Do you want to work from home? Your odds of landing a remote job might be better than you think. According to research, the number of U.S. workers who telecommute rose 159% between 2005 and 2017.
You might also be surprised at the occupations that offer flexible work options. FlexJobs, which offers remote and flexible job listings for a monthly fee, recently released its seventh annual list of the Top 100 Companies with Remote Jobs. The employers on the list come from a wide range of industries.
“The most notable change we’ve seen over the past year is not so much the growth in the sheer volume of remote job listings, but the growth in the variety of remote job titles these companies are seeking to hire,” says Sara Sutton, Founder and CEO of FlexJobs, in statement.
She continued, “Companies are expanding the range of professional positions they’re allowing to work from home. It’s important to keep in mind that this list represents the jobs that are only formally reported and advertised as remote. I believe the true scope of remote work is much larger, with informal and ad hoc work-from-home arrangements increasingly common. Of course, all of this is ultimately fantastic news for remote job seekers across all career fields and levels.”
Work From Home In These Fields
While industries like heath care and tech continue to offer job opportunities for remote workers, other sectors are catching up. FlexJobs’ data show remote-job growth in customer service, education & training, sales and accounting & finance.
In another analysis, the site noted that the fastest-growing remote job categories were:
- Art & creative
- Bookkeeping
- Internet & ecommerce
- K-12
- Graphic design
- Translation
- Math & economics
However, even if you work in a field that’s not represented on this list, don’t give up on your remote-work dreams. There are some truly unexpected work-from-home jobs out there, ranging from game designer to registered nurse. Don’t assume you’re stuck commuting to a physical workplace until you’ve done your research. (More on how to do this in a minute.)
100 Companies Hiring for Remote Jobs
According to FlexJobs, these are the companies that offered the most jobs with remote-work options on their site during the last year. Many have current openings and/or post new jobs on a frequent basis:
- Appen
- Lionbridge
- VIPKID
- Liveops
- Working Solutions
- Kelly Services
- EF – Education First
- SYKES
- Concentrix
- Williams-Sonoma
- UnitedHealth Group
- LanguageLine Solutions
- TTEC
- TranscribeMe
- Humana
- Cactus Communications
- Transcom
- BroadPath Healthcare Solutions
- Dell
- Aetna
- Robert Half International
- Motion Recruitment Partners
- SAP
- Amazon
- PRA Health Sciences
- Parallon
- Pearson
- Philips
- VocoVision
- ADTRAV Travel Management
- Stryker
- K12
- SAIC – Science Applications International Corporation
- Hilton
- BELAY
- Red Hat
- Sutherland
- Thermo Fisher Scientific
- VMware
- Anthem, Inc.
- BCD Travel
- World Travel Holdings
- U.S. Department of Commerce
- Salesforce
- CrowdStrike
- The Hartford
- Enterprise Holdings
- Change Healthcare
- GitLab
- Magellan Health
- Gartner
- Hibu
- Syneos Health
- CyraCom
- Landi English
- Leidos
- Haynes & Company
- Alight Solutions
- Wells Fargo
- Auth0
- Cisco
- Paylocity
- Elastic.co
- NTT Group
- Boldly
- Ultimate Software
- Sodexo
- Jefferson Frank
- Citizens Bank
- Kforce
- AFIRM
- Apex Systems
- Fiserv
- HashiCorp
- A Place for Mom
- Grand Canyon University – GCU
- Grand Canyon Education – GCE
- Accruent
- JPMorgan Chase
- Twilio
- GitHub
- PAREXEL
- CareCentrix
- CVS Health
- Kaplan
- Invitae
- Jack Henry & Associates
- Wayfair
- CSI Companies
- Johnson & Johnson
- Carlson Wagonlit Travel – CWT
- Aerotek
- ADP
- Achieve Test Prep
- Liberty Healthcare
- Novartis
- American Express
- EXL
- GovernmentCIO
- CACI International
To learn more about these employers, see FlexJobs’ list, Top 100 Companies with Remote Jobs in 2020.
