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nostupidquestions·No Stupid Questionsbynicgentile

Why is it difficult to get low-level remote jobs

I've hit rock bottom on this. I want a basic ~$20+ per hour job where I answer calls, chats, emails and help people with whatever they need from home. I don't mind working nights, long hours, overtime, holidays, I have basically nothing to do.

I have experience, I have technical skills, customer support skills, I have led 2 teams, switched to data entry, but the last close to 100 applications have led me nowhere. I imagined it would be easy to get into Amazon support or something like that, but dang, I am not getting anywhere. All I see are bait and switch jobs to sell insurance, or travel agency stuff, or benefits or some sort of MLM.

I got into CloudWorkers with the hopes it is some sort of legit cause I am in deep crap.

I have 2 - 3 weeks where I need to figure this one out, and this in the end of the second month looking for work.

Seriously, why is it this hard?

View original on lemmy.world
lemmy.world

Those sorts of jobs are filled from low-wage countries.

98
Nomecksreply
lemmy.ca

A foot and a half of Subway sandwiches and two bottles of pop is $29 in my country

11

Don't be disheartened, take what was said in the last part of the response and apply it. Answer those questions and refine your search based on the answers.

3

Take this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population

Intersect it with this list: https://www.worlddata.info/average-income.php

And you get

  • Philippines - 70m English Speakers - Average Hourly Income $1.44
  • India - 228m English Speakers - Average Hourly Income $0.90
  • Nigeria - 125m English Speakers - Average Hourly Income $0.66
  • Pakistan - 108m English Speakers - Average Hourly Income $0.51

etc, etc

When you want a Entry level online only job, your now competing with the global workforce.

You can get paid more when geography matters (so in person, or for legal reasons), culture matters, language matters (we already narrowed down to English for this example), skills matter (more difficult the skill, higher the remuneration), relationships matter (people know you, so they trust you to work remotely)

What are you offering, able to do, that someone from one of the low cost countries can't do in order to justify $20/hr? That's what should be driving your job search.

63
lemmy.world

I was offered $21/hr to remote work at some google outsourced company for one of their LLM projects. It was going to be grueling work, full-time, no benefits. It took about 120 applications (two responses) to even get there, and they ghosted me after a second interview. It’s awful out there and I feel for you 100%. Best of luck, genuinely.

37
lemmy.world

There isn't a single company in the country that's going to pay you $20/hr to do something that entire offices are doing across the world for that same rate. You're shooting way too high for that wage doing that kind of work

20

I got paid a lot more than that doing similar for a while before the pandemic. Since the pandemic companies got caught up in the forcing people back into offices for no reason. When you are assisting people across the nation and there is information that cannot be allowed to be accessed outside it, they have to keep the jobs in the country to keep government contracts. There is no point in hiring someone in the city and have them drive in when it costs more to live in the city, it's cheaper to pay someone who lives further away.

Why pay someone $35 an hour in a city that they can barely afford to live in and are always looking for a way out the door to find a better rate, when you can hire someone elsewhere who can live comfortably off $35 an hour and considers themselves lucky.

I spent 3 years with a company that I never went into an office once.

5
nicgentilereply
lemmy.world

What should I be aiming for? I'm simply going by what the job sites are stating.

4

Those postings are put up by recrutiers for jobs that don't exist to pad their rolodex in case they happen to get a overqualified candidate. There aren't actually any $20/hr entry level remote jobs on the market.

25
midwest.social

Aim for higher paying jobs. That filters lots of crap. Legit jobs will take more thana few weeks to pay you.

If the timeline is a few weeks, look elsewhere.

Sorry.

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nicgentilereply
lemmy.world

I get that, but at some point, I had two months to spare. It's dwindled down to this.

8
MNByChoicereply
midwest.social

I don't know your situation, but some time with a spreadsheet is called for. Figure out how to stretch things.

Clearly, this drifts from your original question.

2

Already done. Can't stretch any further than I am. But this is what I figure is character development of some sort.

7

Fair enough.

I read the thing about CloudWorkers when I signed up. The math means its 10 bucks an hour and if you work 12 hours a day 7 days a week, then it dings the needle slightly cause its shy of 3K. Either way, it is currently the best deal I have on the table.

6
feddit.org

Because the sort of people who are in the market for low level jobs aren't the sort of people who function well in a remote work environment with little oversight.

Bluntly: Low skilled workers will slack off without direct supervision.

7

I'm a high skilled worker who is really good at slacking off with direct supervision...

15
2ugly2livereply
lemmy.world

Remote claim work. Glorified customer service. It is busy and people burn out in a few months.

6

Many have stated demand vs supply but, a lot of it is also because many jobs are scared to have entry level as remote. The ability to train on the go is more difficult then in house, so many entry level positions start as office jobs and move over to WFH, this causes a difficulty for people who can only do WFH

3

You reached the end