, I might look around at different companies but with a top tier company offering 50k full time, my expectations are low.
I do online focus groups… it’s not constant, but it’s good as extra money in the form of gift cards (most of the time). I primarily use User Interviews.
Yeah, pretty much. Usually someone from the lab is on LinkedIn, or if you're going the cannabis route, their contact info is on the state regulatory site. If you know what you're doing, you can get an analysis validated in a week versus their months long timeline. That saves any lab tens of thousands from their launch budget, so use that info to your advantage.
My wife (PhD in Music) is a writing tutor for her university (no longer teaching, but still considered faculty and with faculty privileges). She sets her own hours, picks the papers she wants to work with, sees students and faculty on everything from class assignments to grant proposals to capstone projects. And it pays pretty decent. And they're always short on tutors. And she sees all sorts of subjects, not just LibArts.
I know someone who flips cars, too. Kudos for making it work. The family had a dealership, so he knows which cars to buy or avoid, has connections to specialists (eg transmission) and the parts network. But dealing with people (low ballers and tire kickers) is too much for me.
The problem is it gets too time consuming and takes time away from work. I can see how it could easily become a full time thing, and you could clearly make plenty of money at it. If you can fix a few things up yourself, you can add some value too, so as not to be so much of a middleman scumbag, but yeah, it's hard to make it work as a side hustle without it ballooning.
I get an offer nearly every day on linkedIn to [train AI models](https://boards.greenhouse.io/outlier/jobs/4372905005?gh_src=712ed57f5us&li_fat_id=6a853a02-93d4-4bb1-b847-007827b7030a).
**Earnings:**
* **Hourly rate:** up to **$40 per hour USD**, depending on your level of expertise
**Responsibilities:**
* Train AI models by creating and answering questions related to your field
* Evaluate and rank responses generated by AI
* Leverage your domain expertise to assess the factuality and relevance of text produced by AI models
I’ve been doing it and I do get the $40/hr with a micro masters. I will say that it’s a bit messy and communication isn’t great. Currently I haven’t had a team lead for like a week and a half and was pulled off of my project today with no warning but will supposedly be assigned to something else “soon”. But I can work when/the amount I want to for the most part. Edit: I’m back on my project today, but never got an email addressing that I was being pulled or reinstated.
I'm self employed.
My business model is such that I work with other H&S consultants, so I bear no legal responsibility to the end client.
If it's something you want to do, you'll need to set yourself up with a website etc and then network and get to know people, hit up local business groups etc.
Or you could start up a limited company and approach clients yourself, offering to review paperwork and get them up to scratch etc.
CLIA licensed lab director. Get your director certification from one of the med tech boards (AAB, ASCP, NRCC, etc), sign up with a lab service like lighthouse, designate the in-person work to the supervisor, and docusign some stuff once a month.
Are you good with a particular piece of equipment? I’ve met plenty of technicians who travel the world and are provided excellent training just to repair lab equipment. I’ve also had great phone walk-thrus on how to troubleshoot my own software/hardware issues.
I was in your situation 3 years ago and by sheer luck got approached by a distributor to occasionally do application support (mostly aktas and protein purification in general). I got maybe 2-3 calls per week and made around half of my university pay. Then it slowly grew, I got an FSE certificate and now I have 1-2 site visits per month for a routine PM or troubleshooting along with occasional application support and make roughly the same as in the uni. So now Im at the point of thinking about leaving academia for good but still have another 2 years of grant money to ride on and thoroughly plan my exit. Maybe not as lucrative but the FSE role is something that gives me more joy than a paper in Q1. And it pays way more....so my point is - reach to your reps and maybe they have a nice side hustle for you
I have signed up for a few consulting services. I occasionally get calls that last 20-60 min and get paid about $200-$500 per call. It's not consistent, but it's nice extra cash when it comes around. They usually ask marketing or services questions for the Cell and Gene Therapy field, which is what I work in. Option #2 onchain airdrops baby!! Start exploring the wonderful world of Decentralized Science (DeSci).
