During the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ve seen a major shift to remote work. Although for many of us it was forced, the surveys show that more than half of Americans would prefer to continue doing their jobs from home even after the pandemic is over. And there is no wonder why so many people are looking for this change.
Indeed, after getting the taste of freedom, it’s hard to go back. Thus, the desire to deploy your professional skills in the online environment is quite natural. But, what to be ready for if you become a remote employee? What benefits and challenges are there that you may not have noticed yet? And, most importantly, how to land a job as a remote employee?
In this article, we are going to answer all these questions and give you some tips that will help you get employed. Let’s dive in!
Getting a Remote Job: Benefits and Challenges
If you have already made up your mind, the chances are that you are already well aware of the benefits. Let’s quickly recap them here.
So, working online has the following benefits:
- Better work-life balance.
- Higher productivity.
- Reduced cost of transportation.
- Lesser carbon footprint.
- More savings.
- Healthier lifestyle.
- Ability to manage your workload.
Despite all the benefits of working from home, as always, there are also certain cons. Namely, switching to the remote work model can bring along the following challenges:
- Lack of networking.
- It is harder to get organized.
- It is harder to retain motivation.
- Communication gaps.
- Workflow management-related challenges.
Of course, we wouldn’t argue with the fact that these challenges look too small if you consider all the perks of being able to work from home. Still, there is one more stumbling point, which most people find the most challenging – it is landing your first job.
How to Land Your First Online Job: Top 6 Tips
So, you decided to take your career online, what’s next? Find the best job-winning tips below.
Start With Your Resume
A resume plays the biggest role in one’s job application. It doesn’t really matter if you are doing a traditional job search or an online one – first of all, you need to craft a winning resume to ensure success.
Needless to say that the rules for writing resumes for traditional and online roles can differ. Thus, the first thing to do is to re-think your resume and tailor it to the needs of your potential employers. If you are not sure how to write a good resume, here are some key tips to keep in mind:
- Put the key details to the top.
- Make it good-looking and easy to read.
- Forget about including your address.
- Start your resume with a brief overview of the main accomplishments, skills, and work experience.
- Put your experiences section before education, unless you lack experience.
- Quantify your professional achievements.
- Use job-related keywords to make sure your resume is easy to find for a recruiter and that it’s visible for the applicant tracking system (ATS).
- Use action verbs.
- Always tailor your resume to the job description.
Create a LinkedIn Profile
If you don’t know where to start your search, start it on LinkedIn. Today, this platform is without a doubt one of the best career resources available out there. The platform hosts over 55 million companies and has 10+ million open jobs.
Besides, according to stats, as many as 87% of recruiters use this social network to recruit specialists from a variety of industries. Thus, this platform is a perfect place to reach out to recruiting firms and send out your applications.
Pro Tip: If you fill out your LinkedIn profile right and use relevant keywords, you can get lots of job offers even without physically looking for them.
Use the Right Sites
If you don’t feel like LinkedIn can really help you or if it doesn’t bring the desired results, you should also try using special sites that list location-independent opportunities. A few sites to look at are Skip The Drive, Remote.co, Flexjobs, Remote OK, and similar.
Search by Company
Another effective tactic for your job search is to discover the companies that are looking for remote specialists and take it from there.
How do you find such companies? Typically, when a company is willing to employ remote staff and has certain open positions, it will be indicated so on its corporate website. Thus, if there are any companies that you are particularly interested in, go ahead and check their websites for any information.
However, if you don’t have any specific companies in mind, you can go another way and save lots of time. Many blogs, as well as job search sites, publish lists of companies that are hiring remotely to help job seekers discover the available opportunities. You can check out such lists to see if there is anything interesting for you.
Follow Up!
One more tip we’d like to give you is to always follow up on the positions you are interested in the most. You should remember that the competition is high regardless of whether it is an online or office vacancy and an applicant who follows up has higher chances of being noticed.
Be Ready for the Interview
One thing you should remember – your work doesn’t stop when you find a suitable opportunity and apply, and even after you follow up. Just like it is with traditional positions, you will have to nail the job interview in order to get hired.
When you land an interview for a remote job, be ready that it will be somewhat different from any other interview you’ve had (or heard of). Most often, there will be no face-to-face interview. Instead, a hiring manager will arrange an interview over the phone or video call.
Here are a few tips to get ready and engage the recruiter:
- Ensure your technology works fine.
- Be proactive and show a positive attitude.
- Highlight your key skills in the conversation.
- Prepare for possible questions in advance.
- Practice!
These are the main tips that will help you land your first job. Put them into practice and get ready for success!
