How do I keep myself sane while trying to find a WFH job?
Since pretty much the beginning of the year, I've been searching on-and-off for something WFH-related, but it feels like the only thing that ever calls me back is something that either defines itself as 'contract work', requires cold calling or sales (which is insanely stressful and comes with those good 'ol CommissionsTM!), or lists as remote but is actually hybrid.
I'm fine with tech support, customer support, data entry-- I just don't want a job that has "make your own hours!" or shift bids or whatever. And yet, I never hear back from anything that isn't either pseudo-telemarketing or something else that relies on commission in order to actually justify a viable living.
And don't get me started on the website applications. What in the fuck is the point of Indeed if every single major company just asks me to apply on their site afterwards, anyway? I already have all of this information, along with about 60 of those proficiency tests that are supposed to get me noticed, already filled out on Indeed. And even if I download my Indeed profile as a resume and upload it to another site, if I'm lucky it'll pull my previous employer's name and my job title. But that still means filling in contact information, references, and the whole shebang of everything else.
I've also tried to find something local that's not Remote, but unless I want something super-mega-corporate, full-time seems to be out of the picture.
So anyone have any suggestions? What do I do at this point? Indeed feels like how most people describe Tinder if you're a straight man, or finding a D&D group if you're not a DM.
Oh, as an aside: About 50% of WFH jobs seem to be related to medical in some way, and all of those require someone who already has experience in medical data entry or something already. How does that work? Ditto insurance companies, I guess.
Not to be harsh but I notice that:
a) you are bad at selling the skills you do have
b) folks are suggesting helpful advice and your reply reads like an excuse you’re making rather than a curiosity to learn more.
From your writing style / maturity of responses, I wouldn’t trust you to work from home.
I do think you are selling yourself super short though, basic data entry is not something anyone should be aiming for.
Either learn to code to the point you have marketable skills you can demonstrate in a technical interview, or get your industry standard IT certificates or a Project management certificate.
I'd go so far as to say I'm uncomfortable doing so. Especially in a public forum. Even just making a post to 'vent' about my job-hunting woes is very far outside of my comfort zone.
What do you mean?
When I'm typing on forums or in Discord or what-have-you, I try and keep my text informal and as similar in tone to the way I talk as I can. It's kind of how I've always been. And the maturity, in regards to what exactly?
I've been aiming for it because it feels like the only sort of thing I could actually reach at this point. Like I initially said, I'm probably over 150 applications deep in the last 2 months and I'm not seeing any real responses.
This is what I mean, it’s a justification or excuse for something, there’s not much curiosity or self reflection.
The other way to take the same comment is:
“ I have one more data point that says I’m bad at selling my skills on top of the pile of job applications so maybe I should figure out how to be better at this thing or adjust my approach”
And curiosity comes from asking questions and trying to relay your understanding back to the kind commenters in the thread.
“Like oh I have a bunch of applications that didn’t seem to work”
Reflecting on why that is?
is it your resume?
Is it your location is just not not hot for the jobs you want?
Is it competition (data entry is not really rare/valuable enough that employers need to offer remote)?
And then your options are:
Sell your skills better so someone knows you have something they want to pay for.
And/or
Get skills that someone wants to pay for.
Which I fully admit seems daunting when you are deep in a job search, so I’m sorry about that, job searching is stressful.
There is a video from "The Healthy Gamer" where he (a psychiatrist) interviews a man who is unsuccesfull at dating (don't worry, the title is mostly clickbait). It sounds like it won't apply here, but in that video the man also shows the same behaviour as you explain here (every failure is more proof of me sucking instead of bad luck or a learning oppurtunity). It taught me a lot about intellect and it's relation to self esteem. Might be worth a watch.
https://youtu.be/MPnWbj70TTY
I think you need to aim higher.
It sounds like you're coming across a lot of garbage jobs and recruiters trying to fill those garbage jobs. I would report any listing that says it's remote but is actually hybrid.
