If you're looking for a remote development job, you can save yourself loads of time and aggravation by using Google's site-search functionality to deliver targeted and up-to-date leads in record time! In this age of information overload, we all suffer from having to spend large amounts of time separating signal from noise.
By taking the custom searches we've created below and tweaking them to the specifics of your current search, you can easily keep track of the most relevant leads, all without the burnout that can come from regularly checking multiple sites.
Why Would I Want to Work in My PJs?
For one thing, it seriously diminishes the chances of an on-the-job wardrobe malfunction. But in all seriousness, remote jobs represent a seismic shift in the landscape of career possibility. The opportunity to work when and where you want is a luxury that, until recently, was only available to certain highly successful entrepreneurs.
Being able to skip mindless meetings, long commutes, and unnecessary office chit-chat is just the tip of the iceberg. We've written extensively on this topic on our blog, but to sum things up, remote jobs have the potential to free up time and space in people's lives, and these are two of the most precious commodities any of us have.
So How Does it Work?
Once you have your search string parameters set, you could run searches once a week and see exactly what the latest targeted opportunities are. For those who like working with recruiters, this can be a great aid, providing you with valuable information on what the market looks like, not so much for developers in general, but for your specific niche.
This can give you great insights into aspects of the search like salary negotiations, where all sorts of subtle factors come into play. If you're a mid-level Rubyist, not currently living in a major metro area, who wants to be able to travel and work, the number of roles open to this type of work dynamic should factor heavily into your decision making. Additionally, having offers on the table as a result of your own efforts can provide you with leverage to use when negotiating for openings which recruiters have presented you (and vice versa).
The Heavy Hitter
Below is a custom search of Stack Overflow, clearly the most dominant job board for software development positions. We started with a site search of the jobs directory, using the site's own internal query string parameters to filter for remote positions.
site:https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?allowsremote=True remote -"company page" -"no remote" -"business intelligence" -platform
Surprisingly, this still resulted in some non-remote gigs being displayed, so we went ahead and threw in the keyword "remote". The additional negative keyword match on "company page" and "no remote" got rid of search results that were not job listing pages. The last two negative matches removed leads that were not relevant.
We spoke earlier about adjusting the search parameters of these custom searches in order to match your own criteria. On a large board like Stack Overflow Jobs, it's extremely easy to drill-down and target for terms like Ruby, Rails, JavaScript or Angular.
The Importance of Being Authentic
site:https://authenticjobs.com -intitle:"Web, Design" remote -"tech lead" -marketing -animator -"social media marketing" -"art director"
On Authentic Jobs, we started with a negative match on an "intitle:" parameter to remove pages with "Web, Design" in the title, since these turned out to be non-job listing pages. From there, we searched for the term "remote" and added several negative matches to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Let Me Get That With a Coffee and Danish
site:https://jobspresso.co developer -"content writer"
The next three sites specialize exclusively in remote jobs, making them even easier to search. The first of these was Jobspresso, which markets itself as a job board featuring high-quality and hand-curated remote leads. What this suggests is that candidates are less likely to run into positions that have already been filled.
What Jobspresso's exact screening process is, we're not sure of, but the idea of a job board removing positions that have already been filled can be appreciated by any job seeker not wanting to have their time wasted!
If You Can't Be 100% Awesome
site:https://www.remotelyawesomejobs.com/ developer
Next, we searched Remotely Awesome Jobs, which acts as an aggregator for several sites, all of which specialize in remote job leads. The aggregators can be a great way to round out your search and make sure there aren't any relevant leads that have slipped through the cracks. In regards to senior-level remote positions, they are likely to show up on one of the job boards listed above, but for junior to mid-level programmers it makes sense to cast a slightly larger net.
It's OK to Be Remote... Really
site:https://remoteok.io/ developer intitle:at
The last site we searched was RemoteOK. Here, all job listing pages have the word "at" in the title, hence the "intitle:at" parameter.
It's All a Matter of Timing
All of the above searches employed Google's Search Tool to select the custom date range of the last fifteen days. This feature allows only the most recent listings to be served. You can select a custom range by clicking on the "Search Tools" button and then selecting "Custom range..." from the drop-down list.
We hope you enjoyed learning about using targeted searches to filter remote job leads! If you have any questions about Google Custom Searches or your job hunt in general, shoot @CodingRemote a tweet, we'd love to chat with you.
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