When Kate Smith worked a 9-to-5 office job, she was burned out, suffering from daily migraines and thinking, \u201cI can\u2019t do this for the rest of my life.\u201d <\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t have to. For her next role, Smith landed a remote, full-time marketing job that enabled her to travel the world.<\/p>\n
Her laptop lifestyle took her to Bali, where she lived and worked for a year and a half. \u201cEvery day, I was riding my scooter through the rice fields and thinking, \u2018I love my life, this is amazing,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that feeling never fades. … I feel so grateful for the freedom and flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Smith, 36, has worked remotely for more than a decade, the trend of ditching traditional office spaces to work from living rooms or beachfront shacks accelerated in 2020, when the coronavirus hit and workers who could began performing their jobs from home. <\/p>\n
Many people grew accustomed to the lifestyle change once they tasted the freedom and flexibility a home office afforded. Working parents enjoyed meeting children at the school bus. Others found more time for exercise, socializing and basking in nature once their jobs did not include long commutes. <\/p>\n
But after the pandemic subsided, many large companies began calling employees back into the office, creating fierce competition for jobs that could be done from anywhere. Many positions advertised as remote attract hundreds, if not more than a thousand, of applications, experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cFully remote is very rare now in the U.S.,\u201d said Mark Ma, associate professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh. \u201cIt is getting much more difficult and you need to look for the smaller firms or medium-sized firms … and those firms do not provide as competitive financial packages as the big firms, but they try to attract talent by providing more flexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n
About 9% of paid U.S. job postings on social networking platform LinkedIn in July offered remote work, while those types of roles attracted 37% of applications, according to the company.<\/p>\n
Below, employers and people who haven\u2019t returned to an office offer advice on how to land remote jobs in a competitive climate.<\/p>\n
Show your autonomy<\/p>\n
The biggest concern for an employer hiring remote workers is ensuring they will do their work, said Carla Rover, co-founder of Strategy and Content, a startup that leverages artificial intelligence. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have approached people with a schedule, saying, \u2018This is how much I create each day. This is how much I\u2019ve built in a period of time,\u2019\u201d said Rover, who mostly has worked remotely since 2010. Assembling a strong portfolio showcases what you can do while working outside an office, Rover advised.<\/p>\n
\u201cTime management and independence, being self-motivated, are really critical,\u201d said Toni Frana, career expert at FlexJobs, a platform dedicated to helping people find remote or flexible work.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve worked remotely before, highlight that on your resume. List communication tools you\u2019ve used, such as Slack or Microsoft Teams, said Dawn Fay, operational president at staffing firm Robert Half International. \u201cCall out that you have worked remotely, independently, for X amount of time successfully,\u201d Fay added. \u201cYou really want to stress that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stick with a role similar to your current job<\/p>\n
After moving on from the office job that made her miserable, Smith created a side hustle coaching other professionals who longed for a nomadic lifestyle. Her coaching eventually grew into a full-time job.<\/p>\n
When looking to transition into remote work, find a job that\u2019s similar to your current role instead of competing with better-qualified candidates for jobs that require more experience, she advised. \u201cGet your foot in the door … and then from there work your way to the long-term goal,\u201d Smith said. <\/p>\n
You can also try to convert your current job into a remote role. That\u2019s what Courtney Sandifer attempted after her husband, 60, had a heart attack and underwent cancer treatment within the same year. He retired early and they bought a small property in Mexico near the beach, hoping to reduce stress. \u201cWe just got tired of the rat race,\u201d Sandifer said. <\/p>\n
Sandifer, 44, loved her job working in video production in Houston. But she took a risk, telling her employer they were moving and she wanted to do her job remotely. The company agreed she could be a contractor but no longer a staff member. She lost her benefits, a big financial hit. <\/p>\n
But it was worth it to be able to edit video by a pool and to know she\u2019ll be able to visit her son in New Zealand, where he\u2019ll be attending college, without taking much time off from work, she said. \u201cIf you have kids, it\u2019s so much easier to be who you want to be with a remote job,\u201d Sandifer said. \u201cThat\u2019s what came into focus for me: How will my family be the happiest and healthiest in the long term? It may not be the most lucrative, but you have to consider your own mental health.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where remote jobs are growing<\/p>\n
Where you live matters. Europe and Australia have more remote jobs than the U.S., Ma said. Lawmakers in Victoria, Australia, have said they plan to introduce legislation that would give workers the legal right to work from home two days a week. <\/p>\n
Dozens of countries, including Thailand, Italy and Brazil, offer \u201cdigital nomad visas,\u201d which allow foreigners with remote jobs to stay and work for an extended period of time.<\/p>\n
Different industries and occupations are more conducive to the remote work scene. In the U.S., education, administrative and social media positions are the fastest-growing full-time remote jobs, while nursing, telehealth and licensed therapists are among the top titles for part-time remote work, according to Frana at FlexJobs.<\/p>\n
Smith said she sees opportunities to find remote jobs in marketing, product management, sales, human resources, talent acquisition, software development, engineering, customer support, data analysis and financial services.<\/p>\n
Read the fine print<\/p>\n
PJ Hruschak, 54, has been looking for remote work in web design, writing or editing since he was downsized from a full-time job two years ago. He lives outside Cincinnati and wants to avoid commuting and be able to work from home when his 9-year-old daughter is sick.<\/p>\n
But often when he finds jobs advertised as remote, he reads further into the description to learn the employer wants candidates to live in a particular city or be available to work in the office several days per week. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely frustrating,\u201d Hruschak said. \u201cIt almost feels like it\u2019s a waste of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Search aggressively<\/p>\n
For Francesca Conti, an investor who works in venture capital, working remotely from London for a Swiss company has allowed her to travel internationally and visit extended family in the U.S. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe opportunities are out there, but they\u2019re very few and far between,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Conti recommends attending industry or alumni events to meet contacts who can help in the search. <\/p>\n
\u201cEven though you want a remote opportunity, those relationships need to be made in person. They can\u2019t be made remotely,\u201d Conti said. \u201cRemote opportunities are very unique in nature, so just be even more aggressive in the search and understand that it might take a little bit more time, but my experience has been highly worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bussewitz writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Kate Smith worked a 9-to-5 office job, she was burned out, suffering from daily migraines and thinking,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129931,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[45,49,48,66828,5379,3910,71162,2151,7477,124,66825,3702,71161,54222,40871,71160,7479,178,12386],"class_list":{"0":"post-129930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-courtney-sandifer","12":"tag-employer","13":"tag-flexibility","14":"tag-flexjobs","15":"tag-home","16":"tag-job","17":"tag-jobs","18":"tag-kate-smith","19":"tag-many-people","20":"tag-office-job","21":"tag-opportunity","22":"tag-remote-job","23":"tag-remote-work-boom","24":"tag-time","25":"tag-u-s","26":"tag-worker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}