Exactly How Much Experience Do You Need To Work Remotely? Days, Months Or Years?

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When I first started my remote working journey, I felt a little overwhelmed, I mean I had only been in my role for a few weeks and would hate  to let the team down, especially as this was all new to me.

Working remotely is less about how much experience you have doing so and more about how much experience you have in your desired profession. If working for someone else, consider having at least six months worth of experience in your current role If working for yourself, ensure you have enough experience and income  to cover your living expenses every month. 

So what are the specific differences with both options? And can you have too little experience when working remotely?  Keep reading to find out more. 

(Just a heads up a lot of people reading my blog are in the process of designing their own home office. If you want to save some of the painstaking time I did in designing my office, you can find my recommended products here)

How much experience do you need to work remotely? 

 

 Working remotely, it’s the dream of many millennials (myself included).  The idea of rolling out of bed and starting work after a shocking full night’s sleep… oh the audacity! But how much experience do you need to work remotely? Can anyone do it or only select professions?

According to Google, working remotely is becoming more and more popular. I’ve been working remotely for about two years now, and recently this has switched over to full time remote working. 

Employers are beginning to notice that more and more people want variety in their work lives, whilst also managing the grind of day to day life. 

So, how much experience do you need to work remotely?

This is a pretty tough question to answer mainly because it is less about experience in working from home, but more experience in your current role

There are, however, a few key things that if you have a few months experience in, working remotely should be okay: 

1. When at work, do you use your time wisely? Can you work towards a calendar and plan out your day? 
2. Do you get easily distracted at work? 
3. Can you work without the social interactions associated with working in an office environment? 

Now the amount of experience you will need depends on if you work for someone else or work for yourself. 

Working remotely when working for an employer

The majority of people work for someone else. As such a lot of you will be reading this wanting to work remotely whilst being employed by an external organisation. 

That’s great! 

What I would suggest though is before you ask to work from home to your manager or take up your existing policy if this is the case, look at the following five points: 

1. How much experience do you have in your current role? 
2. Do you have a designated office space you can focus on yourself? 
3. Is your role geared towards administrative tasks vs tasks that can only be accomplished in an office?
4. Do you need social interaction to get better at what you do?

What are some typical roles you can work remotely with for an employer? 

Sales Development Rep 

So I am wholeheartedly biased when it comes to sales as I work in this profession… and also work remotely. 

Sales development reps are typically tasked with setting up meeting/calls/opportunities for sales consultants to meet and close deals. 

Unlike the boiler rooms of the 1980s, the past two sales roles I’ve been involved in offered generous remote working/work from home opportunities per week. 

The only downside is making sure that you are staying on top of activity as typically your days will be back to back either on the phone or trying to prospect organisations. 

Programming 

Programmers have a bit of a stigma to them being antisocial. 

In my experience, this is not true but one of the benefits they have over other professions is the ability to take their work home from them…particularly in the SAAS sector. 

Programming if you are unfamiliar is the process of instructing the computer using language ( javascript C++) for a desired function. 

I’m not going to pretend I know all the intricacies but Hackr have a great post talking all about this. 

Customer Service 

Customer service is another area which does not typically scream remote working. 

The truth of the matter is that the majority of customer service roles are now done online via web chats and as such makes the role a lot more viable to work remotely then it was 10 – 15 years ago because of the speed of internet connectivity. 

Generally speaking, customer service is the profession of answering queries, questions and potential problems customers of a given product or service may have. 

Data entry

Data entry is one of the older professions people have been doing remotely. Simply put, it is the method in inputting data for an organisation and is commonly known as admin work. 

Most people have done admin work in their life and the benefit of this being one of the oldest professions in the remote working space means that there are plenty of agencies that allow you to work on a contract basis. 

What’s even better is that you don’t need that much experience with data entry which makes it a great role for anyone  looking to enter the world of remote working. 

This gets my full approval. 

My recommendations

With all these professions it is worth mentioning that I would not ask to start working remotely from a home office until you have at least six months worth of experience within each role. 

This also applies for if you work in a new role. 

For example let’s say you work in sales and have experience within the sales sector for 5 years. If you start a new role, I would still wait for six months until you had a good grasp of the new companies, products offering, the marketplace and your ideal customers profile. 

 

What about working for yourself remotely, how much experience do you really need? 

A lot of people my age are more likely to want to start their own business (I know this is something I’m doing on the side). As such the reality of working remotely seems like a very real possibility… Search YouTube and you’ll come across hundreds of videos of people under 30 talking about the laptop lifestyle and working on a beach. 

The truth of the matter is that working remotely, if you work for yourself, can be an amazing experience when you get to the point of being profitable, however, if you are currently in the position where you are nowhere near to having the money to cover your expenses…ask yourself, is this the best choice for you? 

Before you take the plunge of starting your own business whilst working from home, you need to ask yourself the following three questions: 

1. Do you have enough money to cover your costs on a monthly basis? 
2. How much experience do you have in being self employed? 
3. Are you interested in starting a business or are you interested more in remote working? 

Okay so what options are there for working from home if you want to start your own business and how much experience does it take to get good at them? 

Luckily you’re speaking with someone who has succeeded and failed (failed is putting it lightly…) at business. My experience is that online businesses are the best because they usually have lower overheads and truly allow you to work remotely. 

I’ve actually put together a blog post with over 120 ideas of business you can start when working remotely here, but I’ve summarized a few key ones below. Let’s break these down in more detail:

Amazon FBA

Amazon FBA or fulfilment by Amazon is the process of utilising Amazon and it’s warehouses to sell products. This is usually done by researching the Amazon marketplace to find profitable products and then finding warehouses (usually based in china) to manufacture said goods. 

So how much experience and investment would this take? Well in my experience… a lot!

First of all, you need to research the product which could take upwards of a month. On top of that you would need to ship these over, which again, could take weeks depending on your shipping method (freight vs air). You then develop a launch strategy and promote your products as well as taking care of photography. 

This would eat up a lot of time so would take around three months before you start turning a profit. 

On top of this, there is the investment side of things. Although a lot of self proclaimed gurus claim you can start the process with as little as $1000, the truth is often closer to $5000 to really make an impact. 

Also there is no guarantee of your product taking off in the first instance, which means you might need to repeat the process a few times before you start seeing any real progress. 

My recommendation 

Amazon FBA would require about 12 months of experience to get good at before you are able to get good at it. As well as a minimum investment of 5k to get going. 

Kindle Publishing

Kindle publishing is quite similar to Amazon FBA in the sense of utilising Amazon print on demand function to self publish profitable books. 

Again, this is usually done through keyword research. Once you find profitable keywords to go after, you then need to either write your book or outsource this to a ghost writer, design a cover and then launch your book. 

This will typically cost around $1000 to get going for a decent quality book as well as any tools (like KDP rocket) to get going. 

In terms of timescales you can have your book up and running within a month if everything goes right, however this is closer to six weeks from the start of the process to the end. 

My recommendation 

Although this requires less time and investment, it will still take a few different attempts to get good at it so you would have a ramp time of at least six months experience to get good at this with about $1000 worth of experience. 

Blogging 

Blogging simply is one of the oldest forms of online business people have. Simply put its a way of sharing information through a custom build website usually hosted on WordPress. 

Although the cost is usually a lot cheaper to get going (you’re usually only likely to spend about $10 per month on web hosting to start off with) it does take a lot more time to get going. 

Jim and Ricky over at Project 24 suggest this could take upwards of 24 months to start making money and even then there is no guarantee that any niche you go after will be profitable. 

My recommendation

Blogging is a great way to work remotely once it is up and running but until you’re earning enough to cover your expenses every month, then you might be waiting for over two years worth of experience before you really start seeing results.

Experience required/ learning curve: Two years

Day trading

Day trading is the process of trading commodities shares or currencies through online or desktop based platforms like e-trade or trade station platforms. Think of it as being your own mini stock broker. 

Now it’s worth mentioning this is one area I have almost zero experience with, but a close friend of mine has actively been doing this for about six months so far and is still yet to make a profit. In fact, he has put together enough saving for a year and a half to learn the skills required to get good at trading. 

One of the biggest things to note with day trading is just how easy it is to lose money and how easy it can be to get carried away with. As such, trying to recommend a valid course or teacher will be difficult. 

Experience/learning curve required: One and a half years with enough savings for a year and a half to learn and get good at this. 

Conclusion 

As you’re probably gathered by now working from home/remote working is less about experience of working from home before and more about the amount of experience to be good at your desired profession. 

My recommendations are: 

• If working for someone else have at least six months worth of experience before looking into your remote working policy. 
• If working for yourself.starting your own online business, understand how much money it will cost to cover your expenses for the amount of time to get profitable at your chosen business. 

Finally a lot of people reading my blog want to know what products I recommend for a home office/remote working. You can find out my recommendations here and learn how I make money whilst working remotely on the side here. 

Have you got experience in remote working?  can you think of any other professions that would be good to work from home? 

Leave a comment below and let me know your thoughts. 

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