How to craft a successful career in a telecommuting job
The buzz wasn’t that big until the pandemic shook the world. Companies, graduates, and every employee in major enterprises constantly had the thought about working from home.
Most of them like the concept and the younger generation of employees consider telecommuting jobs to be in their priority list of jobs.
If you are among those who consider that telecommuting jobs would be the new norm, join the club.
Read along to find out how to prepare and execute a perfect strategy to secure a telecommuting job from home and work comfortably without commuting to your office 5 days a week.
Defining a telecommuting job
So what is the concept involved in a telecommuting job anyway?
As an employee, you either work full-time, part-time, or be an intern for a company that could be anywhere in the world.
You report, communicate, and get the work done through apps and you don’t get to move out of your home. You interact with a team who are also in a telecommuting job or maybe in the office.
There is zero physical interaction between employees and the entire project is started and dispatched right from your home.
Are telecommuting jobs a good choice?
Merits
The sudden increase in the attention towards telecommuting jobs is because of the Covid-19 pandemic which made companies think about their infrastructure costs.
Merits of Telecommunicating job
Immense savings
Smart remote companies went completely remote and are even hiring for remote roles. As an employee in a telecommuting job from home, you save a lot of money and when I say a lot, I mean a LOT.
Your weekly gasoline expenses, the lunch you have at that favorite restaurant, the mandatory coffees in the middle of the work; you won’t find them in your bills at all.
The balance between work and life
Employees with a family are the happiest because they now don’t get blamed for not spending time with their family. Your home is your office and you get the opportunity to play with your kids and dust-up that favorite motorbike of yours.
The merits of being in a telecommuting job is endless if you choose it to be the job you want. After asking multiple employees who worked a regular 9 to 5, 98% said they wished to work from home at least to some extent of their career.
You plan your work
The level of flexibility you have than a regular office employee is off the charts and you enjoy more time for yourself and that is what freedom feels like.
Drawbacks
More responsibility
One of the common issues you face is that you have the responsibility to set up the internet connection and workstation.
If the telecommuting job was offered by complete remote companies, they can step in to set up the workstation taking the expenses under their control.
Payscale
Another downside is the compensation is you get. If you start your career in a telecommuting job, it wouldn’t look like a big deal but when you move from the office environment, you find the pay to be not enough.
What you need to know is you can pick telecommuting jobs anywhere in the world and the compensation from western countries is way higher than a regional company.
I would suggest to mark down the startups that offer remote work as startups provide great compensation for awesome pay.
No Physical interaction
Although you communicate with your team through apps, it does not reflect the real environment and you will feel alone occasionally, increasing stress in your work.
Since I have laid down the real facts on how a telecommuting job would be, it is up to you to decide. In my opinion, whether people like it or not, the futures demands a decent workforce to take up telecommuting jobs anywhere in the world.
Why telecommuting jobs are better than freelancing
One thing that might come to your mind is freelancing as it is in some way similar to a telecommuting job.
Although freelancing is a gig-based lifestyle it cannot replace a telecommuting job for the following reasons:
- No job security - unless you find a client who wants you to work for them on long term projects, you are in the pressure of being jobless for a long period. This is not an issue when you are in a telecommuting job from home as you have your company assigned to a particular project which might last a few months and still retain you if your performance is good.
- Deadline based work - if you are into working for long hours and stay calm under immense pressure, you can choose freelance. But most of us are not designed like that. The pressure that freelance work brings is incomparable to a telecommuting job.
- Ultimate responsibility - you don’t get a workstation from your company, they don’t compensate for your other expenses. This takes a bigger toll on your income which seems to be a lot from the outside.
If still freelancing is what you want to do, do it right by following a complete freelance guide laid down by experts, that way you don’t get lost in the path.
How to prepare for a telecommuting job
Since we are over with the explanation part, now to the real deal. To get a telecommuting job, you need specific skills that demonstrate your ability to communicate from home or any remote location.
What you also want is to stay sharp with your hard skills and do not go short in them. A quick tip is to get your work known to many people inside and outside your country. This makes your work to be shared and get more eyes on you.
Be your boss
The number one, non-negotiable trait that recruiters expect is the ability to self-direct yourself and not have a person tutoring you constantly.
They will assess you if you can be a team player who contributes their best even when they are not in a physical meeting.
If you go lone wolf, where you are the only one working on a project in the case of a remote content writer or a remote graphic designer, you have to stay sane during the whole project and get the work done.
