If you need help writing a resume for remote work opportunities and don’t know where to start, you’ve come to the right place. I’m going to provide you with a seven-step process to help you write a resume to land those remote work opportunities.

There are some differences between a resume for an online job and a traditional job. They’re minor, but critical if you want to land a work-from-home job.

I’ll present best practices and examples of how to optimize your resume. Then I’ll give you effective exercises and resources to create or revise your resume.

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Writing a Resume for Remote Work Opportunities = A Mindset Shift

Current events have meant more people need to work from home. This means more competition in the job market, especially since we are facing an unemployment rate that economists have estimated to be between 15 and 20 percent. But remote jobs abound, and a focus on refreshing your resumes is so important – now more than ever!

If you’re looking for more resources about obtaining remote work, click here to watch my FREE Remote Work Training and learn my simple four-step process for finding the right remote work opportunities for you.

This fact remains true – there are more jobs than there are people to fill them. As more companies transition their workforce to working remotely, it’s still a real challenge that employers are facing right now. Companies have a hard time recruiting the perfect candidate.

Additionally, according to this March 2020 Remote Work Statistics article, working remotely and online jobs will continue increasing as employers look for ways to retain their talent. Even though in 2020 the unemployment rate continues to climb due to Covid-19, employers are creating more remote work options and will continue to in the future.

Lastly, even though hiring managers look for what’s called a purple unicorn—the perfect person to fill a role—they know that no such person exists. Therefore, if you come with enough skills, are eager to learn, and are coachable, you can establish yourself as a top candidate.

So, drop that inner critic of yours and get started on that resume. I will show you how in the next few sections.

If you need help getting started on your resume, click here to watch my FREE Remote Work Training.

Step 1. Complete a Task and Skills Assessment

Are you staring at a blank piece of paper thinking, “I have no idea what to say?” I see this all the time with students in my Remote Work Online Courses.

You can start by brainstorming all of the tasks that you currently do, or once did in a job. Then list your skills and knowledge related to those tasks.

Once you’ve identified your work tasks and skills and knowledge, simply link related tasks and skills to each other. Here’s an example of my tasks and skills:

After linking tasks and skills, you’ll be able to form sentences, such as these:

• Write original blog post content using SEO best practices.
• Create training programs following adult learning theory.
• Teach workshops that result in a high degree of learning transfer.

Later, you’ll use this list to create the Employment History section of your resume. This kind of activity is a great place to start, especially if you need more practice describing what you do.

Step #2: Creating a Great Resume Summary Statement

A summary statement is the intro paragraph at the top of your resume. Some people call it an objective but that’s not specific enough. For example, “Looking to obtain a position as a remote customer service agent” doesn’t describe who you are or what makes you a great candidate.

Instead, you need a summary statement that quickly conveys your experience. Here’s an example from Joe Smith, a fictional person.

Here’s a helpful tip as you update your resume:

Create a new summary statement for each job type that you apply for.

What?! That’s a lot of summary statements, right? Yes and no. Having a few will set you up for resume options, and you only have to write these statements once.

Here are examples of summary statements that I’ve used on my resumes for different, but similar jobs:

• For a corporate trainer job – Corporate training specialist with over twenty years of experience in all aspects of the training development lifecycle, including instructional design and training delivery.
• For an instructional design job – Senior Instructional designer responsible for the review and approval process for enterprise-wide sales training programs.
• For a project manager job – Project manager overseeing cross-site training and development teams, including project implementations and employee coaching and development.

These positions require similar skill sets. The bulk of my resume remains the same; I just change the summary and maybe a few statements to align with the job title.

I’ll get more into keywords and job alignment in Step #4.

Step #3: Writing the First Draft of Your Remote Work Resume

Now that you’ve completed a skills assessment and summary statement, it’s time to complete the first draft of your resume. This includes choosing a format and creating categories like Skill Sets, Employment History, Education, and Other Related Experience.

Don’t get fancy with your format. Keep it simple, clean, and easy to read—no bright colors, logos or creative fonts. I’ll dig deeper on format later, but for now, choose something really simple.

Follow these steps to complete your first draft:

1. Add your contact information at the top of your resume. If you don’t want to include an address, use your LinkedIn profile, or website, etc. (like Joe Smith above).
2. Add a draft of your summary statement.
3. Add placeholder sections on your resume like Skills, Employment History, Education, Certifications and Awards, or even Non-Profit/Volunteer Work (don’t fill in information yet).
4. In the Employment History section, list your jobs in chronological order starting with your most recent position. If you have a gap in employment, add anything you’ve done during that time that shows your skill sets.
5. Now, add the bullet point sentences you created in Step #2 for each job you’ve had.

Remember, this is just a draft. The idea is to start a framework, not finish the whole dang thing and make it look amazing. Trust me, doing it this way will help you move past mental blocks. Keep it messy until Step #7.

Also, if you’re thinking that none of this seems specific to a resume for an online job—good! You need a solid foundation for your resume regardless of the job you’re seeking.

But now we’re going to cover additional tips for your remote work search.

Step #4: Beat the Resume Bots

While there are plenty of online and remote jobs, and less competition, you still have to “Beat the Bots” for your resume to be seen, especially when seeking an online job.

These days, there are often robots—called Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)—reviewing your resume.

They look at your resume for things like keywords and information that matches the job description. What this means to you is that you have to optimize your resume, a.k.a. beat the bots.

