How to find a remote job with the remote job club
As you might imagine, people ask me every single day how to land a remote job. They're feeling desperate because they've been shackled to an office, or just recently called back post-pandemic and they need to find remote work asap.
They're overwhelmed at the number of resources and the little time they have, and they don't know where to start.
They're frustrated from sending out applications and getting completely ignored and confused because they don't know what they're doing wrong and getting no feedback.
They're discouraged because constant rejection is causing them to expect failure and the doubt makes them think they should quit altogether.
And if any of the above feelings sound familiar, you're not alone, in fact, this is a much more normal experience of a remote job seeker than you might imagine.
And I'm here today to tell you exactly how to solve these issues and present you with a solution that’s helping my clients land remote jobs faster than me eating flapjacks at the buffet line.
5 Biggest Mistakes to Finding a Remote Job
Let's start first with mistakes I see job seekers making, and as I go through these, think about how they might be impacting you.
Not Having a Strategy That Works
We never learned how to job search, let alone remote job search, and with the world so different now, you're not going into a career fair to hand out your resume. Everything is virtual, and most people have no idea where to start.
When most job seekers open their computers, they are guessing what to do. This often means scanning through remote job listings on remote job boards. Page after page of scouring. This is not a strategy.
This creates what I call a Reactive vs. Proactive search strategy. If you're spending most of the time scanning through job listings, it’s impossible to be forward-thinking. Instead of putting time into high-level strategic moves, like building relationships and targeting specific companies you want to work for, you’re holding out your metaphorical hand saying “what jobs do you have for me today?”
Underutilizing Your Online Presence
You have a personal brand whether you like it or not. It's up to you to create your own online presence and help contribute to what others think of you. Every single recruiter or hiring manager who is considering you for an interview will look you up beforehand.
A job search is a marketing exercise where you're selling yourself. You’re the solution to these companies' problems, but many job seekers I talk to don't have their LinkedIn updated or have no idea what to insert to target the types of positions they're looking for.
Without this, you look like everyone else. When companies search you and don't find anything, or don't find anything unique, you end up having no inherent competitive advantage when it comes time to apply or be compared to other candidates.
Not Leveraging Your Network and Connections
Not knowing how to network isn't an excuse for not doing it. It’s the most important part of this process for skipping the line of resumes and applications. I always recommend to my clients they have at least one conversation with someone at a company they're applying to BEFORE applying and I have many clients who haven't applied for even one job because they leveraged relationships to get the interview rather than just sending in a cold application. I'll link to the testimonials here so you can listen to some of their stories.
Don’t network only when you need something. It’s a great way to annoy people. There's a book by Harvey Mackay called, “Dig your well before you're thirsty." I love this saying because if you provide value to your network and focus on creating real relationships before you need something from them, you'll be set for life.
This strategy is two parts. The first is leveraging your current network and tapping into the capacity of the people you already know from past experiences. The second is expanding your network to new communities... yes, it will be awkward at first. But, you can learn how to get better since relationship building is a skill you can learn.
Not Organizing Your Job Search Effectively
Without keeping track of what you’re doing it’s impossible to measure progress. Using a spreadsheet that you half-ass update and end up giving up on completely is not a strategy for organizing your job search
Without organization and efficiency job seekers end up targeting roles and companies that aren't a good fit. Spending 15 minutes every few days blast out dozens of easy applies isn’t a proper way of organizing a search.
Follow-up is a mandatory part of the job search. You need to be a polite pest with busy recruiters and hiring managers. But if you have no ability to recall where you’ve applied and who you’ve talked to, you won’t be able to properly follow up.
Not Receiving Feedback and Accountability
Companies are not in the business of giving you feedback. As mentioned in the last section, they are busy -- with their own jobs, with hundreds of other applications, and sending out customized feedback of what every job seeker is doing wrong is not going to happen.
Without real feedback, you can never know what you're doing wrong. You may end up changing something that actually hurts your chances even more without knowing it.
Without having any accountability to getting tasks done in your job search, it’s easy to continue to procrastinate. And, especially when a job seeker doesn’t know what they are doing, they’ll be met with a ton of resistance from their own minds on why they should keep putting it off.
introducing The REmote Job club
Now that I've gone over the mistakes let's go over some solutions. I created a subscription membership called The Remote Job Club that helps job seekers with the tools, coaching, and resources to land a remote job in spite of all these things I've mentioned.
I want to preface by saying I have a ton of free resources on my site too, and The Remote Job Club does have a free version.
For those looking for extra help and know that by investing in themselves, they will do better and ultimately become successful in their search, The Remote Job Club might be a fit for you. Learn more about all the features and benefits here: