If I was looking for my first remote job, these are the 3 steps I'd take
Hey,
I'm Sergio Pereira, and this is the Remote Work newsletter 👋
Last week I did a big comparison between salaries in remote jobs vs in-office jobs, based on my database that contains over 1M jobs, scraped every week from 400k+ companies, to feed JobsCopilot.ai.
Many people ask me for help to find their first remote job. And I got myself thinking: with all this market insight I have now, how would I find my first remote job?, if I was in that position myself right now.
As we saw last week, most remote jobs range between $60k and $160k, it's a wide range:
Before anything else I'd need to understand two important concepts:
• Jobs that pay a high salary and no geographical constraints get hundreds of applicants in a day, those are very competitive to get.
• On the other hand, jobs that pay a lower salary and have geographical constraints get fewer applicants and are easier to get.
Just like I explain in the Remote Jobs Braintrust course and community, I think of it like a pyramid:
This is a framework that helps me focus on those dream jobs, the high paying remote jobs I want to get. But also tells me that it's wise to diversify risk by applying to jobs that are easier to get, especially if I'm pressured to land a job ASAP.
When I look into the Jobs Copilot database, I'd first target those dream jobs that are fully remote and pay upwards of $150k/year. Here are some examples of jobs I'd apply to:
• Full Stack Engineer @ Magic School ($160k - $190k)
• Backend Engineer @ Volume ($175k - $300k)
• Staff Backend Engineer @ Runway ML ($190k - $235k)
• Engineering Lead @ Auxo ($160k - $180k)
Now, if I'm an applicant to any of these jobs, I must be aware that these salaries above $150k/year are life-changing for many people around the world (not just for me). As such, each of these roles will easily get hundreds of applicants in a few days, and I'd need to be a top performer to get any of these.
Point is: If I'm applying only to my dream jobs, I might be frustrated because it will likely take longer than I expect!
That's why I always recommend folks to diversify risk in their job search. If I was in that position right now I'd also apply to slightly less interesting jobs, which would be less competitive. Remember that my main goal when looking for my first remote job was to escape the low local wages of Portugal, where I live. I'd be wiling to make some tradeoffs, such as getting a lower salary just to gain some international remote experience. I'd later jump from there to a higher paying remote job.
I did some quick search on JobsCopilot.ai, and these are some examples if less competitive jobs, with salaries below $100k, that I'd still apply to to diversify risk:
• Fullstack Engineer @ SerpAPI ($80k - $100k)
• Backend Engineer @ Remote ($39k - $109k)
• Fullstack Engineer @ Ergeon ($67k - $83k)
• Support Engineer @ Orderly Network ($50k - $90k)
• Fullstack Engineer @ Nebulab (€40k - €80k)
• Lead Frontend Engineer @ Revolution Technology (£70k - £90k)
Now, what if those jobs are still too competitive, and what if I'm in a rush to find my next job? In that case I'd take a step down and look for remote jobs with geographical constraints to my city (Lisbon, Portugal). These would only have applicants who live here, and that's a tiny pool of competition, compared to global remote jobs. Also note these are less likely to mention salary in the JD (as I tweeted here). Here are some examples of remote jobs in Lisbon that I could apply to, if I were in this situation:
• Software Engineer @ Cloudflare
This is just a sample of the thousands of jobs that you can find at JobsCopilot.AI (~339k new jobs were pulled just this week). In fact, the Jobs Copilot finds you the jobs and it also applies on your behalf to the jobs you select. It's automated by AI agents, you're in the supervisor's seat to simply review the application process. No more grunt work scrolling job boards and filling application forms.
This is how the JobsCopilot's Auto Apply works
1/ Your auto-application profile
Once you switch to the Premium plan, you'll be prompted to fill in a profile section with your replies to common demographic questions found in job application forms:
2/ Your auto-apply flow
Besides that initial setup, you'll now find this new button in the jobs card. Just click the "Auto Apply" button on the jobs that are relevant to you, and that will trigger the auto-apply backend flow (no application is sent before your final revision):
3/ Application form is fetched and pre-filled for you
All jobs you've ticked "Auto Apply" are moved to the "Jobs to Apply" tab. And for each of them our backend pulls the application form, and our AI generates replies to each of the form questions based on the job description and your profile. Within a couple minutes you can find the pre-filled job application form in each job card:
4/ One-click confirmation
For now, I'm requiring you to review and click this submit button for every job, as I want you to feel in control of your applications, and I want to capture feedback on quality of this flow. I might make it more automated upon some configs in the future.
Once you submit a job for Auto Apply, the copilot will submit your application in the following minutes/hours (depending on work load). You'll get these messages on your email on a frequent basis, like I'm receiving for the past couple weeks during testing:
I'm very happy for this launch. Developing JobsCopilot under such aggressive bandwidth constraints has been hard work, but I'm thankful for your feedback, and for all positive messages and engagement. You truly are an amazing bunch :)
If you have any issues or questions about JobsCopilot, just drop me a message on jobscopilot@sergiopereira.io, for faster response. I count on your feedback to make this product the best in the market and help us all find great jobs!
Thanks for reading this newsletter until the end. You can read all past editions here. Make sure to share it with your friends and colleagues so they can read it too.
See you next Friday,
Sergio Pereira,
Startup CTO & Remote Work Lover