Remote Work Is Booming: Six Ways to Get It
One in every nine US workers now work entirely remotely — so can you.
Per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 11% — one in every nine — of the US working population now works entirely remotely. That’s 19 million people.
If you think remote (at-home) work is for you, here are the six most effective, proven ways to find it, ranked roughly by success rate for most people.
1) Target Remote-First Job Boards (Highest Success Rate)
Companies that offer remote work jobs commonly post them on specialized job boards. You can easily search these sites for jobs that fit your skills and apply online. Per Grok, the following sites have the largest volume of truly 100% remote jobs and the least scam/spam:
FlexJobs.com (paid, but highest quality, manually vetted)
WeWorkRemotely.com (free, very popular with startups/tech)
Remote.co (free, huge listings)
Remotive.io (has a great free weekly email digest)
LinkedIn → use the “Remote” location filter + set job alerts
2) Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile & Network
About half of all professional jobs are advertised on LinkedIn, including the ones open to remote work. You can signal your interest in remote work to recruiters by taking the followings steps.
Put “Open to Work – Remote” green banner
Create your headline: for example, “Customer Support Specialist | Remote | 5+ yrs SaaS experience”
Turn on “Open to remote opportunities” in LinkedIn’s job preferences
Post regularly about your field + tag #RemoteWork #OpenToWork
Message recruiters directly (many post “fully remote” roles)
3) Register With Staffing Firms Open to Remote Work
Many staffing firms offer both temp remote jobs and permanent remote jobs, according to the demands of their customers. The following staffing firms are better known for their involvement in remote work. They are listed below with primary specializations, though in some cases they offer additional types of jobs.
Robert Half — Remote | Finance, IT, clerical/admin, legal
Randstad — Remote | IT, engineering, clerical/admin
Adecco | IT, engineering, finance
Kelly Services | Healthcare, IT, clerical/admin
Toptal | IT, design, finance
CyberCoders | IT, engineering, finance
Kforce | IT, finance, healthcare
DistantJob | IT, engineering
Vaco | IT, finance, healthcare
4) For Tech Jobs, Also See Company Career Pages
Tech companies are commonly fully remote or remote friendly. It pays to check their websites every week or two.
GitLab, Automattic (WordPress), Zapier, Buffer, Doist (Todoist), Basecamp, Toptal, DuckDuckGo, Hotjar, ConvertKit, InVision, etc.
Big Tech: Shopify, Spotify, Square, Coinbase, Dropbox, Twilio, etc.
5) Freelance Platforms (Fastest Way to Start)
These sites offer “gigs,” i.e., short-term work, not full-time jobs typically. But if you need cash and have marketable skills (writing, design, coding, virtual assistance, marketing, translation, etc.), these sites are often the easiest entry point.
Upwork (still the biggest, but you need a very strong profile)
Fiverr (great for beginners in creative fields)
Toptal (higher-end)
Pro Tip: Spend time making your profile 100% complete and get a few 5-star reviews quickly by offering small gigs cheap at first and over-delivering. Establishing a good rep early on will pay off in the long-run.
6) Focus on High-Paying Non-Obvious Remote Categories
Per Grok, as of 2025, these fields are in high demand for remote work and often pay reasonably well:
Customer support / success (especially SaaS companies)
Tech support / DevOps / Sysadmin
Sales / SDR / BDR roles (many are remote now)
Medical coding, transcription, scribe, billing (U.S.)
Online teaching / tutoring (VIPKid, Outschool, Preply, iTalki)
Content writing / copywriting / technical writing
Virtual assistance (especially for executives or e-commerce)
Data annotation / AI training (Scale AI, Appen, Lionbridge, etc.)
As of 2025, some of the easiest remote work jobs to find are:
Customer support roles: $18–30/hr, many entry-level
Data annotation / AI training tasks: $15–25/hr, very flexible
Online ESL teaching (if you have bachelor’s degree): $18–30/hr
Virtual assistant (if organized): $20–50/hr once you have clients
Red Flags & Scams to Avoid
Remote work is very definitely a real, legitimate thing. But that doesn’t mean you won’t find the occasional scammer in the mix. A few hard rules:
Never, ever pay money upfront — you don’t need to pay anyone to get remote work.
Real employers will need the usual personal information for tax forms, of course, but don’t give such information out until you have confirmed the legitimacy of the employer, and usually not until you have a job offer. (That said, legit websites, like LinkedIn or Upwork, may require some personal information.)
If it sounds too good to be true — like $5k/month for “posting links” — there’s probably a catch. There is plenty of legit remote work, so skip what looks suspect.
Pluses and Minuses of Remote Work
Pluses. Remote work eliminates commuting, saving you time and money. In most remote jobs, you also gain flexibility to structure your day — parents can attend school events, night owls can work at peak energy. And it allows for healthier habits, such as home-cooked meals and midday workouts. It also enables you to live anywhere, a big deal when you consider that housing can be very cheap in some nice parts of the country that simply don’t have a lot of local jobs.
Minuses. Junior employees get less mentorship, and the feeling of isolation is common — 44 % of remote workers report loneliness. Boundaries blur; when work is at home you may feel like you’re always at work. And it requires self-management because no one’s keeping you on track but you.
Next Steps
Before you start looking, make sure you are properly set up for remote work and for Zoom meetings. If you get a response from a recruiter, you don’t want to blow it by not being prepared.
Also, for any job available, there will be multiple applications. So apply for jobs that make sense for you, where you will stand out, and take the time to make your application solid. That said, it is not unreasonable to apply for 10-20 jobs per week.
Don’t be discouraged! On average it takes about three months to find a new job (longer than that for higher-paying jobs) whether it’s local or remote.
