Following on from yesterday’s post about how your job could boost your writing, today we turn our attention to a very similar, yet also different, issue: how your writing could improve your non-writing career.

A skill not everyone has

One of the obvious yet still useful ways in which your writing could help your non-writing career is that writing is a skill not everyone has. Of course, everyone can write to some degree, but being able to write to a very high quality on demand is definitely a valuable skill. Even if being able to put together great, grammatically-correct sentences on a regular basis isn’t an everyday part of your job, it’s still something that can stand you in good stead for the future.

The ability to multi-task

Writing outside of your main job is also a good way of demonstrating your ability to multi-task. It shows that you can work on multiple projects at once, and can deal with different disciplines when required. Always useful when you’re trying to impress the boss around promotion season…

A demonstration of your commitment

It also shows that you are committed – it hopefully proves commitment to your non-writing job as you’re still performing it to a high standard even though you’re writing as well, and it shows you’re committed to your writing because you’re willing to do it whenever you get a free five minutes. Hobbies and outside interests might not be the most important thing when you’re applying for jobs, but they can still help sway things in your favour, so being able to say you’ve been writing for X years as a hobby or second job is almost certainly a good thing.

The means to express yourself well

Finally, writing gives you the means to express yourself well, which as we all know is important in the world of work. Whether you’re trying to make the case for why you should get a promotion/raise, trying to get a new job or to tactfully raise some issues with your current job, your writing skills will be hugely useful.