Jordan Hammond
I have been working (mostly) remotely since March 2017. This started as an email I sent to a 22-year-old fresh out of college who asked me “what type of job do you have that allows you to just travel anywhere?”. I wrote it back in 2018 (before Covid and the massive shift to remote work) and forwarded it to around 24 people who have asked me some variation of “how can I get into remote work?”. And, well, I figured I could make it a blog post. Enjoy!
A blog post by WiFi Tribe (a group I’ve traveled with for a few years) on the subject. Seriously, this post is fantastic and will be a lot better at explaining this than I will:
Best Remote Jobs and Careers for Remote Workers (2020 Edition) | WiFi Tribe
“Since the release of this article, we’ve created lots of resources we think you’ll find useful and have linked them…wifitribe.co
Common remote-work professions that I think you could pick up the skillset for in less than six months:
- Writing. This means copywriting, ghostwriting, blogging, being an author, and probably other things. Ghostwriting is probably the most common and the most lucrative. So much is ghostwritten. One of my friends is a ghostwriter for one of the top people at The Atlantic. Like, someone whose job is to write. For real. It’s everywhere.
- Marketing. A very easy thing to do remotely but the market is somewhat glutted. The barrier to entry would probably be more difficult than writing.
- Software engineering. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to pick it up but if you haven’t, you could always try and see if you like it. If you don’t find it interesting or enjoyable, then it would be very hard to go from zero to proficient in six months. The same is probably true for marketing and writing but I only have experience with software. There’s a lot of people who try to pick it up and only moderately enjoy it and for most of them, it doesn’t go anywhere. The market isn’t incredibly competitive once you’re at the junior-mid level. But it’s incredibly glutted with people trying it out and trying to get their first gig.
- Content Strategy. Sometimes known as “UX Content Strategy” and usually combined with “UX Writing”. This is a very interesting field because it requires a psychology background or at least an understanding of psychology. This profession is about helping to make content usable and into a branded story. It’s a fairly new field that I expect to continue to outgrow its labor pool over the next 10 or so years. And because it’s new, it means you can get in on the “ground floor” and won’t be competing against people with 5+ years of experience. It’s a somewhat “vague” category/profession but it really pairs well with SEO, marketing, and other app/site-creation services. Lastly, it’s just plain fun to learn about! A great example of this profession in action can be found here: https://www.avoagency.com/.
That six months though is contingent upon you putting in the equivalent of a 40-hour workweek for 6 months.
An incredibly comprehensive list of remote job sites:
Here are my favorite ones:
Places where you can filter for remote jobs:
Freelancing resources:
Remote specific jobs:
https://www.itsatravelod.com/find-remote-jobs
For you specifically:
So you’re in a position where you’re going to be looking for your first professional job. It’s not going to be easy to start working remotely right now or in your first year. But it’s definitely not impossible either.
You have four options for getting started:
1. Go to a “boot camp”
This is my favorite option. There are a lot of private tech schools in the United States (and worldwide) that label themselves as “boot camps” or some other catchy name like that. Basically, the idea is that they will compress the most important parts of a tech education into a 12–24 week program. Afterward, you theoretically have the equivalent of a 4-year degree in that field. They usually have part-time and online, do-it-as-you-can options. However, I only have experience with the full-time, boot camp type of setting.
This is what I did to get my first job in software. I worked at the boot camp before I went through it as a student so I really do understand how to do these properly and not waste your money.
The skills you will get are almost always relevant in the industry. But most importantly, upon graduation, you will be placed into their network and maybe even their job pool. The network will be very helpful because you’ll have your fellow students who will likely reach out about job openings or freelance possibilities, especially if you worked hard during the course. The job pool would be opportunities that the admin/instructors pass down to their better students from their network or the school’s network. This by itself is worth the money. You’ll almost always at least have leads. It’s hard to put a price on just knowing someone that is currently hiring for your skillset.
Because I have experience as a student and employee, I can tell you that if you just work really hard while you’re there, it will pay dividends. Most students talk a big game about how hard they work but they usually don’t. If you commit to being (almost) completely dedicated to the school for those ~12 weeks, you’ll do better than most of your peers and likely end up with work coming out of the school.
You can easily find these schools by googling “[profession] boot camp”. For example, if you type in “Content Strategy boot camp”, this is the first result and a great option (General Assembly is legit): https://generalassemb.ly/education/content-strategy-bootcamp/san-francisco.
Here are some more bootcamp examples:
- https://generalassemb.ly/browse/courses-and-classes?immersive=true
- https://flatironschool.com/our-courses/
- https://bootcamp.unc.edu/digitalmarketing/
2. Start freelancing
There are a lot of freelancing options out there. As I mentioned above, you can go into many different fields such as writing, marketing, virtual assisting, etc. But you’ll have to start small and not get paid much. I’m talking like $15–20/hour or something. That may not sound bad but none of it is taxed initially and you have to provide everything else on your own. Furthermore, you’ll be doing “free work” all the time. Namely, trying to get and retain new clients. That takes a decent amount of time and you can’t really bill a client for the time you spent trying to win their business.
Also, there’s the issue of getting enough work. Sometimes you’ll get 50 hours a week, sometimes you’ll go for two weeks with zero hours of work. It can be perilous.
But… if you’re freelancing, you can pretty much work anywhere. And that’s the tradeoff. You’ll get paid more and have more stability with option one but option two affords you the ability to start working remotely right now.
After about two years of freelancing, you’ll have a good client base and you should be able to charge people somewhere in the $40 — $75/hour range. It’ll just take time and you’ll have to deliver quality work along the way. By year three (and assuming you’ve done a good job), you’ll likely be turning away clients. You’ll also likely not have to actively search out clients because most of your work will be referral based.
