Ep 68 9 Skills You Need To Be a Candidate for Remote Jobs 2 of 4

In episode 68, which is the 2nd of 4 parts, we explore the top nine skills you need to be considered a desirable candidate for remote jobs. You're listening to the remote work retirement show. The only show that helps semi retirees figure out the remote work options. I believe the remote work is the new retirement plan and that many retirees have both the ability and desire to work how they want so they can live how they want.

Let's dig into today's episode. Hello and welcome back to a brand new series all about what you need to know about remote work and artificial intelligence. Today is part two of a four part series talking about all of the trends that are happening with remote work and artificial intelligence, especially as we move into the last part of this year.

And in episode six, 67, I talk about how we have finally seen a little bit of an uptick in the unemployment rate. And that's why it's really important that you listen to this entire series. So if you haven't yet start with 67 or at least go back to 67 when you're done listening to this episode. Now, today I'm going to get right into the nuts and bolts of this conversation and tell you the top skills that employers are looking for in candidates, especially ones who are looking to work remotely.

And let me say that talking about skills is a little bit hard because it will depend on the type of job you want to get, or even the type, the type of business that you might want to start. But if we talk high level about the skills you need in general. To work remotely, whether that's being employed or having your own business, then these skills are going to apply no matter what, and these are foundational.

So it's a really good place to start. Now, I do want to caution you as I go through this list, you might hear some of these things and get. Discouraged that does happen. And I totally understand because I don't have all the, all of the skills on this list. My goodness. How, how could I write, but there may be some things on here that you do have experience with and that you could transfer into a variety of remote jobs or business.

And there may be things you don't have experience with yet, but that doesn't mean that you won't get the experience. And always remember, I like to say this a lot. You are more skilled than you think. Most people are, and I have worked with a lot of people. Also something to remember is not every employer will look for all of these skills, but again, we have to start somewhere.

This list is a really solid list for you to start with. So let me go through the list. There are nine of these skills. I'm going to start with the one that I think is truly, truly critical, but it's one of these things that's ever evolving and it'll be something that you don't just learn once. And then you never returned to the first skill you need to know is really important, but it's one of those things that always continues to grow and evolve.

And that's digital literacy. I can barely say it. I've had to rerecord this like seven times just to say those words. So you've heard about literacy, reading and writing. Digital literacy is where you understand the tools and technologies and platforms to essentially know your way around. Now, there are so many of them and a lot of them are coming and going, you know, a new one pops on the scene and then.

As soon as it pops on, it's expired. There's new AI tools popping up literally every day. It's very difficult to stay on top of this right now. So here's what you need to know. You just need to know enough tools to get around. And so next week I will talk about a number of those tools. Not all of them, because my goodness, that would be an eight hour episode, but I will give you a high level list.

I guess I'll call it a list. of the top ones that you need to know to work your way around, you know, artificial intelligence, remote jobs, remote business, and so on. Number two is one that boy, this is a tough one. It just depends on who you are. It's self discipline, believe it or not. And that's because when you're working remotely and especially if you're working for yourself like me, it's not so easy to stay structured and disciplined.

And I'll tell you it's a make or break skill and employers are really looking for People who are self disciplined because they can't see you I mean, this is one of the reasons why managers and companies want to bring people back into the office is because they believe that people are goofing off or Not taking their work seriously or not working between the hours of nine to five or whatever, right?

So one of the ways that you can combat that is having enough self discipline to meet the requirements of the job, or at least what you need to do to produce a result, or in my case, run your business, which sometimes I do better than other times. Okay. Number three is communication skills. And this is also really important because when you're.

Working remotely and you're, you can't talk face to face, you can't read body language or have nonverbal cues, then you have to be even more clear when you're talking to people either in email on zoom calls, especially in chat. If you're working with different technologies like slack or tools like Trello or Asana, don't worry, I'll talk about those next week.

So it becomes even more crucial. And it's something that you really do want to talk about on your resume, on LinkedIn and in interviews. So if you don't have communication skills in remote environments on there, you definitely need to add it. And if you're not sure if you're good at it, then I would encourage you to practice this.

I mean, even with friends and family, just jump on some zoom calls or have some chats and just practice, make sure that you can build up that muscle. Number four is adaptability. Oh my goodness. I cannot tell you how much adaptability I have to have to work remotely. And it doesn't even matter when it's working for myself and my own business, or when I'm working on a contract for a client, or even when I had a couple of, um, contract gigs where I was working for an employer, it didn't seem to matter what it was.

I always had to be really adaptable, and so that meant maybe learning a new technology. Um, learning how to quickly get up to speed on a project. Maybe something was going wrong, and I had to quickly pivot and adaptability is one of those skills that it kind of doesn't matter if it's working remotely or not.

It just seems like more and more as workplaces become more complex. and businesses too. This skill is, is becoming really like the skill du jour. If, if I may say, gosh, I hope I said that right. Okay. Number five, problem solving. This is like tried and true. I swear. I think problem solving has been on this list since the dawn of time.

All companies want people who are good problem solvers, but I'll tell you what, it becomes even more important when you work remotely to be able to, to solve problems because you can't just walk over to somebody's desk and ask your co worker, you have to be able to. Jump on and research, figure things out.

You have to be patient. Goodness. That's probably another one I should put on the list, but we'll kind of bundle that into problem solving because you have to be patient and resilient to actually solve a problem in the first place. And the more you can do this, the more that you'll be able to work independently.

