Remote work

I have recently found myself looking into changing careers. Post-pandemic circumstances have made me look into working with something completely different than I do today. I’ve felt my urge to travel rise and I am getting fed up with the ”Karens” that have evolved over the last two (or so) years and who I interact with on a daily basis. So I’ve been looking into starting working with something remotely.

Now, first of all, being a 50-something dude whos ways are starting to set root deep in the ground, this has felt a little bit intimidating and overwhelming but doing research always makes me feel good. I’ve started looking into different ways I could make this come true. And there seem to be a lot of ways to start a remote career, even for us, that are no longer at the start of our working life. I haven’t landed a job yet, but after looking at what is out there, I feel pretty confident that I will eventually land a job soon and start off a new chapter of my life. My own preconceptions of how recruiting and onboarding is done, have gotten in the way, a little. Remote first companies of now, are more interested in good interpersonal matchings than your actual CV. Unless it’s a very specific job, that needs to be done, then you’ll need a very specific, and often proven, skillset.

For me, right now, it has been more of a journey to determine what I want to do and what skills I actually bring to the table, when looking for a job. How the job will get done, is something that is the least of my concerns. I already know I can focus on a task for a long time, as long as I remember to eat and drink water, spending hours in front of a screen, writing, researching, booking, replying to messages, and such, is not a problem in my case. I’ve come to the conclusion that I really want to do something that involves writing vast amounts of text, doing online research, and things like that. Copywriter comes to mind but for that, one usually needs a lot of experience but I’ve at least looked into it.

Looking at the picture above, one might think that a beach office sounds nice. Yes, it does, even for me. But what would it do to productivity? It would be far too easy to drift away to the view and the ocean would probably lure me in more than once a day and, let’s face it, that is not too good if you actually need to meet a deadline. On occasion, absolutely, but not full-time. At least not for me.

I’ve read about a gazillion blog entries, How-tos, tutorials, and hands-down ”expert” ways how to land a remote job. And while all of them have been helpful in forming my own outline, they are always very…eeeh…. well, general. I get that all of them use SEO and clickable content to drive traffic, I really do. I also use SEO and keywording here, to drive traffic to my little corner of the internet. Of course, I do. But it makes me wonder a little bit. Why isn’t there a really good tutorial on the whole process? Should I write one? Am I experienced enough? Will anyone take me seriously, since I actually haven’t landed a job yet? I don’t count a few freelance gigs, I’ve recently done. Maybe I should.

Now, where am I going with this? Well, first and foremost I wanted to make an update since I haven’t posted in a while and this post is not one that has been sitting in my drafts drawer (I have fifteen or so drafts waiting for a final polish) but came to me while I was browsing remote.co looking for newly listed jobs.

When it comes to my own search, I’ve realized that I should probably learn how to code. Ruby on rails, Javascript, PHP, and such are in really high demand out there. Does anyone know of any courses? If I, for now, exclude coding I’ve come to the conclusion that I would make an excellent virtual assistant, be a star at support and happiness managing, or even sales. I am looking into all of those, as well as lending my voice to do some voice acting, and AI building/machine learning.

This is just the beginning of my journey in the field and I am sure I will identify other skills that will let me explore other options and perhaps lead me down paths I’ve not yet considered. I feel confident I will update this soon and perhaps even write more about the topic. For now, I am done.

You all have a great week.