I came into the Web3 space as a volunteer. I messaged a founder I knew in the space and told him ‘I’ll like to work’, and when he asked what I could do, I replied that ‘I’m good at marketing and can promote or be an ambassador’.

Small move, no pitch, no LinkedIn URL, or portfolio but one week later, you were staring at a volunteer marketing manager, then an ambassador, then a writer😅. I did that for nine months before I got employed to work with the marketing team.

That’s a long time to work as a volunteer especially when I wasn’t being paid, but because I was a student and the job was flexible, I think I did greeaat👌!

But you don’t have to volunteer for that long to earn.

And in this article, I’ll show you how to cut the volunteering chase and start on the job in six months.

Cutting The Volunteering Chase

Here, I’ve written this assuming you’ve volunteered before with blockchain companies or already are a volunteer. If you haven’t, then your first step would be to actually volunteer.

But if you belong to category 1, here’s a useful step-by-step process for your ‘happy to announce’ story:

• Move From Volunteering To Interning

I know people use these terms simultaneously but they are not the same. You can volunteer to do anything, it may/may not be connected to a career path you’ve chosen for yourself and you may not necessarily be part of the team.

But with internships, you’re intentional. Instead of volunteering at events, you can message the company organizing the events and ask to intern in a department you’re interested in e.g. intern as a graphics designer in the marketing department, or frontend dev in the technical department.

Although internships may be unpaid or decently incentivized, you are at an advantage because you are seen as a member of the team whose opinions and inputs are considered, respected, and counted.

When I was a volunteer writer, I had created a community of 200+ persons for the crypto project, influenced about 20 people to download the company’s app and invest in the project’s token.

And every time I wrote about the company, I shared it on all their platforms for review and feedback.

I wanted to be a content writer and whenever I wrote, that was me being deliberate about a career path.

Though I did these as a volunteer, the company’s structures allowed me to count as a representative.

But not every blockchain company has structures like that so you might have to go full-blown intern to get counted.

• Don’t Manage Bad Bosses Or Tolerate Micromanaged Teams

Often, people who do this do so because they like the prestige of working for the firm or they are afraid of starting over.

Here’s what I have to say; No matter how hard you work for a bad boss or in a micromanaged team, you’ll always feel unseen and exhausted and this is not a good state for delivering good results.

As an intern, pay attention to team culture and communication. And the culture is not what the firm says, it’s what they do; how they handle disputes and offer corrections, how they respond to work and recess, how they respect your time and opinions, etc.

If you have a bad boss or the team is micromanaged, you’ll not make progress.

No matter the offer, be audacious enough to walk away from bad working environments, it’s not healthy and it can result in problems in the future.

• Add Value

The bridge between intern to employee is V-A-L-U-E. Make it a personal policy to be helpful and useful. Follow directives but be observant and innovative.

If you have an idea that can help the organization, say it. If you’ve learned new ways of doing a particular thing, propose it. That way, your employer can see that you’re an asset and nobody likes to lose an asset.

• Go Public

The easiest way to do this is to be vocal on social media (personally, I use LinkedIn). This is where personal branding comes into play.

Connect with people in similar roles on social media, optimize your profile, network at events, share helpful tips, and give short stories on how you achieved a goal you wanted.

Don’t stay behind the scenes, there’s more fun on the scene. Be an active player.

• Apply For Jobs Roles Similar To Your Internship Position

I recommend this for two reasons; you could get the job (hooray🎉) or you could learn from the requirements.

I used to do this for the latter reason though. I think it’s like ‘If you want to get hired, you’ve got to know what the expectations are’.

Look at it this way, if you never knew that one of the requirements of a community manager in the web3 space was to understand Discord, you’d probably ignore learning to use it.

So, you want to tighten every loophole that’d make your employer have reservations about you by studying the job requirements for roles similar to your internship position and learning those skills needed.

If you don’t know where to start, joining this community can help.

Finally…

Every volunteer comes to that point; where you are tired of working unpaid, craving something more stable and secure, and eager to move to the next big thing.

If you are in this category, applying these steps can help you tremendously in getting a Web3 job. And when you get the job, remember to come here and leave a comment so I can say “I told you so🙃”.

If you enjoyed this, you might like entry 4.

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