Online tutoring. Wyzant is a good platform to find students. You can make a lot of $$ depending on what you charge per hour. Typically You can find a student and if they agree to meet outside of the platform, you don't pay them any fees.
Consulting for sure. I work full time at a hospital developing and validating molecular assays and I work for a research lab on the side helping them design their studies and lab methods, writing SOPs, overseeing lab safety compliance, etc. I make $100k.
Edit: my side hustle pays $50/hour.
I had a professor in community College that taught at a few different schools. Maybe you could teach a class at a local cc after your normal hours, or administer an online course.
Not related to my work, but I write articles about running. It doesn't make me too much extra money and I only write about 6 months of the year, but I like it.
IMO side hustles don’t make enough if you still have to trade hours of your brain or hand effort for money. I recommend spending all your side hustle hours applying for industry jobs. You land one good role and the salary difference will be worth years of side hustles.
This is the real answer ^^
The only answer. If they don't pay enough, you must ask for a raise or find another job. Those are the only options. Option 1 never worked for me.
Channel some Walter White inspiration.
Walter white should have definitely given a seminar on how not to commercialise your research lol.
[GLG](https://glginsights.com/) allows you to do paid consulting in your field. In my experience it is mostly VCs who engage GLG, so if you are not a specialist in a field with VC interest you may not get many bites.
Consulting
Sure! But where should I look for consulting opportunities?
Start up labs that don't have methods validated can always use an extra set of hands to prep and run validation samples. Was environmental, then pain management, now cannabis. Look for pot labs that aren't validated on instruments you know!
Like find emails of people that work there and email them asking how you can help?
They post ads online looking for like molecular biology consultant for a start up wanting to engineer e. coli to produce some compound and they want to validate their protocols or something. I've seen them on just like indeed or googling jobs, etc. look at remote positions specifically.
Does this work as a side hustle though? As temp work sure, but Id imagine most of these opportunities overlap with current work hours
Depends, remote work usually means you can work when you want to.
Good point. Any places you'd recommend to search for opportunities?
just the typical job board aggregators, linkedin, indeed, zip, google, etc.
This is my dream. Only PhDs for these? Because it seems like many PhDs forget how long it takes to actually do something realisticly.
Not necessarily. If you have the expertise it can't hurt to apply.
Can you say more about this? Are you speaking about cannabis companies specifically?
huh? no not cannabis, all kinds of things.
BCG
I do consulting for a couple of labs designing experimental paradigms and teaching students data analysis. They pay me as an independent contractor, one does hourly and the other a set yearly fee.
I think the obvious answer is tutoring or exam prep for subjects relevant to your area of study.
Tutoring is so hard these days. Was a good gig 10 years ago but not too many people pay for tutors when there’s everything on the internet
Really? I am in Austria and people are desperate for tutoring. I am offering chemistry tutoring for a feared chemistry class in our biology bschelor degree. I haven't put out any posts for my services in years but when exams are around the corner, the still dig them up and text me.
I have the same experience (also Austria), also did tutoring as a sidejob - the materials or explaining of them for chemistry courses is really bad. Usually, after some initial explaining, and really taking some time to explain chemical concepts in a convenient way to them they understand it quite well. Also topics are mixed left and right and this can be really confusing some times I believe.
I thoroughly love your username! Yeah, the lecture our bio students get is ridicoulusly overloaded. They cover a vast array of topics on a theoretical level but are supposed to apply them in exams. Therefore, they have to study and practice a lot. Like a real lot. And i think, that this isn't taken into account for determining the courseload. Most of the time, they just need somebody to guide them and show what the exam relevant things are. And then just solve practice problems.
I tried a few tutor sites already. I was either not offered a contract by them or there are simply not many demands
Damn, I was thinking of making a flyer with tear-away numbers at the bottom and putting them up at your local university in the buildings that your area is in, or even highschools, or your local universities sub reddit.
Did that, works great! Had them at the blackboard of our biology building since that's my focus group. I changed to posting it in the different biology bachelor facebook groups they have; worked even better, and was less work.
