First, let’s blow up a common misconception. You don’t have to become self-employed to find remote work anywhere in the world. You can indeed become a digital nomad without grabbing a selfie stick and practicing your best “welcome back…guys!” for a YouTube channel.
In fact, starting a blog, social media empire, or course is probably the most time-consuming approach for becoming location independent. Instead, you can continue earning an income remotely while at the same time building your future hustle.
If you’re in school or trying to figure out a career path, read about how to avoid the Rat Race before getting stuck! Then you won’t have to work to escape it later.
Working Anywhere in the World
Many digital nomads in hotspots such as Bali, Thailand, Tulum (Mexico), and Portugal find opportunities on remote work job boards and continue working for traditional companies as they build their independent businesses.
By taking this approach, they get to earn a reliable salary while enjoying a lower cost of living (possibly in an interesting place) along with all the other benefits of a location-independent lifestyle.
If you’ve already been shot down by your current employer after asking about remote work, don’t worry, you aren’t alone. Lots of organizations haven’t yet adopted the relatively new strategy of allowing employees to live anywhere.
We’ve got you covered. Start putting together a plan to escape your corporate cubicle then begin exploring some of the many remote work job boards. In this article, we’ll list some of the most common places for finding remote work along with some tips to keep in mind when browsing listings.
Where to Search for Remote Jobs
As you search for openings, you’ll notice a lot of redundancy among remote work job boards. Sometimes companies looking to hire do post the same openings across many sites, but more often, these job boards are simply scraping information from each other and bigger “aggregator” sites.
That’s why the list of remote work job boards is so extensive. Rather than list the 50+ boards that share a lot of overlap, we’re just going to focus on a handful of the most effective places for finding remote work anywhere in the world.
Let’s begin briefly with the two obvious giants then list some lesser-known resources:
- Google Jobs: No surprise that the “boss of the internet” serves as an aggregator for remote jobs as well. The link provided will automatically filter for remote work-from-home jobs, however, you’ll still see many jobs listed as “anywhere” that technically don’t allow remote work anywhere in the world.
- LinkedIn: You’ll need to change the job search location to “remote” at the top then filter for your other criteria. LinkedIn offers other job-search tools (free and paid) and alerts.
Years ago I would have included craigslist.org in this list, however, I don’t feel that parsing through all the remote work scams posted there now is worth the effort.
Popular Remote Work Job Boards
- Working Nomads: The clean layout and skillset tags for each listing make this remote work job board one of the easiest to search.
- We Work Remotely: The digital nomad community is the backbone of WWR. You can learn a lot from their forums, podcast, and blog.
- Guru.com: This heavyweight remote work site can be used to find location-independent, freelance gigs and projects.
- Remote Job Board: Remoters.net hand screens remote jobs and presents them with a clean, organized approach.
- RemoteOK: A popular location-independent job board known for their transparent policies regarding salaries for different positions.
Other Remote Job Aggregator Sites
Many sites use automated scripts and data scraping to compile lists of remote jobs into one place.
Although Google Jobs is probably the most popular, you can still search smaller sites for missed opportunities. A few of the most popular include:
- Find Work: This site searches numerous job boards and consolidates results. Free subscription sign-up is available.
- Remote.io: Thousands of listings from different job boards all in one place.
- Career Vault: Close to 60K opportunities gathered from around the web.
Human-Screened Jobs
- Remote Leaf is one of the few aggregators that charges job seekers ($10 a month) for human-vetted job listings that have been carefully screened. If you’re tired of scams and duplicate listings on remote work job boards, the subscription cost is worth it—plus, they have a free trial so you can decide.
- Flex Jobs offers free access to general listings, but membership can be upgraded to a paid, subscription service for human-vetted lists of remote job openings.
Finding Remote Jobs at Startups
- AngelList is the go-to place for technical professionals looking to enter the startup world. Household names, big brands, and obscure startups all come to AngelList to hire talent. The site boasts over 6 million matches made!
Of course, startups (funded and otherwise) still post openings in all of the remote work job boards above.
Remote Technical Jobs
As you can see on these remote work job boards, the listings are heavily weighted toward technical jobs.
Although there are listings for customer service, sales, project management, and other roles, people with technical skills have many more opportunities for finding remote work anywhere in the world.
