Covid-19 is upending life as usual, changing our world forever in ways unknown. When we come out on the other side of this pandemic, I hypothesize that the work world — thus far, clinging to outdated ideals and notions about productivity, and doing things one way because that’s the way they’ve always been done — will be far more remote friendly than anyone could have conceived.
We’re seeing unprecedented numbers of office workers turning their dining room tables and guest rooms into office space so that they can Zoom their coworkers and provide demos to clients with at least the illusion of a normal workplace. Companies once opposed to remote work mobilize their entire workforce in a day to work from home. Others are letting workers go in droves. The status quo has been irrevocably altered.
Which means that millions of people are either out of work and looking for something they can do from home, or trying to survive conference calls with their kids singing Let It Go in the background. We could all use a little help.
With my 15+ years experience of remote work, I’m going to do a small series of remote working tips, surviving living and working at home with your family, and how to create a separation between your work and personal lives at home. In the past, I’ve written about remote management. For now, I’m going to share some of the best resources for finding a job that will let you work from home — and not just during a global pandemic!
Free Remote Job Sites
Remote.co has a jobs page, as well as an informative blog, a list of remote companies, and a great resource page for remote workers.
WeWorkRemotely.com claims to be the largest remote work community in the world, with jobs listed in categories such as programming, design, sales, product, and devops. It also has a great resource library.
SkipTheDrive.com doesn’t have as robust a search function as some of the other sites, but it will yield some different results. Plus you can sign up for email updates.
Angel.co isn’t uniquely for remote jobs but many of the startup and tech jobs posted are remote friendly.
Remotive.io focuses on jobs in five categories (Software dev, product, design, customer success, and marketing) and also has an awesome filterable/searchable library of remote companies.
Not the largest selection of jobs, but another selection aimed at digital nomads nonetheless: NoDesk.co Jobsresso is another that has a smaller, curated selection of jobs focused more around tech, marketing, and customer support. JustRemote focuses in just a few areas as well. I haven’t explored Outsourcely a lot due to its seemingly limited search functions but it’s another resource.
Most of the jobs on WorkingNomads.com seem to be in the tech space but they also have a lot of healthcare, legal, and admin positions listed. This site has a nice email notification function.
Boldly.com has an interesting premise: a subscription staffing agency specializing in executive assistants, project managers, and social media marketing positions. It employs people as W2 workers with benefits, and they support Boldly’s clients. Boldly would appeal to military spouses, stay-at-home parents looking for part-time work, or anyone looking for at least 20+ hours of admin type work per week.
PowerToFly has one goal: connect women with remote jobs in Fortune 500 companies. There are tons of resources for working women, including coaching services and events. Not all of the jobs listed are remote but there are a lot!
Paid Remote Job Sites
With so many free resources at hand, you may not need to pay for a job site, but if you do, the ones that seem most promising to me are FlexJobs and VirtualVocations. HireMyMom.com also seems like a cool site to check out for a very niche market. (The Mom Project is another aimed at working women, though it’s not remote-dedicated.) If you know of a high quality paid job site, please post it in the comments!
Finding Remote Jobs on Regular Job Sites
Use the filters on Glassdoor, Indeed, Career Builder, ZipRecruiter, and LinkedIn correctly, or (what I find to be more effective) search using “remote” as one of your keywords, and you will be overwhelmed by the number of remote work listings. Keep an eye out for keywords like telecommute, telework, remote okay, remote friendly, and work from home.
There are many other job hunting sites, but I know for a fact that the ones above make it easy to search for remote work. If you come across more, please post in the comments!
Remote Gigs
Maybe you’re not interested in a full time remote job, or due to the saturated market won’t be able to find one. If you have the right sets of skills, you may be able to score some freelance work-from-home gigs though.
Remote Work Hubs has both job boards and freelance marketplaces for you to scour. Dribble is a job site specifically for designers that has a remote-friendly search function. As a freelancer, you may find some good work on Fivrr, Upwork, and Freelancer.com.
There are plenty of other gig-centric freelancing sites, but these are just a few to get you started. If you find a super kickass site, please post it in the comments!
Are you right for remote work?
Some people are not cut out for remote work, but from my experience, more people adapt to working from home quickly and never want to go back to working full time in an office. I’ll be writing a few posts on this topic, but in the meantime, Gitlab has an overflowing library of resources that you can check out.
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While it seems that things are really bad right now, and many industries are going to suffer due to this pandemic, many office jobs are going fully remote and many companies are about to discover the power of a remote work force. Remote work possibilities will only become *more* prevalent. So stiff upper lip, bon courage, and as my grandmother always said Patience and Fortitude. We’ll get through this!