And that's really important. As long as you can work independently. I mean, Thank you. That should be like the big skill, the umbrella skill on this entire list. I feel like all the rest of these skills sort of make you an independent worker. If you can do that, you have mastered the game of remote work.

Let's talk about number six. This is also becoming really important, and that is cybersecurity awareness. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be a cybersecurity expert or that you have to have, you know, gone through certification programs or gone to school for that, but you have to know enough about the ways that people will try to scam or hack into systems.

You have to know when someone might be. Trying to get information from you and you just have to have enough awareness about it and be able to talk about it if you're in interviews or Especially if you're running your own business, I swear I feel like at least two to three times a week I get an email from one of these tools or systems that tell me that i've breached something, you know I violated a community standard or I don't know, my credit card didn't go through or something like that.

And in the beginning, when I didn't know better, I would panic. Well, now I know better. And when it says, click the link to fix the problem, I just don't respond. And then I just sort of see what happens. I'm like, well, I don't know if I'm here in a week, then I guess everything was fine. Right. And then I quickly delete that email.

So that's just being more and more aware of cybersecurity. And by the way, that's not only important for remote work or remote business. That's just important for yourself. For, you know, keeping your own personal financial and any kind of information that you want to protect safe and secure. Number seven is about remote collaboration.

And this is really similar to being able to communicate, but you want to be able to connect to different teams. So maybe that's, you know, working on group projects. That's not always true because it's going to depend on the job that you get. I have a friend who works as an accountant, and she doesn't really interact with anybody.

And so she can sit quietly, remotely, work the hours she wants, and she doesn't really have to be collaborative. But in many cases, you will need to at least know how to do that. Because again, if you have to quickly respond to somebody, if you have to problem solve with somebody, if you have to provide information to somebody by a certain time.

What? And again, this is true for if you're going to work in a workplace or if you're going to run your own business or have a freelance service. In that case, you would have clients or maybe partners. You have to know how to work well with those people in remote or virtual environments. Number eight is kind of similar to self discipline and that is time management.

So really just managing your workload, managing your time, being able to prioritize tasks. This is especially true if you work for. A company that is not that structured. So rather than them wanting you to clock in at a certain time or get tasks done by a certain time, maybe they give you deadlines that's like next week and you have, you know, however many hours to produce a result.

By next week. Well, shoot. Some people might wait until the night before it's kind of like that old like my homework is due the next day. So I'm gonna wait until the night before to do it. That is really hard to accomplish in a remote work world because things can really go south. Technology might not work.

Uh, you can't log in. You got locked out. Nobody's around to unlock or send you a password. So I would advise For you to figure out how to prioritize and manage your time. Now, especially if you're looking to work remotely in the future or start your own business. And finally nine, which is kind of similar to number one is tech.

savviness, really knowing enough technology. So that's not that different from having digital literacy, but I would say what makes it a little bit different is being able to, to self teach. So the good news about this is maybe you don't know all the technologies today, nor do you need to, but you at least want to have enough awareness of how to teach yourself things.

And the good news is a lot of the tools and platforms out there have. free training, because they want you to adopt their technology. And the only way to do that is to offer you free training, which is great. So almost any tool out there, which I'll talk about next week, but as an example, Canva is a tool that's fantastic.

Lots of people use it in all kinds of remote jobs. It has a lot of new artificial intelligence features, and it has a lot of free training too. So having enough ability to teach yourself so that you can become tech savvy. is really important. It, it's more important than knowing the tools because the tools always change.

And so you have to have the kind of discipline to teach yourself and stay on top of the tools when they do change. All right. So let me run through the list one more time. Number one, digital literacy. Oh, good. I said that just right. Number two, self discipline. Number three, communication skills. Four, adaptability, five, problem solving, six, cyber security awareness, seven, remote collaboration, eight, time management, nine, tech savviness.

Now these skills will not only make you a desirable candidate, but they will help you thrive in a, in a remote work environment. A lot of times people tell me they don't have the confidence or they feel slow, but the more that you can practice these skills. The more your confidence will go up. I mean, I've been at this now for many, many years, and I, about every quarter, I feel like I don't know anything again, and, and it's almost like we're all on a level playing field because everything's always changing.

And that's good news because if we're all on a level playing field, then we all have the ability to do well in these environments and these remote environments. And remember, once again, you have more skills than you think. In our next episode, we'll dive deeper into artificial intelligence tools and skills that you need to know in this ever changing employment and business environment.

I'll see you then. If you're looking to get back into the workforce, change jobs, work remotely, or learn AI, check out my free remote work training so that you can stay on top of the trends and ahead of the pack. Click the link in the show notes or go to camillatel. com and press any of the free training buttons.

Click here to join Remote Work School:

https://www.camilleattell.com/remoteworkschool

If you want to start something new but feel a bit overwhelmed, I invite you to take my free remote work training:

https://www.camilleattell.com/remote-training

If you have any questions, Click here to DM on Instagram.

Rate, Review, & Follow on Apple Podcasts

If you’re loving the Remote Work Retirement Show please consider rating and leaving a review! This helps get the word out about the show and helps other people find hope and practical steps to find the right remote work for them. Click here, scroll to the bottom, tap to rate with five stars, and select “Write a Review.” Then let me know what you loved most about the show.

Also, make sure you don't miss an episode by clicking here to follow and get notified when each one is published.