The unemployment rate is historically low right now. You should be able to find something. It might take a few months, but good jobs are out there. I switched to a full-time WFH job last year and my experience with Indeed and LinkedIn was relatively painless except for the recruiters who'd cold call.
Pick a few of your best skills and base your searches around those. Look at jobs a level or two up from where you are now. And if you have to take something super mega corporate in order to eat, do it. You can always jump ship and you can just exclude it from your resume if you wind up being there a suspiciously short time.
Unfortunately, there's no way (that I know of?) to filter out certain jobs. If I could remove anything that mentioned medical, I would in a heartbeat. All of it requiring medical experience or a medical degree or something is just exhausting to scroll through.
I've been trying to lead with "I type very fast and know how to turn on a computer" which already feels like it's two tiers above what most of the jobs I apply for are looking for. It just feels like the "good" WFH positions (IE data entry and things that aren't 100% customer service) are completely filled up, and the ones looking ask for a lot of experience and never respond.
I'd say in the past few months I've done well over 100 applications on Indeed alone, and god knows how many off-site where I have to manually fill everything in.
It gets exhausting when I apply for ADT WFH, fill out everything, do their pseudo personality test, and then have to spend 10 minutes using a webcam to record answers to questions, only to still not even get a "hey, we're going with someone else" email.
If you're comfortable doing so, could you summarize your work experience and education in a sentence or two and are you in the USA?
My work experience is pretty much all various customer-facing roles, along with some mediocre-tier management (still customer-facing) where I did way more work than I was paid to do.
Generally when I apply for jobs or do first interviews or anything, I focus on the management experience I have and my willingness to go well beyond the scope of the job and do much of what was in my boss's job description.
And my formal education is an Associate's Degree that's not really worth the time I spent doing it. All that said, my practical skills and hobbies are all IT-related-- programming (though I've never finished a project), tech support (though technically zero experience because the only time I got paid for it was doing it freelance during college), web design (again, mostly hobby-related and designing a few small sites 10ish years ago that don't exist in any real capacity any more), etc. I feel like my most 'marketable' skill that's tangible and doesn't rely on either experience, certification, or a degree is typing ~140 WPM with ~98% accuracy.
And yeah, USA.
If you have the opportunity to get a bachelor's degree, I'd do that. Those mega-corporate local jobs might be willing to pay for your education.
But otherwise, I'd probably aim for an application support role somewhere. As in, the person who customers call when they need help with the software. The employer will train you so you'll develop some expertise and then later you'll have a choice as to whether you'd like to climb the ladder in support or hop over to a role where you'd apply that expertise more directly.
Right now it seems like you're looking at vague entry level or common-skill positions and you're finding them. If you know Excel or JavaScript or Tableau search directly for those terms. Look for your boss's job and apply for that. Reach a little. Let them tell you you're not qualified. And if any position says it requires a bachelor's degree, ignore that and apply anyway.
Do you have time on your hands to learn some technical skills? Maybe SQL and a little Python? Those are the most relevant languages for roles that only just barely touch programming. Since you say you have no professional experience there and limited hobby experience you could shoot for passing an interview for entry level analytics roles. Already knowing the basics (understanding functions, variable assigning, control flow, mutation, passing by reference vs. value) should make it possible to get started in those roles with just a little (less than 100 hours) self-directed learning beforehand.
I've been using Python on and off for about ten years now, actually. I just have no formal certifications or training and I haven't finished a project of even medium scope in that time.
It's just weird trying to apply to a job and say "hey, I know Python" with no relevant degree or evidence beyond "just trust me, bro".
Honestly, if you have the time I'd suggest doing some puzzles on a code challenge site, like exercism or leetcode or some other site, if you don't have the time or drive for a full personal project - having something tangible you can point to would help you get a foot in the door for at least a technical screen if you're trying to do a more code related job.
