Where to Find IT Remote Jobs

Over the past two years, the pandemic has revolutionized our day-to-day activities, especially when it comes to our jobs. While in 2019, only about 2% of Americans were working from home, that number has skyrocketed. Today, according to a new McKinsey survey, “three to four times as many people are working from home than before the pandemic.”

Additionally, a recent study by Buffer revealed that 99 percent of people surveyed would like to work at least some of the time remotely.

It has never been easier to find remote work. Not only have remote workers achieved the same level of productivity, but for many companies, this new way of working has also significantly lowered costs in terms of office supplies, space, and utilities.

IT has become one of the most popular industries for remote work, mainly because the demand for developers and other IT specialists far outweighs the local offer in several countries, which led many companies to look for talent in the rest of the world.

Learn how to find remote work, the best work from home websites, and more below.

Where to Find Remote Jobs Online

Whether you are looking for a full-time, part-time, or freelance remote job, opportunities are available everywhere. Here are some of the best websites to find remote jobs:

Remote Job Boards

There are a significant number of websites dedicated to only offering remote jobs, including:

  • We Work Remotely: Every day, between 1 and 5 new job posts are posted on each category.
  • FlexJobs: whether you are looking for positions in the U.S. or outside, this can be a great tool to help the search.
  • Working Nomads: if you are looking for jobs that allow you to work from virtually anywhere, this might be the right site for you.
  • Remote OK: filter positions by recruiters, level, and industry easily and find the right job for you.
  • Angellist: if you are interested in working for a startup, this is the perfect place to jumpstart your search.

If you are wondering specifically about where to find remote developer jobs, here are a few sites that provide job opportunities for developers, whether it’s mobile, for specific technologies like Ruby on Rails, or more:

If you are looking for freelance opportunities, there are also several different work from home job sites you can sign on to match with companies, including:

Keep in mind that you will access the type of projects and money depending on the platform you sign on to. Sites such as Fiverr and Upwork don’t have a client screening process and have a bigger pool of professionals that can match any project, which means you’ll have more competition, and you might need to lower your rate to get the job you want.

When applying for remote positions, pay special attention to how the postings mention remote work, since some limit the offer to a specific country. This often happens with U.S. jobs that generally put “US Remote” when the job is limited to remote workers living in the U.S. Make sure to check before customizing your cover letter and CV for the offer.

Linkedin

Linkedin has become an invaluable resource to find work. Not only can you create specific alerts to find relevant job offers locally, regionally or internationally, but you can also join groups that provide useful information or job offers that are not being published in job sites or in Linkedin jobs.

Depending on the type of development you specialize in (back-end, front-end, full stack), the language or languages you are interested in or best at and the place you are looking for a job in, among other criteria, you can filter the different groups available and ask to join the ones that will benefit you the most.

Improving your Linkedin profile is key to getting noticed. Make sure your experience and skill level are reflected, as well as your education and any new courses you may have recently taken. Work on your summary to make sure it reflects your career goals and interests, and make sure to take advantage of keywords strongly related to the job opportunities you are interested in getting. For this, you can research different job offers and see which words appear more frequently in the descriptions, and incorporate them into your description.

Company websites

If you are interested in working for any specific company, make sure to check their website regularly, as many of them don’t publish their openings on other sites, only on their own.

If you want to send your CV for companies to keep in their databases, remember to always adapt your CV to the company, their culture, the skills they value in their developers and which technologies or languages they focus on.

How Can You Improve Your Chances of Getting a Remote Job

Getting a remote job not only means that the way in which you perform your tasks will differ from an in-person position, but also that the process for getting a remote job will also be different. You will need to adapt your CV and portfolio to get your point of view and personality across as well, which can require an additional amount of effort.

Competition for remote jobs is also high, especially now with the pandemic, where most people have gotten used to working from afar and are comfortable with this new way of working. This means that you need to adapt your resume for the type of work you want. The more specific your resume is for that one position, they more likely it is that you will qualify for the interview process.

If you are interested in applying for a full stack position, you will need to adjust your skills and experience to positions and technologies that relate best to the job you are aiming for. Make sure to add the type of job you are applying for in your mission statement so that it has a more clear connection.

Building the right portfolio should also be important for anyone looking for a remote development job. Make sure you highlight the projects that are more related to the position you want to apply for. This might mean you need to create specific projects in your free time to show your skill set in a language or technology specific to the job offer and company you are sending your portfolio to. Make sure the project highlights your skills and the level of knowledge required to complete it.

Preparing For an Online Interview

Questions may vary from interview to interview, but they will generally be related to your problem-solving skills, how you balance your work and your personal life and how you generally communicate with others in your team and in the rest of the company. You will also need to prove how well you can fit with the company environment and culture.

Some of the most frequent questions are:

  • Describe your communication style.
  • What tools do you use to collaborate?
  • How do you plan on scheduling your work?
  • How would you go about solving conflict or disagreement with a person in your team or with the team as a whole?
  • Are you able to stay motivated without having an in-person supervisor?
  • If you have an urgent problem that needs solving and the rest of your team is offline, how would you manage that?
  • Mention recent challenge/s you had in your work and how you overcame it/them.

In terms of which questions you should make sure to ask the interviewer, try to ask about:

  • Time zone differences with the rest of the team/company.
  • Communication within the team.
  • Feedback and peer review processes.
  • Onboarding process, if any.
  • Expectations for the job.

In terms of preparation, make sure to dress professionally and be mindful of the space you are interviewing from. This means good lighting so that the interviewer can see you clearly, free of any distractions so you can focus on the questions and convey to the interviewer that your workspace is calm and helps you focus.

Also, make sure you download the software in advance and test everything you will need to communicate (speakers or headphones, microphone, etc.) to avoid testing it at the time of the interview and running into any kind of problem.

Key Takeaways

Knowing where to search for remote jobs is essential to get started, but so is knowing the steps you will need to complete during the hiring process to capture the attention of the interviewer (recruiter, HR representative, team leader, etc.) and how you can better position yourself over the competition.

Consider our useful tips and prepare accordingly to get the remote job you want!