Choosing a full time remote job during pandemic

Hi Good People!

So as you can I see I did a total re-brand of my blog so I can easily address topics that my audience will truly care about. Kudos to quarantine in my country! (that has been extended to two weeks I guess), this way, I don't have any options other than staying home and staying alive. And so, I get to start working on many pending projects that I want to do. Aside from restarting by blog, I also did a pivot in terms of career choice. I went to a full time remote job while still doing what I love most: digital marketing. I went from an E-commerce marketing to a digital marketing consultant in a holding company based in Hongkong and USA.

When choosing this career options, I did a little bit of research if this option is the best for me and if if the job I'm choosing is truly a progress towards a better life for me or a setback. So here are the key take outs that I managed to gather:

Research the company's industry that they are in

In this particular hard situation (covid-19 pandemic) we know that several industries are suffering (eg. tourism and retail) so the first thing that you have to research is what industry that actually doing good or even profited from this situation. Many line of business also do many pivots in terms of product development and switching their revenue stream. I can say that these companies are the promising ones since they are not only survive the pandemic but they also grows from it. So search a company that are potential and has long term goals and it will be also promising for your career growth.

Research the founders

Founding members is as important as the company itself because it will shape the working culture, leadership style, and also the company potential. Search their educational background, they career journey before they started the business, and also how long and committed they have been in the business. Sometimes, a good press doesn't really reflect this, you still have to be careful about customer reviews, the maturity of the products (is it well establish? has a good concept and clear business models?) and maybe later on, you will feel the chemistry once you get an interview with them.

Find out their leadership style

When it comes to leadership style, everyone has their own preference, some like the micromanage style, some like result oriented style with minimum supervision. Call interview is the perfect time to ask all about management style, since you won't meet them face to face on daily basis, be sure to ask as many questions as possible about management style to agree before onboard. If you find something that is not suitable for your working style, try to discuss and talk it out, if they need you, I'm sure there's a room for negotiation and discussion.

Work hours and salary mechanism

And of course we have to address the elephant in the room.. the salary. There are several salary mechanism that company arrange for remote working. There's pay per hour, pay per project, pay per day or the conventional monthly salary. Because I'm used to be paid on monthly basis (and because of the nature of my job which is marketing) so I choose be paid monthly. As for other technical occupation such as developer or designer, I think you can search company that offers pay per hour so that you will still get extra money if you're working late or having one of those late night troubleshooting gigs. Also, be sure if you're working on shift basis or you're working like a normal corporate employee (which is 9-5) this is also important to manage your expectation about workload and working hours.

Project management tools

Last but not least, project management tools. Since physical meeting room is off the table and I'm sure you don't want conference call every one or two hours, you have to establish a really seamless working board in a form of project management tools. Be sure that the tools allows you to work independently and have a clear two way information between you, your boss and the rest of the team. Even though you don't hop in a call once in a day, your boss can see what you're doing and you can also manage your task to your subordinates and cross departments. I recommend you to try Slack, Asana, Trello or Monday.