Do you have the ability to build something interesting you can talk about? Ideally something someone else wants - they don’t need to pay - it just needs to be clear you weren’t just fooling around.
Hey, I'm just trying to learn Python right now- I'm enrolled in a free course online that I chip away at every 2-3 weeks, but I mention it whenever I can because 1) it shows that I'm trying to improve my skill set and stay current 2) it's better than 'just trust me, bro' :)
I am also job hunting for something remote, and it is soul crushing. Hang in there. A recruiter just recommended I add keywords from every job description that I apply for to my resume, every single time. It's a giant PITA but apparently that's what it takes.
Why haven't you been able to finish a any python projects?
Be careful talking like this during an interview. As someone who does the hiring for my company, hearing a bunch of skills that you haven't followed through on is worse then just no skills. It comes off as an unwillingness to put effort into something.
Use the time you have to build a new skill, one that doesn't have a qualifier on it, something you can talk about in detail on the interview and show the interviewer that you understand it. That's one of the most important things in an interview, examples of completed tasks that you clearly understand.
I would look at more industry or ethos related job boards. I think part of the problem you're facing is one of scale. As an employer whenever I put out a new job post and I use something like Linkedin or Indeed or Monster I get an overwhelming number of applications. Too many to actually look at and the overwhelming majority of which don't meet actual job needs. There is just a ton of noise.
So I've taken to smaller job boards. I work in climate tech so I check places like climatebase or terrado. I usually have under 100 applicants with a much higher percentage of highly relevant, quality applicants. So a round about way to say I think you might have more success if you target smaller job board more focused on the type of work you want to do.
Although I suggested LinkedIn, I also think this is a better option. A long time ago when I worked in HR we'd easily get 1000 resumes for each job posting. And by targeting well known remote jobs your competition is now not just the closest cities to you but potentially your entire country.
10 years ago I would have said to conduct informational interviews (where you interview employers to determine what experience, skills, etc. they are looking for to learn about that company's work culture and use that information to update your resume and/or focus on acquiring the top demanded skills), but I have no idea if employers are willing to be interviewed these days.
There have been times where I've selected 20 (one time even 50) job postings and wrote down all the common requirements to help me write more impactful resumes and cover letters. And likewise it can be helpful to use some of the same wording in the posting in your resume to get a higher score by whatever program they may be using.
Heck now you could give ChatGPT the text from many similar jobs of interest and then have it report on the most common experience/skills/buzz words and then compare your resume and offer suggestions on how to make it more effective both for automated screeners as well as people.
The only other thing I can think of now is that I customized my resume for every job ad. To streamline this I basically had created a master resume filled with tables and rows (with borders not showing) where each row was one skill as I found it quicker to just delete the rows that weren't applicable to a specific job posting.
And I'd often change up my wording and resume style. Essentially I'd do A/B Split testing on employers. 25 companies might receive a chronological resume and 25 may receive a skills based resume. Or some would receive one example of a skill and others would receive a different wording. Some would have my full name and some would be my first initial then last name.
Basically repeating the same thing and expecting a different result didn't make sense to me so I'd change things up but anytime I got an interview, then I'd use what worked to better improve my resume template.
It's also helpful to figure out what differentiates you from the competition and include that on resumes/cover letters.
Anyway I haven't been in the career development field or taught in that field for over 10 years so I don't know if what I've said is still relevant now. At the least it may provide some ideas or spark some ideas of your own.
The best advice I could give you is to earn some type of certification that work from home employers look for. Especially if it’s in IT. I’m in project management and most of our jobs are now work from home. All of my colleagues work from home. I’m also a consultant and have never had a client that paid me less than 40 hours a week. Certifications are pretty easy to study for and for the most part are no super expensive. If you like the tech route check out dice.com and also keep your LinkedIn updated. Between Dice and LinkedIn I’ve not had to apply or look for a job.