In the second draft of your resume, you are going to focus on beating the bots. Here’s how:

Use the Right Keywords (Highlight your Remote Work Experience!)

One way to beat the bots is to use strategic keywords. Using keywords in a resume is like using keywords on a website. This is called search engine optimization, or SEO, and it’s how a search engine like Google, finds you. The bots scanning resumes are similar. They are searching for keywords and phrases that let them know your resume is a match.

For example, if you’re searching for a project manager job and the job description lists tasks like “manages multiple timelines,” and “works well under pressure,” then your resume should have examples of you doing those or related tasks.

Now that we’ve identified the importance of using keywords, I’ll show you descriptions of my last three jobs (before quitting my job and running my own business!), and how using keywords can help you in your search for related job positions.

Let’s pretend that I’m seeking a training project manager job. Even though I don’t have that title in any of these last jobs, my history demonstrates my ability to do the job—also called transferable skills. Using keywords and phrases (highlighted in blue below) communicates that I can do the role of a training project manager.

You shouldn’t keyword “stuff” which is using the exact phrases from the job description. That will likely get your resume rejected. Instead, use words and phrases to describe how your experience closely matches the experience required for the job.

Never claim experience you don’t have but do include any and all experience that aligns with the job. You’ll probably find that more of your experience aligns with a job than you realize.

One more thing about keywords, be sure to include any online or remote experience that highlights your ability to work remotely. You want HR and the hiring manager to feel confident that you can work independently, and from a remote location. This can be accomplished by using phrases like:

• Worked remotely in xyz job.
• Managed remote work teams/employees.
• Had a flexible work from home schedule.
• Worked on a location-independent team.

If you’ve never had a remote job, then try to think of the times when you did work remotely. When were you allowed to work from home? Did you take Friday off to see the doctor and work from a coffee shop? The more examples you can think of, the better you can represent your remote experience.

Use a Clean and Simple Format

Keep your format simple and clean. I said this earlier, but specifically, this includes:

• Having a one or two-page resume
• Using simple, easy-to-read fonts
• Providing whitespace

It’s ideal if you can get your resume into one or two pages. I know it can be difficult, especially if you have a long history of work experience. But the more concise and easier to read you can make it, the better.

Next, use an appropriate typeface. A simple to read font like Arial or Calibri is more effective than a fancy font.

You also need to include whitespace, if possible. It might be hard to do in a one-page resume, but whitespace enhances readability.

Also, be concise. It’s better to say the same thing in three words than ten.

Step #5 Complete the Second Draft of Your Resume

Go through the first draft of your resume, and this time, implement the tips for beating the bots.

Ask yourself these questions:

• Does my summary statement concisely describe my skills and experience?
• Do I have enough keywords that align with the job I’m applying for?
• Is my resume too wordy and can I cut out some words?
• Is my resume easy to read, e.g. is the font and whitespace easy on the eyes?

Once you’ve made any fixes, complete the remaining sections of your resume like Education, Awards, Related Experience, etc. While these are nice to have, you should spend much less time on these than the other sections of your resume.

Step #6. Make Sure Your Resume Appeals to Hiring Managers

Hooray! You got your resume past the bots and it’s headed to HR or the hiring manager. Now that a human is looking at it, you have to get and keep their attention. These are busy folks looking at a stack of resumes. At a minimum, ensure that you don’t have anything that would disqualify you from an interview, like a misspelled word or a gap in employment (which the bots should have caught but may not have).

Here’s a bit of good news: The hiring manager wants to hire you. Really. By the time your resume hits their desk, they’re probably under pressure to choose a candidate, and the bots have already singled you out as a good one! If you make it to an interview, the odds are now in your favor.

Think about it. He or she lost an employee or grew their team. They’re busy and desperate to hire a skilled person. They are less excited about the interview than you are. And because there is a shortage of talent, they really hope that you’re the one.

So be the one! Make yourself shine in your resume. Don’t hold back and don’t be shy. Toot your horn—loudly and proudly! Share your wins, communicate your value, and show that you are a good choice. That’s what they want, and it should be you. Right?

Step #7. Complete the Final Version of Your Resume

This last version of your resume should be fast and easy. You’ve already done the work and completed two drafts. For this last read-through, pretend you are the hiring manager and ask yourself:

• Is this resume easy to read?
• Can I get a feel for who this person is from their summary statement?
• Does this applicants’ work history align (enough) with the job?
• Does this person show a reliable work history?
• Can this person work remotely?
• Is this person well-rounded? Do they have additional certifications, do volunteer work, have any awards, etc.?
• Is this someone I’d like to interview?

Looking at your resume from this perspective can help you spot any red flags.

One last tip: Have a copy editor review your resume. A copy editor will review it for grammar, punctuation, and wordiness. A basic copy editor will cost $30-40 an hour. Your resume shouldn’t take more than 1-2 hours to edit and the value will far outweigh the money you spend. It will make the difference between getting job interviews and having your resume end up in the round file (that’s a trash can, by the way).

When you’re done, your resume should look something like this example from the site Resume-now.

You’re on Your Way to Finding Remote Work Opportunities!

I hope you found this article informative and helpful. Remember, there is no better time than now to find an online job. A few tweaks to your resume can improve your job search results and ultimately help you land a remote work opportunity.

Pay attention to details like a well-formatted, effectively written resume, including keywords that align with the job. Then, have a professional edit it before you apply to jobs.

If you enjoyed this article and want more resources on working remotely, enter your information below so you can learn how to have more flexibility, security and freedom through remote work.

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