Top Skills for Remote Jobs (and Where to Get Them)

So, you want to try out this remote work thing (which is pretty awesome, btw!) but aren’t really sure how to go about it, how to get the skills that you need – or what those skills are, for that matter? Then you’re definitely in the right place; because we’ve worked remotely for the past 6 years.

These skills then, what are they? Since the world is ever-changing, so are the job opportunities and thus the know-how you need to do them well, but we’ve put together a little list including the ones that will help you get a job in a field that is now well-established in the world of remote work, and we’ll also give you some useful links. Sounds good? Great, let’s have a look!

Pro Tip: While experience and training is obviously helpful, don’t feel like you can’t apply for a position if you lack it – if you have the passion you may find companies willing to train you!

Before we start, here are some links to websites with a large variety of online courses where you can find just about everything mentioned in this post, if you want to have a look straight away!

• Udemy
• Alison
• Coursera

Tech Skills

Whether you want to be a Front-End Developer, Back-End Developer or a UX Designer you’ll need to know some coding, because code is the foundation bricks that you’ll use to build your digital castle of awesomeness.

You’ll want to know your way around HTML, CSS, JavaScript at the very least and other languages such as PHP, Swift, Ruby on Rails and Go are also going to be handy depending on the type of job you’re after. You can easily find courses and websites where you can learn these tech skills online – they’re fun, promise!

Codecademy is one of the big players when it comes to getting your code on.

Learn to Code With Me is an awesome website with millions, possibly even billions, of great tips for beginners

Treehouse offers courses for both developers and designers

Design & Creative Skills

Most jobs with an element of design or creativity require a little smörgåsbord of skills. Design can be anything from illustration to designing user experiences for mobile applications and even creating new typefaces. The list is truly endless, as is the list of places you can learn from.

Adobe has their own courses to learn its programs, and you can always check with an old friend; YouTube.

Udemy, Alison and Coursera all have lots of courses, whether you want to learn how to set a paragraph style in InDesign or how to become a Print Designer. Or anything in between, of course! There is also Skillshare for the more casual and personal training course.

Communication Skills

Most jobs, remote or not, require some level of communication but if you’re not actually in the office, you’ll need to be extra-awesome at written communication. As you’ll most likely be spending your days communicating via email or Slack.

Try to be as clear as possible when communicating with people you work with, don’t forget to put yourself in their shoes once in a while and make sure that you have all the information you need to perform whatever task it is that you’ve been given. Even though we are all about digital communication these days, that doesn’t automatically mean we’re good at communicating!

Skillshare is the place to go for a verity of communication courses (with a focus on remote working).

Business Skills

Just because you’re not stuck in an office doesn’t mean that you won’t need any of the skills that are valuable there: to manage a project or a team you’ll need to know about leadership, negotiation and how to delegate work and motivate your team – and a sense of humor, to take stress out of the equation and keep everyone happy!

It’s also really valuable to know a thing or two about accounting – especially if you’re self-employed and in charge of all your finances. Of course, you can hire people to make sure that you’re paying all your taxes, but why spend your hard-earned money on something you can do yourself?! Depending on your country of origin, there’s loads of info about what you need to do!

This is a great website for learning anything business-related, and you’ll be able to find other courses too!

This course teaches you accounting, and also lots of other interesting stuff. Have a look!

And, of course, Udemy, Alison and Coursera can help you with accounting and business skills too!

Writing Skills

It’s said that anyone can be a writer and while that’s technically true, there’s a skill or two that will improve your writing and make you stand out. Whether you’re a content writer, a copywriter, a ghostwriter or even a translator, you’ll definitely need your grammar, spelling, and punctuation to be on point – and, of course, it all has to make sense!

Other things that are incredibly useful for any writer are knowing a bit about editing and research so that you can ensure that both your style and your content are as awesome as they can be, and it might also be rather awesome to have some cultural and special knowledge about your field. You’ll also need a considerable, hefty, gigantically vast vocabulary, so you’d better hit those books!

If you want to learn more about all sorts of writing, then this site will allow you to do so.

For any budding – or already bloomed – translators, this is where you want to be!

Lastly, believe it or not, but Alison, Udemy (and here’s one for copywriting) and Coursera can also help you out!

Personal Skills

Yep, there are some traits that will make it a lot easier for you to get everything done when there’s no one around to set your schedule or tell you what file needs filing first. First out is organization, which makes everything run smoothly, and let’s throw in some time management as well.

What else? Well, you’re probably gonna have to motivate yourself (just think about the beach, waiting for you by its lonesome!) and it’s a fair assumption that you’ll use some sort of technology, so you need to brush up on that as well. Don’t worry, though. Udemy and Coursera have that covered for you!

Back to School, You Go!

Or perhaps you want to do a course that will only take an hour or two a week of your time – that’s the great thing about learning online, it’s so ridiculously flexible! Anyhow, the best of luck to you with your skill-acquiring, and don’t hesitate to let us know if you have any other skills you’d add to the list!