I have been looking at remote jobs every day for 15 minutes since January 31st, 2022.
In case you’re wondering, here’s what happened during that time:
I read over 2000 job descriptions
I discovered 5 new job boards for remote jobs
I applied to 6 jobs
I accepted 1 job
I identified 10+ companies I might like to work for in the future
I call this process job scanning, because like a computer scanning data, I wasn’t looking for just any job. Instead, I was building a deep understanding of what was available in order to identify the best options for myself/
Looking back on the last 9 months, I realize now that looking every day has set me up to get my next remote job, if I should want it, much more easily than I got my current job.
And when I say easily, I don’t just mean that the application process will be easier. I mean finding the perfect job that I would be glad to do everyday.
Let’s dive into the recipe for building a daily job scanning strategy that will help you find the perfect remote job(s) to apply for.
Your Daily Job Scanning Process:
Here are the 3 main ingredients for a daily job scanning habit:
Identify your job goal
Identify the platforms you will check daily
Record Critical Data Into Your Job and Company Database
Do these and you’ll be on the path to finding the ideal remote job for you.
Here’s how:
Identify Your Job Goal
Many people in my network simply want a remote job. They don’t know which remote job they want, but they know they want it.
This type of thinking doesn’t work, because a job is a way you exchange your value (and time) for money. It doesn’t really matter if it’s remote or not, you will still be working to provide that specific type of value.
Knowing what that is and for whom you want to provide it is arguably more important than it being remote (at least in your job search).
Here then is a set of questions to determine your job goal:
What kind of function do you want to perform (marketing, sales, product management?)
What kind of industry or industries are you most interested in working in?
Do you want to work with a company that is consumer facing (B2C) or business-facing (B2B)?
What stage of company do you want to work with? (Start-up, scale-up, enterprise)
For me, these days, it’s Product Management at a Web3 B2C start-up.
What about you?
Knowing this will help you build your job filter, do research to prepare for this kind of job well, and connect with the right people and companies to get the job. Building a job filter is part of the daily job scanning process, which I’ll discuss more below.
Identify the Platforms You Will Check Daily
Choosing what platforms your going to be checking daily will is one of the most important, yet underrated steps of the job search process. This is twice as true in a remote job search.
Here’s why:
Certain job boards are offer roles in specific industries. If those are the industries you want to work in, you’ll want to check those job boards.
Some job boards are MUCH more focused on remote work than others.
And almost every job board is targeted at people of different experience levels.
Knowing this, it’s absolutely critical that you pick the right job boards.
For me, wanting to work in B2C Web3 product, there are 3 key job boards I check every day:
Remotive.com. Seemingly 2 times a week I find jobs for remote product managers working in Web3.
https://web3.career/. It focuses exclusively on Web3 jobs, and many of them are fully remote.
https://remote3.co/. Still testing this site. It appears to have many remote web3 jobs, though less so in product.
Finding job boards for specific industries can be difficult, so in most cases, I recommend using more general job boards unless you want to work in Web3 or Gaming. That said, you can search, and when you have 3 boards, you’re ready to look daily.
There’s just one more thing to consider.
Recording Critical Data Into Your Job and Company Database
When you look at these job boards every day, you’ll want to spend between 15 and 30 minutes looking at job descriptions across the different boards.
In this time, you’ll start to notice both companies and patterns about certain jobs:
Some companies will seem very appealing and you’ll want to work with them more.
Some types of jobs will have consistent expectations on how much experience they want you to have.
Some types of companies will sound more interesting than others.
You really need to record these insights! Doing so will help you be even more focused in your search and save you time, both in the search and in your eventual application.
For example, you may start to notice yourself attracted to a certain kind of company in a specific sub-industry. For me, so far that has been blockchain companies that provide a novel way of having a common experience. Specifically I’ve been drawn to B2C entertainment companies in the Web3 space. I like the way they write about their culture, the pace of their innovation, and how they deal with customers.
Recording this in a Notion, along with the names of certain companies in the space, is helping me do a few things:
On days when I don’t see jobs on any job boards, I can go to those companies’ websites and check for jobs there.
I’m starting to build a network on LinkedIn with the people at these companies.
I’m keeping track of the companies and finding more of them as a result of training my brain to look for them.
I previously followed this process to get a new job as a product manager with a different B2B adtech company (my current role) but this time I think the process is even more refined.
And I believe, if you follow this tip, and start looking at jobs every day from today, you’ll increase your chances of getting a remote job that you really want A LOT!
Well, that’s it for today. I hope you enjoyed the tip!
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Paid career coaching. Schedule a discovery session here.
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