career

10 Remote Jobs With No Experience Required (and How to Land Them)

Last updated on March 6th, 2023 at 05:06 am

Remote work is here for good.

When you’re not bound by geography or time zone, you have functionally an unlimited number of job opportunities. But if you’ve never worked for a remote company:

Where do you start?
What jobs are good?
Which ones pay well?
Which ones are scams?
Where do you find these jobs?
How do you stand out when you’re competing with anyone with Internet access?

In the last 10 years, I worked 4 different jobs in different industries (Hollywood, online education, technology). These jobs had two things in common:

They were all remote
I had no experience in any of the roles

But along the way, I met other ambitious people who followed this alternative career trajectory. They made remote work a critical component of their careers. They started with little to no experience. And many were also breaking into the tech industry for the first time.

Remote jobs with no experience required

Reflecting on our combined experiences, I realized: there are great remote jobs with no experience required out there. You just need to know what they are, where to find them, and how to stand out when applying. That’s what we’ll cover in this post.

First, we’ll talk about remote jobs to avoid.

Next, we’ll dig into 10 remote jobs with no experience required.

Finally, you’ll also learn principles to stand out when applying for ANY remote job.

the connection

The psychological landmines of building an audience

Last updated on August 14th, 2022 at 09:32 am

And I see everyone gettin’ all the things I want

And I’m happy for them, but then again, I’m not

Just cool vintage clothes and vacation photos

I can’t stand it, oh, God, I sound crazy

Their win is not my loss

I know it’s true

But I can’t help gettin’ caught up in it all

– jealousy, jealousy by Olivia Rodrigo

There are many paths to hit your financial independence numbers. In Connection 95 – Your Starting Point, I said I was currently focused on my career, consulting, and building an audience.

Today let’s talk about the psychological landmines of building an audience.

finances

Your Starting Point

Last updated on August 14th, 2022 at 09:29 am

In the last newsletter, What Is Rich, we talked about the power of having specific financial independence targets, and how to calculate these targets for yourself.

These targets are your “Business system target” and “Money system target.” My targets are $75,000 MRR (monthly recurring revenue) and $6,000,000, respectively.

(There’s also a third target, which I call the “Perfect Tuesday target” and will explain more later.)

I share my targets as a reference point for discussion. There is a formula, so technically you and I could arrive at similar targets. But defining what you want, when you want it, and why you want it is infinitely more complex than can be derived by a pivot table, financial advisor, or Twitter thread.

finances

What is rich?

Last updated on August 14th, 2022 at 09:27 am

I know a lot of people who make an extraordinary amount of money, but few people who are rich. Rich is having passive income greater than your burn.”

– Scott Galloway

I love the simplicity of this definition (passive income > burn) but think it’s a better description of financial independence than rich.

Your financial independence boils down to just a couple of numbers. Here are mine:

$75,000/month
$6,000,000

What do these numbers mean? Where do they come from?

personal development

2022 Goals and 2021 Recap

Last updated on December 13th, 2022 at 05:50 am

This post is a review of my 2021 goals and a public sharing of 2022 goals.

Why bother with this exercise? The Bill Gates quote sums it up:

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

In other words, we’re capable of great things. They just take longer than we think.

The best way to stay on that 10-year road? Break it down into years. Then break those years into months, months to weeks, weeks to days…

career

Add Freelancing to Your Career Management Arsenal

Takeaways

If you only have a minute, here are the takeaways:

Remote work is here to stay. With your next role is unbound by geography and time zone, the job marketplace is functionally limitless. This changes how you manage your career.
Transactional relationships between employee and employer, e.g. “tours of duty” will become more common, and the quality of “gig-work” will continue to improve.
This future isn’t some panacea. Like everything else, there are tradeoffs. For example, more autonomy but less security.
If you’re curious, an easy way to sample a “tour of duty” is switching from an employee to a freelancer within the company.
This can be great for your career if you see yourself as CEO someday, or you’ve worked at the same company for a long time. If your current priority is work/life balance, however, then stick with your employer until you’re ready to focus on your career.
As a freelancer, your hourly rate will likely go up, but you’ll likely owe more in taxes and they’ll get more complicated. You’ll also have less job security with each client.
If you’re a freelancer in the US, expect health insurance to get much more expensive. If you become a resident abroad, chances are you’ll be entitled to some public health services covered by the government.

