I’m unsure about how I should position my application and what I should really include, your advice would be truly appreciated.
Currently, I work as a Brand/UI Designer with an interest in digital marketing for a product-led fintech company based in London.
I am also working on a side hustle to open a marketplace with creative marketing tools for the sellers to promote their brand/product. However, it’s just an idea stage (with a detailed summary).
Do you think it makes sense to include this in my application or will it jeopardize my entire application making it look confusing? As I do believe and would like the authorities to see me as someone who can genuinely contribute to the fintech industry in the UK.
There is nothing wrong with adding a side hustle to your application. You can use your personal statement to explain how the side hustle and your current work add up towards a holistic professional profile.
That said, the issue isn’t so much that you have a side hustle - it is that the side hustle is in idea stage. As you can guess, coming up with ideas is the easy part in the evolution of any company. Hence, there is every chance that this evidence could be entirely discounted for the lack of executional value.
In balance, you are better off including the side hustle if you can show more than just an ability to think of an idea.
I think side hustles are a little bit tricky. I have a mobile app side project which operates under a US LLC company but has a small user group less than 1k. As it is an open-source project, I used the company as a mandatory criteria and the project as open source under optional criteria. This was a big NO (I got rejected even though I have a well paying job and I am also a shareholder in a $100M startup) for tech nation. My understanding is they don’t value side hustles if they don’t have huge traction.
So my advice would be to keep side hustles as low-profile as possible in your application.