I found my current job on WeWorkRemotely.com, which seemed (when I was looking, about 4.5 years ago) like it had a much better signal:noise ratio than most other sites.
Remote.io and AngelList may be your friend if you’re looking for startups. I’ve been working remotely for the better part of a decade, and unfortunately that first remote job is going to be significantly more painful to get than those afterward, but once you have some remote experience you’re golden. It’s all a numbers game though, good luck!
It feels like the average salary listing is north of $100k a year, and as somebody who has never even had a salary, I feel genuinely uncomfortable, like I shouldn't even be on that site.
I think you’re starting to sound exactly like the position I was in a year ago… I’d been in retail doing customer service for a few years, so my mental anchor point for salary was a bee’s dick above minimum wage.
I’m now working a position that’s paid ~AUD$75k, which is well above median.
I just didn’t realise how shitty pay really is for anything that’s close to entry level retail or hospitality, I reckon you can easily 1.5x your hourly rate (probably more than that) and walk into an office job with whatever experience you already have and they’ll still think they’re getting away with a steal.
As much as jobs at that price point might feel way out of your league, I’d say there’s nothing you have to lose except one more application that falls into the void, so go for it!
This feels like the part I'm stuck at, aha.
I suggest trying LinkedIn jobs. You can add a filter for just remote jobs and since the other filter options include hybrid and on-site, it's unlikely you'll get remote jobs that are actually hybrid jobs.
I don't know what country you are in but for my country (Canada), I see > 5K remote jobs and I confirmed that at least the first few at least are indeed remote only jobs and are not sales-related.
I had filtered on: remote, full time, part time, past week. As I didn't select volunteer that should mean all the jobs shown are paid. It may also help if you set the salary and/or the experience level to help focus your search. And you can also select job function, title, industry, specific companies, etc.
I think the main difficulty though is that by using any job site, it means you'll have lots of competition from other applicants. The best way to deal with that is if you can utilize anyone you know who could help get your resume in front of an actual manager at their company. LinkedIn can be useful to show you any 1st/2nd person connections at a company you are targeting whom you could ask for help.
Good luck in your search.
I was always under the assumption (based mostly on reddit culture of the past couple of years, I guess?) that LinkedIn had turned into a social media site where the super-vain brag about doing nothing. I didn't realize it actually still has a use as a way to find a job.
If I knew people, that'd be heaven. Alas.
You don't have to be vain, just professional.
With the right content filled out, job hunting on LinkedIn is easy. You may also even be head hunted.
As someone in tech, I get so many connect requests from recruiters that it gets annoying. I'm currently not looking to switch jobs but I'm fairly sure I'd be able to land a new job within a fortnight through LinkedIn.
I'd love to see some suggestions for doing this internationally too. I moved away from North America at the beginning of this year. Searching for remote stuff always gives me a lot of "remote in the US" or "remote in Canada," etc.
Searching for remote-first or globally-distributed companies first, then going through each one-by-one to find which has openings is the best way I've found to dodge US-centric results. But if anyone has a better approach, I am all ears.
The remote in US/Canada has most likely to do with taxes and/or regulations. If a company isn't setup for that it can get really annoying for both parties
Oh for sure!
In retrospect, I was not clear with my exact frustration, which is not that I am finding remote jobs only in US or Canada, it is that they are not clearly labelled as such from the outset. So they get lumped in with the results even if I'm trying to specifically search for, e.g., "work-from-anywhere remote jobs," if that makes sense.
Conversely, remote jobs with region restrictions outside the US or Canada do a better job of making this clear—comparatively speaking.
I have nothing to add, my company is clawing us back to the office. But I do want to say good luck with your search. Hope you find something soon
For about six months now, that's what I've been hearing from a lot of people, and it's horrifying as somebody who never even got to experience WFH.
Why can't the world just hire me to manage a little independent book store in a mostly-abandoned downtown shopping center that inexplicably stays open?