As we come to take working from anywhere as a new norm, it is not easy to find remote job opportunities. According to the World Economic Forum, the number of global digital jobs that can be performed remotely will grow by roughly 25 per cent to 92 million, but the report fails to underscore the difficulty in finding a truly remote job.
While there are many job portals listing remote jobs, the definition of remote is rather obscure and varies from time to time. Gillian O’Brien, General Manager, Remote Talent, tells me some remote jobs are rather hybrid job opportunities or opportunities where you can work remotely but need to be within a certain mile radius from HQ.
She argues this is not truly a remote job opportunity and with Remote Talent, she says they are helping jobseekers find truly remote roles or ones compatible with the search criteria. Remote Talent may seem like another job portal, but it is a platform for jobseekers who are truly global in their search and looking for 100 per cent remote or distributed work. A year after its launch, it shows the need for a complete rethink and a job board without location as a barrier.
Finding truly remote positions
What’s the common challenge with traditional job boards? O’Brien says traditional job search tools are limited because they were built before distributed work became mainstream, and 78 per cent of applicants reportedly find it difficult to find truly remote positions. She adds that 40 per cent see unclear salary ranges as another significant concern.
However, the biggest challenge is jobs advertised as “remote” but are either not remote or limited to specific locations. To solve these challenges faced by jobseekers, Remote, US-based payroll, HR, tax, and compliance solutions company designed Remote Talent to address these issues head-on.
“We’ve designed our platform to clearly distinguish the work model of each role, whether it’s remote or hybrid,” O’Brien explains. She adds, “We provide multi-currency salary ranges for every role, eliminating guesswork and allowing candidates to make informed decisions.”
Remote Talent also offers advanced search filters to find jobs tailored specifically for remote work, including options to filter by time zone and location requirements. When candidates sign up on Remote Talent and upload their resume, the service will show specific job matches tailored to their resume, and they can set their resume to “visible” to be recommended to employers on the site.
“It’s like skipping the line at the job fair,” she quips.
Unlike other job boards, Remote Talent is ad-free and does not rely on sponsored posts or ads. It also has a cleaner interface for both employers and jobseekers and it is specifically designed for remote and global hiring needs. However, O’Brien says what makes Remote Talent special is its integration with Remote’s HR platform. “This offers a seamless experience from hiring to onboarding and management, all within one ecosystem,” she explains.
O’Brien adds, “This integration allows companies to move effortlessly from talent discovery to hiring, and from onboarding to payroll, all within a single platform. Once a candidate is hired through Remote Talent, employers can easily manage their onboarding process, set up local payroll, provide benefits, and ensure compliance – all without leaving the dashboard.”
AI meet jobseekers
Within a year of its launch, Remote Talent has been able to attract 2 million visitors a month from all over the world. The numbers are staggering for a company that is not known for helping jobseekers in the first place, and O’Brien says this is because there are thousands of truly remote, distributed jobs on the site at any given time.
She says about 200,000 candidates have created profiles up on Remote Talent, while the platform is also attracting a diverse range of employers. She says jobseekers can find nimble startups to large enterprises on Remote Talent, and this rapid adoption is a clear sign of Remote Talent meeting a real need in this evolving landscape of work.
To ensure that employers don’t get overwhelmed by applicants, Remote uses AI to help match employers with the most suitable candidates. “Our goal is to make the hiring process more efficient and effective, saving time for both employers and candidates while facilitating better matches,” she tells me.
The Achilles heel of most job boards is that they are unable to move past keyword matching, but Remote Talent is using AI to power its enhanced candidate-matching based on skills and experience and understand the nuances of a candidate’s background. AI is also used to write job descriptions, which particularly helps while posting jobs across multiple countries.
Accessible and effective
O’Brien doesn’t shy away from reflecting on the success that Remote Talent has seen in its first year. She says they have gained valuable insights that will shape the future of Remote’s job listing platform. “One of our key learnings has been the critical importance of transparency in job listings. We’ve seen first-hand how clear, detailed job descriptions lead to better matches and more satisfying outcomes for both employers and candidates,” she explains.
She adds they have also learned that their decision to go ad-free has helped reduce application overload, which delivers a noticeable difference in the quality and relevance of applications. This is something that employers will appreciate, but is an under-the-radar boon for jobseekers on the platform.
Remote Talent is also unique in its monetisation strategy. Instead of relying on sponsored job listings or ads, Remote Talent offers employers a transparent pricing plan which ties in with its focus on quality over quantity and delivers value for both employers and jobseekers.
O’Brien says, “Our north star will always be maintaining the integrity of our platform and ensuring that any monetisation efforts enhance, rather than detract from, the user experience.”
While reflecting on the first year, O’Brien also has an exciting plan to make Remote Talent even better. It starts with enhancing the search and filtering capabilities to provide even more relevant results and implementing AI-driven matching to improve the quality of connections between employers and jobseekers.
She says the next big change will come in the form of expanded global reach and localisation efforts to ensure Remote Talent is truly accessible and effective for users around the world. The goal, she argues, is to create the most effective platform for global and remote hiring, one that works regardless of location or language and deeply integrates with Remote’s HR ecosystem.
“We’re constantly evolving to meet the changing needs of the modern workforce, and we’re excited about the future of Remote Talent and its role in shaping the future of work,” she adds.
To know how Remote helps with your planned relocation, download the Remote Relocation Guide here.
01
From port to startup fort: How Lars Crama is ‘Making it Happen’ in Rotterdam