How to Find a Work-From-Home Job in Today’s Market
1. ASk Your Boss If You Can Work From Home
Don’t assume you need to find a new job in order to work remotely. Depending on your occupation and your employer’s policies, you may be able to turn your current gig into a flexible work situation.
Your first step should be to find out whether your employer has a work-from-home policy. Don’t be surprised if there isn’t a formal set of guidelines. According to a 2018 report from Upwork, 63% of companies that responded to their survey allowed some telecommuting — but less than half put their policy in writing.
“Unspoken or informal policies are more common,” says Raul Castanon-Martinez, a senior analyst at 451 Research, in an interview with TechRepublic. “This is probably a result of the learning curve that organizations go through in the early stages.”
Regardless of how formal the policy is, you’ll need to make your case to the boss in order to be able to use any work-from-home benefits. When you do, be sure to focus on the benefits for the company, not for yourself.
“Remember, the arguments that will appeal most to your boss are ones that have the ‘what’s in it for me?’ factor,” writes Elizabeth Lowman at The Muse. “Sure, telecommuting may relieve you of a killer commute, but it will also mean that you can start work earlier (and more refreshed) by avoiding 60 minutes in the car each morning. Present it that way. Be prepared to show at least three ways that telecommuting will make you a better employee and a better asset to the company.”
2. Use Job Boards
General and niche job boards can be a resource for your remote job hunt, just as they would be for any job search. The secret is to use keywords to your advantage.
“Use the job search engines using terms like ‘work at home’, ‘telecommute’, and ‘freelance,’” writes Alison Doyle at The Balance Careers. “Next, search the online job banks using keywords like ‘work at home’, ‘telecommute’, and ‘telecommuting’. Searching Monster, for example, using ‘telecommuting’ as a keyword generates almost 200 listings. ‘Work at home’ generates close to 1000 positions.”
3. Watch Out for Scams
If you do turn to general job sites to find your work-from-home job, be alert for fraud. Here are a few signs of work-from-home job scams:
- A lot of money for not much work. Take the PayScale Salary Survey to give yourself a reality check. If the job title listed typically offers a salary range of $8 to $10 per hour, and the listing boasts that you can make thousands per week, odds are that you’re looking at a scam.
- A fee to get started (other than membership fees for some job search sites). Real employers will never charge you money for a kit or startup costs. Be wary, too, of new-to-you job boards that offer listings for a fee. Check each company with the Better Business Bureau and make sure that the URL matches the one on the BBB listing.
- Anything that seems to good to be true. The old saying really is true. No one gets rich quick or scores an easy job that pays more than market rate and doesn’t require specialized skills or training.
- Financial information. The first time an employer should ask you for financial information is during a background check or pre-employment paperwork. If an alleged prospective employer asks you for that data early in an interview process, run.
4. Follow Employers on Social Media
Do you have a dream employer, a company whose products you love or whose brand you’d love to see on your resume? Follow them on social media. In one survey of hiring managers at North American companies, 58% of respondents said that social networks were “a source of quality hires.”
“If you’re a job seeker and you’re interested in working for certain companies, follow them,” said Tara Hurley, Director of Learning and Development at Advanced Group, in an earlier interview with PayScale. “Follow the recruiters or the department heads you want to work with. If they’re active on LinkedIn – if someone likes your post and it’s not someone who I’m not friends with I immediately go and look them up. It’s flattery, right?”
It’s also essential to make sure your online presence reflects what you want recruiters to see. Clean up and lock down your social media prior to conducting a job search. In one survey, 57% of HR professionals said that they’d decided not to move forward with a candidate, because of something they discovered on the candidate’s social media.
5. Network Your Way to Glory
Some sources estimate that as many as 85% of jobs are filled through networking. That’s unsurprising, when you consider the research showing that referred candidates are easier to hire and more likely to stay.
You can network your way to a work-from-home job in much the same way you’d go about landing an in-office position. Be helpful to others — ready with that recommendation or referral, not just ready to ask for them — and keep your contacts in the loop about what you’re looking for in a job.
Remember that networking is about building relationships, not about solving your problem today. You may have to meet a lot of people before you run into someone who’s looking for an employee like you. But in the meantime, you’ll have developed a broader, deeper network on which to draw the next time you’re looking for work.
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