As you wait impatiently in line for your mislabeled coffee cup (you’re already going to be 20 minutes late to the office), take a step back and think: THIS could be your office. You could skip the commute, bring your laptop and charger, and power through your to do list from anywhere, wherever you are.
Working remotely – whether from home, Starbucks, or another creative place – is booming. A Virgin Media Business survey recently predicted that 60% of office-based employees will regularly work from home by 2022. And a separate survey featured inThe Guardian found that ⅓ of employees think commuting will be unheard of by 2036.
But, that’s the future and this is today, you say to yourself. You don’t have the skills or the resources to find a gig that would give you that kind of flexibility. That’s for 20-somethings working on a startup who code in hoodies, or stay-at-home moms who work as part-time assistants.
Wrong! In fact, completely wrong. The typical remote employee is a 40-something college graduate earning nearly $60,000 a year at a company with 100+ employees, according to the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey.
If working remotely tickles your fancy, check out this list of 25 great sites for finding remote work.
Remote-Work Specific
FlexJobs has over 50 career categories, with jobs ranging from freelance to full-time, entry-level to executive. The best part? They screen the jobs before posting, so you don’t have to dig through shady opportunities. The site currently hosts more than 20K job listings including part-time and freelance opportunities!
Sponsored by Remote, the book by famed 37Signals founders, this job board is a catch-all of remote jobs from customer service to web design to programming. With the catchy subtag “Office not required,” and the cache of the 37Signals brand behind it, this site is sure to host remote opportunities at some of the hottest tech companies.
WorkingNomads (formerly goRemotely) delivers a curated list of remote jobs right to your inbox. Choose daily or weekly emails to make the remote job search come to you.
Instead of focusing on contract jobs, Staff.com features primarily long-term telecommuting jobs in a range of industries from persional assistants to programming. Choose to work either 80 hours a month (part-time) or 160 hours a month (full-time), and the site recruiters start matching you with employers!
With a great name, a great resources tab (listing authors to follow and sites to check for help in the remote job world), and a decent listing of remote jobs, this site is true to its eponymous mission. Use what the site provides, you can completely skip that ugly morning commute.
This job board features only telecommuting jobs from technical writers to paralegals. Started by a stay-at-home mom frustrated with the job search for legitimate remote jobs, the company is still run by an entirely remote team. Plus, the blog has great tips, such as a recent article on how to take on a remote gig for the holiday season.
Tech
The job board for web professionals. Just click the “wireless logo” (you’ll recognize it) and filter by remote jobs. Beautifully designed and easy to use, as you’d expect from a job board for creatives and developers!
Dribble is a great site for designers to find their next gig. There’s a location tab right on top where you can click “remote / anywhere” and be off to the races finding your next work-from-home gig.
Always dreamed of working for a startup, but don’t live in a startup city hub? Head over to AngelList, a top site for startup jobs. When you search for a job on AngelList, click on “Job Type” and choose “Remote OK.”
Stack Overflow is a go-to jobs board for many top tech talent, especially web developers. Type in “remote” in the location field and you’ll bring up a list of more than 2,000 jobs that fit the bill.
A job board entirely dedicated to Ruby developers. Once you graduate from the Web Developer Blueprint, and watch Adda’s video on how to get hired as a Ruby Developer, head on over and get to work landing a remote gig here.
Freelance and Contract
Focused on connecting top-tier former consultants with short-term engagements for high impact corporations, the SkillBridge model is taking the traditional consulting world by storm. As a consultant, you can focus on only remote work and only on projects (and with clients) you are passionate about. Whether you bring e-mail marketing expertise or are a whiz at building financial models, the SkillBridge site and model is a remote-worker-dream-come-true.
With jobs starting at just $5 a pop, Fiverr is an amazing site to find your first gigs and build up a portfolio FAST. The site focuses on “gigs” or “micro-jobs,” such as editing an image in photoshop, designing a Facebook ad, or brainstorming SEO-rank-worthy article titles.
oDesk features remote jobs in a suite of categories: from virtual assistants to mobile app developers. A little something extra to sweeten the deal: oDesk claims that more than 1 million companies, from Pinterest to OpenTable, use the site to hire remote freelancers.
With the tagline “Work Your Way,” Guru allows freelancers to build profiles with portfolios of work. Employers find your profile, or search/apply for jobs. The homepage features a wide range of roles from WordPress Developers to Logo Designers.
More than 300K programmers and more than 200K designers use Elance to connect with remote job opportunities. Microsoft, Cisco, and Mozilla are just a few of the companies hiring contract workers on Elance.
Claiming to be “The World’s Largest Outsourcing Marketplace,” Freelancer.com is chock full of remote freelancing gigs. With over 13 million users, it features jobs for PHP developers, content writers, and web designers alike. Make a profile and start bidding on jobs!
Search thousands of IT projects that are remote, and almost always contract. This site has a global reach with projects at companies from Holland to Spain to Ohio!
General
With a gorgeous user interface and fun-to-explore information about all the companies and jobs they feature, The Muse makes the job search easy. Search for the content features on the site that highlight remote opportunities, such as 7 Companies That Let You Work From Home.
One of the most robust job boards you can find, Indeed pulls data from around the internet and around the world to bring together jobs. From Product Marketers to a “Technology Productivity Consultant,” Indeed’s 2K+ remote jobs run the gamut.
For those who have always wanted to work on public health in Africa, or economic development in India, but weren’t willing to uproot from your friends, family, and country, Idealist.org has the opportunities for you. You can filter all of your searches by selecting “remote” in the location category.
The Career Builder jobs site is the largest online employment website in the United States! Type in “telecommute” or “remote” as a keyword and find more than 9K part-time, contract, and full-time jobs from brands like Forever 21 Inc, Xerox, and Univision.
The first name you think of when you hear the words “job board,” Monster does indeed host a plethora of remote jobs. From remote customer service opportunities to remote user experience designers, there are plenty of options if you’re willing to sift.
Direct Selling
Note: I’d be remiss not to mention the amazing opportunities afforded by direct selling, also known as multi-level marketing. There is real opportunity with these types of jobs to work from home (or anywhere) and make an income. These companies often require upfront buy-in, so be sure to properly evaluate the opportunity before you jump in.
A few of my favorites:
24. Beauty: Avon
Perhaps the best-known and most-storied of the direct-selling opportunities, Avon has built an incredible business on the “Avon Lady Model.” Sell Avon beauty products, from lotion to lip gloss, to your friends and neighbors in exchange for the freedom of setting your own hours and working from home. Mary Kay is another skincare and makeup company that offers the opportunity to build your own business in this way.
This jewelry company has a “flexible entrepreneurship” model for stylists: host in-home or online trunk shows to display jewelry to friends. Flexibility and stye in one! If this doesn’t fit your style, there are several jewelry companies providing this type of remote job opportunity including Chloe & Isabel and Trend Tribe.