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In many great role-playing games, skipping side quests means missing out on valuable gear, experience points, and some of the best stories. Surprisingly, this same principle applies to job seekers and their careers. Many people believe that their resume should focus solely on their main roles, internships, and degrees.

However, your hobbies and side quests could potentially be the most powerful components of your career build, particularly for college graduates, industry switchers, or those rebuilding after layoffs.

Level 1: Why Employers Love Side Quests

Most candidates assume that employers only care about formal work experience, but that’s a misconception. Employers actually look for proof of skills that can help the company grow, your side projects can often provide more tangible evidence than the bullet points on a traditional resume.

Volunteer work and personal projects demonstrate initiative, creativity, problem-solving, and consistency. For instance, if you grew a TikTok account for your dog to 14,000 followers, that’s a compelling bullet point that showcases your engagement and content strategy skills.

Level 2: What Counts as a Side Quest?

Side quests aren’t just about side hustles, they include any effort that provides experience relevant to your career aspirations. This could be creative projects like YouTube channels or video editing, tech projects such as coding or building Discord bots, community and leadership roles, or even continuous learning through boot camps and courses.

Level 3: Translate Your Quest Log

One common mistake job seekers make is listing hobbies without showing their relevance. Translate these hobbies into achievements that are meaningful to employers. For example, instead of merely saying “I run a Discord community,” you could say “Managed a 500-member online community, creating weekly events, resolving member conflicts, and maintaining automation bots.”

Level 4: Add Real Numbers

Employers are more interested in evidence than in hobbies. Quantify your achievements by adding numbers, such as the number of followers, engagement rates, or revenue generated. For example, saying "Grew a YouTube channel from zero to a thousand subscribers in nine months" adds significant credibility to your claim.

PRess Start on the video for levels 6-7.

Whether you're navigating in a video game or the job market, remember:

Preparation and strategy will lead to victory, always!

Thank you for being part of my journey.

Your support means the world to me.

That can be in the form of a like on my YouTube Channel, checking out my digital products, a donation, a comment on my LinkedIn posts, or even sharing any of my content.

I’m honored to help level up your job hunt, in some way.

It truly fills my cup to teach and share my knowledge with you in a fun way.

Always keep leveling up.

I will see you in the next issue.

Dellyn Lee Founder of Dellyn Digital