Speaking of writing (again), you can absolutely get paid really well doing this. I have a friend (different friend) who’s no genius by any means. She has an English degree from the University of Pittsburgh. But she charges clients $120/hour for her writing (she writes the professional research papers that you think a team of professors wrote about their findings).
She’s a year younger than me. She didn’t really have a strategy, she just kind of got apathetic for a year and when she didn’t really want a client, she would just say she’s risen her rate by X dollars an hour. They always accepted the new rate or close to it. Because she wasn’t worried if she didn’t work with that client again, she also didn’t worry about asking for more money. She did this with a couple of clients and then used that new, higher rate to get new clients at that rate, then kind of did the same thing to them once she was ready to move on. I’m not saying she’s a paragon of freelancing excellence, I’m just saying that getting paid really well in a field like writing is possible.
Another good friend of mine read this email and gave me this little piece to add. She has built her own marketing agency while working remotely.
Freelancing Top Tip: Reach out to agencies and offer to freelance for them (marketing, SEO, design, PR etc). It’s a win-win as agencies like the safety net of having a flexible workforce, but they’re also pretty good at finding new clients if they lose one (they have trained salespeople for that), so if you’re doing a great job, the work will filter down to you without you having to worry about finding a new client if you lose one. Plus, you only have one client to answer to (the agency), but you get work from all of their clients. This minimizes the time you have to spend communicating with clients, which is considered the annoying “non-revenue generating activity” that freelancers hate.
3. Start in a support, customer service, or entry-level role
These three YouTube videos go over some companies and roles that are almost always hiring that are remote. They usually pay well (something like $15-$30/hour) and don’t usually require any experience.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfrhsml42j4
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaXaKQcC6WE
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHyaeAaTToc
This is a great way to get your foot in the door of remote work. You’ll be able to show people in the future that you have already successfully worked remotely. And you may end up liking the company and then can stay with them and get promoted into new roles.
4. Work through a recruiting agency
A recruiting agency’s job is to get you a job. They usually have a large network of companies that are always hiring and expect the recruiting agency to send them applicants.
I think some of them, and their recruiters, do come off as quite sleazy. That is a downside. But the upside is they also already have connections for roles you could be a fit for and they’re going to try and sell you to the company. And working with them, they’ll help you filter down the jobs you should be applying for so it ends up being a more efficient process.
These agencies usually also help companies with temp work. Usually, a 1–6 month commitment where experience is not required. Just showing up and doing what’s asked is plenty. This is a great way to build up experience and a network without having to commit to a new job immediately. Furthermore, a lot of these companies might try to hire you full-time if you do a really good job.
This happened to a friend of mine who started at ~$12/hour doing secretarial work. She did a great job and after ~3 months, they hired her full-time and gave her a raise. She stayed with the company and took on more responsibilities and got promoted to “Regional Coordinator” within 2 years.
How it works:
- You reach out to multiple agencies. You can either do this by going to their website and finding the best way to contact them or applying to a job post on their site.
- They assign a recruiter to you and the recruiter has a call with you and if they feel like you’re a good candidate, they’ll try to get you some interviews. They might even “pre-interview” you to help prepare you.
- If you get offered a position somewhere and accept it, then usually the recruiting agency gives you your paychecks for the first 3–6 months. That’s so the company isn’t on the hook if you suck but also because the agency is taking a huge cut. You may have been offered the position at $14/hour but the agency is actually getting paid by the company at like $25/hour for each hour you work. So they’re taking $11/hour home which is usually how they make their money.
How do you find these agencies? Just use Google. Here are some searches you can do:
- “data entry job agencies”
- “temp remote job agency”
- “remote job agency entry level”
- “remote job agency no experience required”
- “temp job agency entry level”
See what pops up and follow those trails.
5. Get a salaried position with a remote company
This one will be very hard for you to do coming out of college. Not impossible. Just difficult. In the resources I mentioned above, you can find a bajillion companies that do this already. But most aren’t offering junior/entry-level positions. However, I don’t want to rule it out. If you can pull this off, then forget about options one and two because you’ve already made it!
Final thoughts:
1. If there’s a time to take a leap or plunge, it’s now. Unemployment is still really low in tech which means it’s our market to take advantage of. People need tech workers and they’ll likely let more slide (such as inexperience). This isn’t the time to be risk-averse.
2. Setup email notifications across the job-posting sites of your choice. Not only can you see what’s available the moment it hits but you can also do a search in your email for a company in the future. If they pop up in one of your email notifications, you’ll now know things like the last time a job was posted and if that company offers remote work. For example, maybe you apply to XYZ Media for a position a year from now. But you feel like you may have seen that they offered remote positions. Well, now you can search for XYZ Media and see if they ever appeared in one of your email notifications.
3. If you’re currently improving your skillset, freelancing part-time/doing part-time work, or just currently needing a job, I’d recommend that you apply for a job at a coworking space. You’ll be around a lot of people that work remotely so these jobs will provide a huge amount of networking. You don’t even really need to do anything special. Just work hard at whatever you’re doing, be nice, and people will notice. A lot of people would consider offering work to someone if they just know they’re hard-working and a good person. I can’t think of another part-time job that offers better networking than this. Furthermore, the people there are usually nice, independent, enjoy socializing and meeting people they don’t know, and just plain good at what they do. It’s fun to be in these spaces.
4. Read one of these two books: Deep Work or Strengths Finder. Deep Work is the greatest non-fiction book I have ever read. I believe that if you apply its principles, you will be able to learn any skill quickly and well and you will be able to produce great work in your profession. Strengths Finder will help you, well, find what you’re good at. This could really help you narrow down what kind of work you want to do and should do.