If you’re not yet sure of a new career direction but know you want to be able to design a life as a location-independent digital nomad, scroll through these job boards to see what’s in demand. You may get a few ideas, but never pursue a career (e.g., coding) unless you think you can develop a sincere passion for the field!
Of course, needs may change as technology evolves (e.g., AI, blockchain, metaverse, etc), but you can greatly increase your chances for finding location-independent work by choosing technical pursuits such as programming, UX/UI design, engineering, etc.
As always, there is a catch. Companies are moving to a “remote first” model not only to reduce expenses but to increase their talent pools. They are no longer relegated to only whatever technical professionals can be found in their geographical areas. That means more competition; you’ll have to step up your game with additional certifications and experience.
Find Remote Work Jobs Natively
Sometimes companies don’t advertise opportunities on remote work job boards at all.
Instead, they only list openings on their own websites. Occasionally you’ll catch an opportunity as soon as it’s posted on the company website but before it gets shown to the rest of the public on remote work job boards and aggregators.
Monitoring every company’s careers page obviously isn’t possible, but you can choose a few favorites to keep an eye on. Scroll this list of remote-friendly companies and bookmark their careers pages or sign up for job alerts.
What Is a Hybrid Remote Job?
Opportunities seen on remote work job boards tagged as “hybrid remote jobs” don’t technically qualify for remote work anywhere in the world.
With a hybrid remote job, you can work remotely (i.e., from home), but you’ll be expected to come into a physical office every now and then, perhaps for meetings.
The sad truth is that many employees being forced into hybrid remote job roles come into offices to have meetings on Zoom—something they could have done from home!
“Remote First” Companies
Many forward-thinking organizations were already leaning toward a location-independent employee model. The 2020 pandemic pushed many to fully commit to a decentralized strategy.
These “remote first” companies don’t demand relocation or offer only hybrid-remote jobs. Instead, they give preference to remote professionals when hiring. Founded in 2005, Reddit is one such company. Other big remote-first names include Shopify and Slack. Twitter was once a remote-first company, but the new owner (ahem) decided to change that (along with eliminating thousands of important roles).
Although these companies may have headquarters in different places around the world, their strategies and work models are centered around maintaining a distributed, location-independent workforce.
Remote first companies are extremely friendly to digital nomads (although sometimes they want you to be on a compatible timezone for easier meetings).
The Remote Writing Work Scam
Freelance writers take note: Many of the writing and editing jobs you see listed on remote work job boards are problematic and often turn out to be scams.
Part of the remote writer application process usually requires showcasing your SEO copywriting or editing skills by writing an article about a topic provided to you.
Sometimes the organization will send you an article to proof and edit. The request seems reasonable enough (after all, the company needs to know if you’re a decent writer/editor), but most applicants never hear back.
Meanwhile, the company gets to use your application article and sells it to one of their SEO clients. Applications that ask you for links to past work or attached writing samples are typically safer.
A Hack for Finding Remote Work Anywhere in the World
This is a neat “hack” for finding remote jobs quickly that match specific criteria. I’ve actually used it with some success in the past. Here’s how it goes:
- Take advantage of Google Alerts (free).
- Set up an alert with specific keywords (e.g., “remote writing job Spanish fluency”).
- Tune the options (e.g., web only, etc) and frequency
After setting some alerts, Google will send you an email whenever a new match is detected. These matches may be for remote work job boards, aggregators, news sites (depending on your filters), or in the best cases, the actual company websites and careers pages. This may allow you to jump ahead of the competition if you move quickly.
Good Luck!
Although some links no longer work, many additional remote work resources can be found on this GitHub page.
If you’re traveling as a location-independent freelancer, you’ll be responsible for your own health insurance. SafetyWing is the leading brand for digital nomad travel insurance that covers Covid-19 quarantine.
This list of resources for finding remote work anywhere in the world will continue to grow every month. Bookmark the page and check back!
Are you using a reliable job board or source for finding remote work? I’d love to hear about it.
Photo Credits:
1. Tony Lee
2. Bench Accounting
3. Marvin Meyer
Greg Rodgers is a remote worker, budget traveler, and location-independent writer. He created Science of Escape to help others also enjoy a thrilling life of travel.
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