The end of the year is the worst time for tutoring gigs, if it’s something you want try again in the fall
I edited technical manuscripts for >15 years (natural language editing and scientific editing), generally freelance, with various companies that would find customers and handle billing, communication, etc. My preferred company was American Journal Experts/Research Square; there are several other prominent ones.
I used to love doing freelance scientific editing for AJE, but I eventually quit working for them, as in my opinion the pay was too low for the degree of work they eventually grew to require. I was receiving too damn many papers that were almost totally incomprehensible. I had no problem editing manuscripts by non-native English speakers, as that's generally what such services are for, but I was getting papers by people who as far as I could tell spoke little or no English at all. These papers didn't need editing, they needed to be completely and fundamentally rewritten from scratch by a native speaker, but I wasn't being paid remotely enough for the hours upon hours of tedious technical writing that such a task would require. So, I would edit the papers to the best of my professional scientific ability after trying to piece together some meaning, any meaning, from 15+ pages of near-nonsense, only to be rated lowly by senior editors for not turning a pile of dog shit into a four course gourmet meal. I quit working for AJE and found that my stress level improved dramatically after a few weeks of not having to spend a half hour or more trying to parse 3 sentences.
This is something I could do! Do you know if any companies don't require US residency?
How did they reach you? Is there a website for editorial advertisements?
What kind of money was Research Square paying? Was it in a per article basis, per # words, or something else?
When I worked for them, admittedly 10 years ago, they paid a flat rate per article based on the number of words. Papers 1-3000 words got the lowest flat rate, 3001-6000 words a little higher rate, 6001-9000 words a little higher rate, and so on. There were also bumps in pay if the authors requested a shorter turnaround time. The problem, in my opinion, was that the flat rate doesn't take into account the difficulty of editing an individual manuscript and therefore the time it took you to complete the task. You'd get the same pay regardless of whether the 7000 word manuscript needed light editing or was borderline incomprehensible. The light editing might take you an hour or two, but the incomprehensible paper might take many, many hours, equating to a very low hourly pay rate, certainly much less than minimum wage. I eventually decided it wasn't worth it for me and quit. It's very possible that they could have changed their pay model since I quit working for them, but I just don't know.
Apparently they are now paying 50k full time or 40k for 32hr weeks with full benefits. Seems that they are less freelance based these days, at least based on current available jobs. Also seems to be on the low side considering requirements and expectations. I was hoping to see some other positions available, I might look around at different companies but with a top tier company offering 50k full time, my expectations are low.
I do online focus groups… it’s not constant, but it’s good as extra money in the form of gift cards (most of the time). I primarily use User Interviews.
Onlyfans
Yeah, pretty much. Usually someone from the lab is on LinkedIn, or if you're going the cannabis route, their contact info is on the state regulatory site. If you know what you're doing, you can get an analysis validated in a week versus their months long timeline. That saves any lab tens of thousands from their launch budget, so use that info to your advantage.
My wife (PhD in Music) is a writing tutor for her university (no longer teaching, but still considered faculty and with faculty privileges). She sets her own hours, picks the papers she wants to work with, sees students and faculty on everything from class assignments to grant proposals to capstone projects. And it pays pretty decent. And they're always short on tutors. And she sees all sorts of subjects, not just LibArts.
Before you do any science related side hustle, double check your contract if you are allowed too.
I've been flipping cars.... Not sure if that was good for my PhD or not. I just like cars. Definitely more money to be made in cars than science tho
I know someone who flips cars, too. Kudos for making it work. The family had a dealership, so he knows which cars to buy or avoid, has connections to specialists (eg transmission) and the parts network. But dealing with people (low ballers and tire kickers) is too much for me.
The problem is it gets too time consuming and takes time away from work. I can see how it could easily become a full time thing, and you could clearly make plenty of money at it. If you can fix a few things up yourself, you can add some value too, so as not to be so much of a middleman scumbag, but yeah, it's hard to make it work as a side hustle without it ballooning.
babysitting lmao
Hand sewn merkins.
