Searching for a Remote Job Later In Life

In My Humble Opinion
1

Hi.

I don’t normally post in FQ (and I’m a little nervous). I’m around 60 and I need to find a remote job. My driving skills aren’t the best so I need it to be remote. I’ve gone the LinkedIn / CareerBuilder / Monster routes for an awfully long time and all I’ve ever found were scammers. Would any of you be willing to share web sites that offer Real remote jobs that I might actually have a chance of landing?

If it’s a secret, then DM me. I can learn the secret handshake. If it will honestly lead to a real remote job, I can do the Dick Van Dyke ( swing the phone over my head and cluck like a chicken ). It’s just that a regular job would do so very much for me personally even if the pay is not the best.

That said, there has to be pay. A person I knew tried to get me to work for free and that’s akin to slavery. There are minimum wage laws for a reason (but there are so many law breaker wannabes out there that Hell will never have to buy Duraflames). Also, people who say, “Sure work 60 hours a week for me for zero pay” are Not your friends.

If this type of post is not allowed here, would a Mod please delete it? Thank you.

2

Great question! I am looking for the same thing. I worked part time in retail for a few months standing on my feet all day, and it really wore me down. Any idea would be appreciated.

3

This is probably more of an MPSIMS-type of question, but to the extent that there are any authoritative answers it is pretty clear that many companies are trying to get away from remote work, and of course recent events are making so that government and government contractor jobs that aren’t eliminated are going to be forced back to full-time office positions.

I’m not trying to promote him but this guy who is a former HR recruiter has a lot of good insight into the current corporate workplace hiring, and quite frankly most of his opinions in the last couple of years is that it isn’t good. The hiring process is often mired in layers of approvals and filtering, with positions that are often just placeholders for a company to see what talent is available even though they have no intent of hiring, and candidates often being ghosted after going through various stages of interviewing and followup. His basic mantra is “be the CEO of your own career,” i.e. don’t rely on the hiring process and either network constantly like crazy to get the inside track on jobs before they even get posted to a recruiter and/or develop a bunch of side hustles to generate passive income (because apparently there is an endless demand for T-shirts and coffee mugs with slogans?). As you are no doubt aware, getting a decent job when you are in your mid-fifties and older is not easy unless you have some special skill set or a good inside reference to the hiring manager because companies are understandably reluctant to put training resources into someone who may retire in a few years when they can hire younger and more energetic workers for much lower salary expectations and work them into the ground (notwithstanding all the complaints about how the ‘zoomers’ don’t have any work ethic, says the boss who never had to work on a weekend or expected to answer his phone at 9 pm).

So…learn a skill that you can do remotely and try to pick up freelance jobs, maybe? Or else be prepared to find some menial clerical position that some genius CTO will replace in a few years with a shitty chatbot even though it is about as reliable as a Yugo.

Stranger

4

I don’t think it’s a matter of secret websites.

What is your employment history? What are your skills?
Those are the important questions.

5

My advice: work for an online university. I’ve worked remotely for such universities for over a decade (I’ve been fully remote since December 2013; never set foot in a physical office again since.) They hire people from all kinds of backgrounds, as long as you have a bachelor’s degree. I knew plenty of fully-remote coworkers who were in their 40s-60s.

6

What’s your previous employment background & skillsets?

Some jobs/roles/industries are inherently more remote-friendly than others, such as:

  • Computer programming & adjacent roles (look to Hackernews for that)
  • Social media “influencers” of various types, but especially for video games
  • Customer support (by email or phone)
  • Writing (technical or creative) or copyediting
  • Some forms of digital art (illustrations, games, animations)
  • Digital marketing
  • Telemarketing & cold-call sales positions, often commission-based
  • Political outreach
  • Sometimes maybe audiobook recording or voice acting for games, etc.

Basically, if the job itself is mostly done in front of a computer and isn’t particularly location-dependent or in need of much real-time collaboration with a team, it’s more likely to be available remotely.

However, unfortunately you kinda missed the boat on that :frowning: During COVID it was very common for many jobs across different sectors to have become fully-remote, but then as soon as it ended, companies started to slowly (and then quickly) roll that back. By now most of the remote jobs at big companies are gone, with the CEO class needing to restore control over their minions.