Online portfolios replacing resumes
Online Portfolios
The days when you submitted your CV and sat face to face with your interviewer are long gone. In a telecommuting job, you still get to sit face to face with your interviewer through video conferencing but the assessments are completely different.
Do you remember when I told you to share your work online? This is the transformation that your resume had. It is now an online portfolio.
Recruiters do not care about the skills you have listed on the page but look at what you can deliver if they hire you for the telecommuting job. If that portfolio particularly has telecommuting job experience, add bonus points to your profile.
Portfolios stand out a lot for technical telecommuting jobs like remote software developers and it is paramount you create the best software developer portfolio.
Choose telecommuting job portals
Just sowing seeds isn't going to grow into trees unless you nurture them and actively put your hands in to work.
Just like that, you cannot just host your online portfolio and expect recruiters to contact you. So what active work can you do to get a recruiter to contact you for a telecommuting job anywhere in the world?
One personal thing I recommend is to cold-email companies regarding their vacancies. Explaining to them how you can contribute to them through a telecommuting job should be the core of your mail.
This might be a great way for freshers looking for a telecommuting job from home because you have time. As not all of us do not have enough time to mail a hundred companies a week, the best way is to find a job portal.
Everybody knows the big names like LinkedIn and Glassdoor in Asia but what you need is a telecommuting job portal like Waw Asia.
The big names do not send you exclusive telecommuting jobs to you which is why remote job portals send you occasional updates about telecommuting job openings.
Not just that. You have to be aware of online scammers who can easily get through the top job sites but not through a reputed telecommuting job portal. Be aware before applying for any telecommuting job and go through this checklist of 10 points before applying.
Equipping yourself for a telecommuting job from home
Remote telecommuting jobs, just like any other job you land on, needs you to be productive and show the results.
To help you with remote work you should be aware of the two parameters that will propel you in a telecommuting job.
Great conversations are game-changers
It is not just communicating through apps but how efficient you are with your conversations. In a telecommuting job, it is about how you manage the conversation and get the most input from a call.
You don’t want to call your team lead multiple times just to know about a piece of information about the ongoing project. Using these high-end apps for a telecommuting job is not that difficult.
Here are the basic tools you may need.
- Video conferencing - Skype, Zoom, and Google Meet are the best tools you need. All three are great but depending upon the country you live in, one might trump the rest. Pick the one that is suitable for the telecommuting job.
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Conversations with your colleagues - Slack is a great option to keep the discussion going about the project you are working on. This is great if you are in a telecommuting job from home and have to work as a team.
Video conferencing tool
Some of the pro-tips I would suggest while working in a remote job are simple tweaks that you can make instantly:
- Be precise and short. Your recruiter does not want to hear all the backstories about what happened when you were working.
- Get short information out through texts. It helps to avoid ambiguity and save time.
- Voluntarily provide updates about the ongoing project. Do not let your recruiter wait till the last minute to hear a word from you.
- Step out once in a while with your colleagues. If your colleagues are in your city, meeting them physically can help a lot.
Stay on track with your work
To climb up the corporate ladder with a telecommuting job may seem unachievable but it is way easier for a telecommuting employee than an office employee.
How to track your telecommunicating job?
Productivity is the only way to get stunning results to get increments in your compensation and here are the ways to amp it up in your telecommuting job.
- Keep that internet connection always stable. A slow connection will give you enough headaches and problems to worry about.
- Use Kanban boards - there are many kanban board providers online like Kanbanize where you can use them to monitor your work in the project on a stage by stage basis.
- Stay on a schedule - using Google calendar which is free to track your day can help a lot when you look at your performance and tasks every month. Going with a long term plan in a telecommuting job is better than entering without any preparation.
Apart from these, try to improve your workspace once in a while especially when you are in a technical telecommuting job from home. Minor upgrades can help a lot.
Upgrade your to do list in telecommunicating job
Although there is more than just being productive and communicating effectively in a telecommuting job which is why Waw Asia provides a complete guide on remote work. With a guide, you can not only survive and sustain but scale up in any telecommuting job role.
Waw Asia is Asia’s only destination for telecommuting jobs
You never know when you might get a telecommuting job to work from anywhere in the world. That is an important reason why you need to join a remote job portal like Waw Asia.
Here is what Waw Asia does. Global recruiters are looking to hire Asia-based candidates for their telecommuting jobs and so Waw Asia is bringing the verified telecommuting jobs to talented individuals like you.
To have a glimpse of the quality delivered, check out the currently hot jobs within the Asian timezone.
Your successful career with a telecommuting job is just one sign up away and that is all you need to get on a great journey with Waw Asia. We are excited and hope you are as well.