—

Remote work is here for good.[efn_note]https://buildremote.co/companies/companies-going-remote-permanently/[/efn_note] This changes how we manage our careers.

When your next role is unbound from geography and time zone, the marketplace is functionally limitless. This accelerates the changing employer <> employee relationship, away from one based on stability and loyalty, towards a transactional exchange.

In other words, less monogamy, more swiping.

career

Start Earning Your Second Revenue Stream

Takeaways

If you only have a minute, here are the takeaways:

Moments in time (like a global pandemic) show us how fragile our futures are if we rely on a single source of income.
Earning multiple sources of income is a superpower. Consulting is the best way to start.
Consulting has two advantages over other business models: leverage and speed. Leverage = apply lessons learned from your 9-5, and vice versa. Speed = test, launch, and operate your business quickly.
How to find your first client? Get good at something and have 10 people know. Email them and ask for referrals. Without your first paying client, building a website or email list is just procrastination.
How to land your first gig? Give them a presentation. Show you understand their business, their challenges, and how to address those challenges.
Offer a number of packages, anywhere from an audit of their existing work, to a full Done-for-you service.
You can charge an upfront fee or a percentage of sales. I’d recommend both ($X upfront and Y% on the backend).
If you’re consulting AND working your 9-5, avoid burnout. Choose your niche strategically, manage your client, and get advice if you’re stuck.

—

I did the math as Zoom loaded. The answer was 7.

If we did layoffs, 7 colleagues would be let go before me. I was Chinese lucky number 8.

Like most people, I lived in this fantasy where my future was secure. Moments in time (like a global pandemic) tug at this facade. Behind the curtain is nothing more than a harried man peddling away at his Rube Goldberg machine.

Moments like this are the best thing that can happen to you.

It’s the Inciting Incident in your Hero’s Journey. Your opportunity to re-examine the fragility of having a single source of income (your job) and explore building multiple revenue streams.

For me, it nudged me towards landing my first consulting gig.

Why consulting?

Earning side income is a vast universe. You can teach online courses, start a food blog, sell ads against your content, and much more.

I choose to consult, trading my time to work on someone else’s education company/products, in exchange for money.

Consulting is the best way to start earning additional income for two reasons:

career

How to Find Your Next Tech Job

Last updated on May 3rd, 2022 at 10:05 am

Do you start your retail career at the Gap or Abercrombie? Your marketing career in-house or a digital agency?

It doesn’t matter because you can always adjust your trajectory.

But when you’re mid-career, finding your next tech job, each decision carries more weight. You have a finite number of career moves left.

career

I Moved to Dublin, Ireland

Last updated on February 9th, 2022 at 04:25 pm

The hardest part of selling a home and moving a family of 5 overseas wasn’t the machinations or logistical Jenga:

“What about your house?” Sold it to my brother
“What about the kids?” Enrolled in daycare
“What about work? Taxes?” The work situation was negotiated at the hiring phase. Taxes were… confusing. And expensive. I bought an hour from a tax consultant, so now it’s less confusing (still expensive though)

The hardest part was answering: why move in the first place?

career

How to Build an Incredible Career: Lessons from Arnold Schwarzenegger

Last updated on September 9th, 2021 at 03:00 pm

Young[efn_note]Image is from Maggie (2015) a post-apocalyptic horror drama film Arnold stars in. It’s a dramatic turn for the action star. I love that he continues to push himself in his roles.[/efn_note] Arnold Schwarzenegger plastered his childhood bedroom with pictures of the greats: Steve Reeves, Bill Pearl, Jack Dellinger, Tommy Sansome, Paul Winter. All were influential in Arnold’s life, but none more so than the winner of Mr. Universe in 1974, Reg Park.[efn_note]Source for all things Arnold: Total Recall by Arnold Schwarzenegger – https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009G3MSC0/[/efn_note]

Reg Park provided Arnold with the blueprint for his own career:

Become a world-class bodybuilder
Win Mr. Universe
Leverage that success into Hollywood

Chris Ming

Remote jobs with no experience required

Takeaways

Takeaways

Why consulting?