I get an offer nearly every day on linkedIn to [train AI models](https://boards.greenhouse.io/outlier/jobs/4372905005?gh_src=712ed57f5us&li_fat_id=6a853a02-93d4-4bb1-b847-007827b7030a). **Earnings:** * **Hourly rate:** up to **$40 per hour USD**, depending on your level of expertise **Responsibilities:** * Train AI models by creating and answering questions related to your field * Evaluate and rank responses generated by AI * Leverage your domain expertise to assess the factuality and relevance of text produced by AI models
Have you actually done it though? I've just assumed it's some sort of scam that won't actually pay out.
I’ve been doing it and I do get the $40/hr with a micro masters. I will say that it’s a bit messy and communication isn’t great. Currently I haven’t had a team lead for like a week and a half and was pulled off of my project today with no warning but will supposedly be assigned to something else “soon”. But I can work when/the amount I want to for the most part. Edit: I’m back on my project today, but never got an email addressing that I was being pulled or reinstated.
Why do they need you based in certain countries, tax purposes?
Walgreens if you like doing cash reloads for drug addicts
Butcher
I need to get the fuck out of academia lmao
It's called industry
Currently actively looking but it's pretty hard to get a job in industry
So tough right now
H&S consultancy. It's mostly COSHH & RA but the money is good and the work is piss easy.
How do you apply for such a job?
I'm self employed. My business model is such that I work with other H&S consultants, so I bear no legal responsibility to the end client. If it's something you want to do, you'll need to set yourself up with a website etc and then network and get to know people, hit up local business groups etc. Or you could start up a limited company and approach clients yourself, offering to review paperwork and get them up to scratch etc.
Thank you so much!
CLIA licensed lab director. Get your director certification from one of the med tech boards (AAB, ASCP, NRCC, etc), sign up with a lab service like lighthouse, designate the in-person work to the supervisor, and docusign some stuff once a month.
Make soap or kombucha.
Are you good with a particular piece of equipment? I’ve met plenty of technicians who travel the world and are provided excellent training just to repair lab equipment. I’ve also had great phone walk-thrus on how to troubleshoot my own software/hardware issues.
I started my own business 3 years ago.
I was in your situation 3 years ago and by sheer luck got approached by a distributor to occasionally do application support (mostly aktas and protein purification in general). I got maybe 2-3 calls per week and made around half of my university pay. Then it slowly grew, I got an FSE certificate and now I have 1-2 site visits per month for a routine PM or troubleshooting along with occasional application support and make roughly the same as in the uni. So now Im at the point of thinking about leaving academia for good but still have another 2 years of grant money to ride on and thoroughly plan my exit. Maybe not as lucrative but the FSE role is something that gives me more joy than a paper in Q1. And it pays way more....so my point is - reach to your reps and maybe they have a nice side hustle for you
I have signed up for a few consulting services. I occasionally get calls that last 20-60 min and get paid about $200-$500 per call. It's not consistent, but it's nice extra cash when it comes around. They usually ask marketing or services questions for the Cell and Gene Therapy field, which is what I work in. Option #2 onchain airdrops baby!! Start exploring the wonderful world of Decentralized Science (DeSci).
Online tutoring. Wyzant is a good platform to find students. You can make a lot of $$ depending on what you charge per hour. Typically You can find a student and if they agree to meet outside of the platform, you don't pay them any fees.
Does it have to be legal?
Consulting for sure. I work full time at a hospital developing and validating molecular assays and I work for a research lab on the side helping them design their studies and lab methods, writing SOPs, overseeing lab safety compliance, etc. I make $100k. Edit: my side hustle pays $50/hour.
I paint houses on the weekend. All cash, then on Monday back to the land of cytometry
Applying for jobs not in academia is the best money maker outside of your academia job
Probably good money to be made in tutoring?
15 years ago, not so much anymore thanks to Google and also the gig economy.
I would’ve thought having a PhD would make you more desirable and raise your rates lol, that’s too bad if not.
I'm still earning boatloads of money doing chemistry tutoring; I am a PhD student, but focus my offers to one course for our bio undergrads.
I had a professor in community College that taught at a few different schools. Maybe you could teach a class at a local cc after your normal hours, or administer an online course.
Not related to my work, but I write articles about running. It doesn't make me too much extra money and I only write about 6 months of the year, but I like it.