How Chandler Turned Her Side Hustle As A Social Media Influencer Into A Full-time Job

Name: Chandler DeHart

Hometown: Crothersville, IN

Year you graduated: 2016

Where did you go to school?

Purdue University (Boiler UP!)

What did you study?

I was a double major in management and marketing.

Briefly describe what your college experience was like:

For me college was truly a few of the best years I could’ve ever asked for. I learned a lot about myself and what I wanted from life and met the kind of friends that you want standing with you at your wedding (and they did).

Where are you living now?

I am currently living in Atlanta, GA with my husband.

What are you doing with your post grad time?

I am running around exploring all the corners of this new city of mine, traveling with my husband and girlfriends, and posting on social media like, 3 times a day. No really, it’s my job, I’m a social influencer.

What did your post-grad path to your current job look like? Did you start right away? Take some time off?

I will try to condense this as much as possible. I have been blogging for a couple years now so when we moved to Atlanta I was really excited to continue to do that on the side but it definitely wasn’t lucrative enough to be my full-time job. SO, I took a month off after graduation to collect myself and just relax and then took a job doing e-commerce and social media for a small boutique outside the city.

Meanwhile, my blog just kind of took off in the background and I spent 8 stressful months trying to manage that on top of my full-time job. An average day was something like: up before sunrise to answer blog emails and write posts for a couple hours, off to work for 8 hours, and then more blog catch up after I got home at 8 PM. It taught me a lot about what I was really passionate about, hard work, and time management. The grinding paid off as my blog eventually became my main source of income and I decided if I wasn’t going to invest in myself, who else would? So, like every decidedly self-employed person once did, I quit. I’m now blogging full-time, learning how to be fully self-employed, and loving every minute of it.

Moral of the story- If you don’t invest in bringing your own dreams and ideas to life, someone else will hire you to build theirs.

What does a normal weekday look like for you?

The typical day in my life goes something like this:

  • 7:30 AM- Get up and get to a coffee shop to answer any leftover emails or inquiries from the day before, edit pictures, or work on any other running projects I have (I don’t work well from my couch so I like to go somewhere where I can be more productive).
  • 10 AM- 2 or 3 days a week, I meet up with other bloggers (mainly my best gal pal @marahcar) to shoot new content for Instagram/our blogs
  • 1 PM – LUUUUUNCH. I should have some sort of UberEATS preferred member benefits or something for as often as I use that service.
  • 2 or 3PM- By this time more emails have usually rolled in from my morning response session. Usually in the afternoon I like to catch back up on those and edit pictures from the shoot. I also spend time answering Instagram DM’s. Those pile up faster than you can even imagine and I want to respond to as many people as I can.
  • 5 PM- This is usually the time of day where I run errands if I have any and start making dinner. Surprisingly this is something I have struggled with being self-employed. Since I’m working on my own schedule I have a tendency to want to run errands while I’m out working and it makes my day so much less productive. I’m trying to be more disciplined in only working during the day and running errands last.
  • 7 PM- More than likely my husband is home at this point and we try to unplug and spend time together. We will have dinner and watch Impractical Jokers or of course, our Boilers when they are on.
  • 11 PM- Bedtime. Gotta get those 8 hours. 🙂

How about the weekend?

Believe it or not, my husband and I do a lot of work on the weekends. He takes quite a few of the photos on my Instagram and blog and I’m so grateful for his help and support. On Saturdays, we like to get up and pack the car with 3 or 4 outfits I need to shoot, go grab breakfast in the city, and then run around and knock out multiple looks. That way, if I have a busy week, I still have plenty of content to post and a lot of projects out of the way. We spend most Saturday nights out grabbing drinks with our friends because we are still in our 20’s after all.

Sundays are more relaxed and consistently include church, football, and grocery shopping.

What has been the hardest adjustment for you going from college to post-grad life?

I would say the hardest adjustment has just been handling finances. Going away to college was such a nice transition for me between living at home and being completely on my own. I learned how to take care of myself and manage my time but I had financial support from my parents. Now it’s more “let’s put that extra paycheck in savings” and less “get in ladies, we’re going to Zara”.


What has been the best part?

Honestly I think the best part has been the fact that my days are full of things I genuinely enjoy doing. I loved college as a whole, but given the choice, I obviously wouldn’t be spending my days in macroeconomics power hours. Working is fun for me because I love what I do.

In general, spending this last year in Georgia with my then fiance, now husband has been the greatest in itself. It was so cool to take on something new, just the two of us, and having a best friend to live and travel with is just the best thing ever.

What helped you get to where you are now?

A lot of hard work and perseverance honestly. I think everyone has this fantasy of how great it would be to be self-employed or run your own business, what have you. I get the “Omg, you post on Instagram for a living, how fun!!” comment a lot. And yes, it is SO much fun but there’s a lot of time and work that go into it and I don’t think everyone always understands that.

Knowing what you do now, what advice would you give your college self?

Relax- everything is going to work out exactly like it should.

What’s one thing you worried about in college, now being beyond it, you wish you hadn’t?

Haha, this made me laugh. I could make a list a mile long probably. To name a few; sorority drama, getting a job immediately after college, and relationships with people that I will never see again. I just told my husband in the car yesterday with a laugh, “There are so many things I can look back on in college that I stressed over that just seemed so damn important at the time that are 100% irrelevant to my life now”. It’s funny how things work out.

In 5 years you hope to be:

I hope to still be blogging and definitely still in the fashion industry somewhere. I hope to have moved into travel blogging as well because that’s a huge goal of mine.

Rapid fire round:

Current binge show: I don’t watch TV/Netflix much at all. But I do love a good marathon of Chrisley Knows Best. I think they are hilarious.

Favorite way to unwind: Perusing hole in the wall antique shops. Nothing better.

Favorite song right now: Havana

Cause/issue that’s moving you: Homelessness is an issue I see every day in the city and it breaks my heart. It reminds me to appreciate everything and always help out where I can.

Favorite podcast: I’m so behind on the podcast world. I prefer to listen to books on Audible instead.

Something good you read for pleasure lately (can be a book, an article, an Instagram caption, etc.): The Husband’s Secret. It’s a must read.

Morning drink order: Vanilla Latte. Every. Single. Day.

Current favorite social media account you follow: @tezzamb She has the most incredible imagery and the coolest sense of style.

3 things you can’t leave home without:

Computer, camera, phone (obv).

News Reporter

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