Out of necessity, remote work soared in prevalence during the pandemic, but it has remained a preferred dynamic for employees across industries. Post-meeting transcripts and recorded sessions, greater flexibility to work during deep-focus sessions, and the ability to unmask in the privacy of the home are all benefits that make this type of work coveted and competitive. In this article, we examine how to put yourself in the best position to secure remote work.
Before you decide to pursue remote work, take time to reflect on how a remote dynamic would align with your needs compared to the benefits and drawbacks of an in-person job. If you’re unsure whether fully remote, hybrid, freelance, or in-person work would be best for you, check out our article Essential Factors to Consider Before Applying to a Role.
Here are a few realities of a remote work lifestyle that are important to consider when determining if it’s right for you:
While remote work takes an employee out of an office, setting up a designated workspace, like an at-home office, is still important as it can limit distractions and help you maintain a sense of structure. Make sure you have access to a space that is relatively quiet and has a good Wi-Fi connection. If home does not offer an ideal space, employees often have the freedom to work wherever they find is best, such as a library, coffee shop, or rented co-work space.
Team collaboration is just as vital in remote work as in an office setting, but the structure of meetings may differ. Rather than long, drawn-out co-working sessions, you will most likely hold shorter calls to confirm expectations and then work asynchronously on your assigned components. With virtual communication often being less consistent or clear, more responsibility is on the remote worker to stay organized. It’s important to pay extra careful attention to your calendar and task list to keep on top of meetings and accomplish your responsibilities when the visual reminders in an office are not present. If long periods of isolation and primarily online communication sound like a poor fit for you, remote work may not be an ideal pursuit.
Common Remote Industries
Considering that remote work is almost always computer-dependent, it is no surprise that software development is an industry with the fastest-growing remote offerings. Industries that primarily require expertise in writing, analysis, counseling, mathematics, or logistics have handled the shift to remote work well. These could include roles, like data analyst, telehealth therapist or nurse, legal or financial advisor, blogger or journalist, advertising or marketing coordinator, personal assistant, or project manager. For entry-level job seekers, especially those without a college degree, virtual customer service workers have the greatest remote opportunities.
Of course, certain career pathways do not lend themselves well to remote or even hybrid offerings. Hands-on workers, such as food servers, store clerks, and anyone working in a trade, like plumbing, must be on location for the job.
How to Search Strategically
If you search online job boards using a filter for “remote” or “virtual” jobs, this will identify opportunities, but you can be even more strategic by trying remote-work-targeted resources first. Entire remote-centric job boards exist, as well as virtual career fairs. Some of these are linked below this article, but we will highlight FlexJobs as a good place to start if you want to identify top companies and roles for remote work. To take full advantage of FlexJob’s services, be advised that there is a cost associated with utilizing their platform. Also, when you want to apply to a remote listing, check the date it was posted. Remote offerings often receive even more applicants than in-person roles, so it’s advantageous to be under consideration the earliest you are able to complete the application.
A Point of Caution: Remote Job Scams
Unfortunately, one big problem job seekers face is scammers promising the opportunity to work remotely with lucrative benefits. When there is no expectation to visit an office and meet a team in person, it is even easier to be persuaded into giving up personal or financial information.
If you believe you have been sent a scam offer or if you are seeking to protect yourself from job scams in the future, check out our Job Scams: What to Look for and Common Red Flags resource.
As technology advances rapidly, the list of skills needed to be successful in a job, especially a remote job, expands rapidly, too. For example, you might need to become competent with a variety of virtual platforms, such as Microsoft Teams or Slack, Zoom, Google Meets, Canva, and more, which may be required less frequently or not at all if you worked an in-office job. Hiring managers seek candidates who will require less time and money to train, so anything you can do to train yourself while you apply to jobs will boost you in their evaluation.
Skills can grow in two key ways: upskilling and reskilling. To upskill is to learn new skills that would further yourself in your current industry. So, if you’re a graphic designer who is adept in the Adobe Creative Suite, you could gain certifications in website design or add samples of generative AI to your personal portfolio to show your versatility and add new skill keywords to your resume. To reskill is to gain expertise in a skill outside of your current industry, which is vital if you’re planning an industry change. For example, if you worked in retail but want to become a virtual administrative assistant, you could teach yourself how to manage CRM software, digital calendars, Microsoft Excel, and invoices to become an asset to virtual employers.
The Internet provides endless places to gain new skills, either for free or a fee. Popular places to learn are LinkedIn Learning, Coursera, YouTube, and Khan Academy. You also can simply download software and explore it yourself because many platforms offer tutorials of their own. If you produce anything representative of your abilities during your exploration, save it in a file to build up your portfolio in case an employer asks for work samples.
Many organizations have required employees to return to the office, even if they had adapted to a remote environment effectively. If office work is not your ideal work dynamic but is the best opportunity you have to gain employment—don’t immediately discount it. Careers are a journey with many stages, some of which will align with your goals better than others. While you are working in any role, take every opportunity to try out new software, attend a training session, or establish a relationship with a professional mentor. As long as you are gaining experience and prioritizing professional development, no time is wasted.
In many cases, building a strong relationship with a company and becoming essential to their daily functions helps you gain bargaining power to negotiate a transition to more remote work in the future with them. If your first few roles are not what you want to be doing long-term or will never facilitate a transition to the remote work you desire, they are still valuable for making your resume more competitive and elevating you to a new tier of job opportunities.
If fully remote roles are challenging to find in your industry, consider broadening your search criteria to include hybrid roles. Hybrid work can mean something different to each organization, so it is important to determine the expectation by reading about it in the job listing or asking during an interview. For example, some hybrid jobs allow employees to work remotely a few days a week, while other jobs allow employees to work remotely most of the time, only coming into the office on a per-need basis. Hybrid work is a way to get the best of both the remote work and in-office worlds and help you gain more remote work skills to prepare for a transition to fully remote work in the future.
Your Support Made the Difference!
Each year, OAR lays out ambitious goals for engaging community members in celebration of Autism Acceptance Month. Throughout the beginning...
Everything Changed: An Excerpt from “What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic”
The following excerpt is shared with the author’s permission from the book What I Mean When I Say I’m Autistic, which...
How to Write a Resume Without Work Experience
I’ve been supporting autistic adults seeking employment for several years now. One of the questions I get asked the most is: Do...