You can still find some here and there at scattered small-to-mid-sized businesses, but they’re much harder to come by and you’ll have a LOT of competition. Some % of the workforce got used to the perks of fully remote during COVID and are reluctant to give that up, even as employers try to drag them kicking and screaming back into the office :frowning:

For what it’s worth, I work a fully remote job (web development), which I got mostly from having contacts. My previous remote jobs were similar, either starting in the office at first (until I proved I could do the work) and/or being hired by word-of-mouth. (It’s ironic; I don’t really like working remotely and miss the office a lot… that’s offtopic though.)

Connections are everything, especially when your employer can’t oversee you face-to-face everyday. Is there anyone in your professional network who might be hiring?

All in all, it really depends on your skillset and who you know. You can browse jobs marketplaces for remote jobs, like Indeed (https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=&l=remote), or look on LinkedIn (if you use that).

If you don’t have any significant professional experience in a desirable skill, you might be left with super-generic freelance jobs like at https://www.upwork.com/ or https://www.fiverr.com/ where you try to market yourself somehow (against hordes of others competing with you). At the very very low end there is still Amazon’s mechanical turk (https://www.mturk.com/), but that usually pays pennies to mere dollars per hour, not enough for even a minimum wage (in the US), much less anything approaching livable :frowning: Ultimately, fully-remote jobs often mean you’re competing against a global workforce… there are plenty of people from poorer countries who would gladly do an average American’s job for 10% of the wages and put in 2x the hours and never complain. And ageism is a thing, especially in many of the more modern fields :frowning:

7

This is really interesting. Are they generally accredited, or how do you find actually-reputable online universities to work for? I wouldn’t know how to tell the real ones apart from the scams.

8

I can’t post a resume here… too many eyes read this board who don’t post here and who do actually wish me ill.

9

I second the comment about on-line universities, but don’t overlook non-online universities either.

At my brick-and-morter University, ALL the office staff positions institution-wide went remote option, with entire offices now entirely remote. They did this not because of COVID (although that accelerated it) but rather because there is not a large set of skilled people in this little college town, and by going remote they could tap a nation-wide talent pool. Worth looking into.

10

What kind of knowledge can you impart when it comes to the type of job you want?

11

You don’t need to post a full resume, but knowing just the types of roles & companies (or at least industries) you’ve worked at in the past would help.

12

You’re one of my fav Mods. That said… could you Please DM me re employment histories, skill sets, references etc? I mean… maybe you Can help me… but… I’d rather not strip myself naked before the world.

13

Is the direct answer “I can’t tell you anything in this thread?”

14

You’re going to have to at least say what you do. What your skills are. No one here can help you without that information.

15

I know, for example, that some companies use remote workers to staff inbound call centers. So, for example, if you call JetBlue Airlines regarding your flight issue, you’re probably getting someone at home someplace. My guess is that being fluent in multiple languages might help in such a role. Another possible position; medical translation work. So when someone speaking only Farsi visits a hospital emergency department, they would call you to translate to and from Farsi.

16

That’s a pretty strange take on things :thinking: Nobody is asking you to dox yourself, but you’re the one who posted on a public forum asking for job search advice…

How is anyone supposed to help without knowing the most basic thing about you, like what you do and what kind of job you’re looking for?

All you’ve said so far that you don’t want to work for free (no kidding, who would), and you don’t want to strip naked (no OnlyFans, I guess :sweat_smile:)… but somewhere between “Here’s my resume and home address and social security number and a DNA sample” and “Hi, I’m anonymous user #34458, I need a remote job. I can say no more.”… you must be able to provide some useful information.

Otherwise, I guess let’s hope Czarcasm is feeling especially gracious…

17

Hi. I have 20 years experience as a CSR. My driving isn’t great, my legs can’t stand all day, so I NEED it to be remote. My resume is private, but there are a lot of really good companies on it. My last decent job ended when the call center moved overseas.

I’m very good at what I do.

18

I’ve noticed that my employer will convert onsite employees to remote work. So your best option might be your current employer or most recent one.

19

CSR.
Corporate Social Responsibility?

20

I’m guessing that means Customer Service Representative.