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In this episode, I share the skills I learned to land my first remote job. All without getting a degree and previous work experience.

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Transcription:

Hey everyone!

Welcome to another episode of My Offbeat Journey, where today I’m going to be sharing with you how I was able to land a remote job as a writer without previous formal experience and without getting a degree in writing or journalism, I know many of you are interested in being a writer and maybe some of you can land a remote job and maybe get you started working remotely with the tips and the experiences that I share with you today, and hopefully get you in the right direction. So let’s get right into it. Just to give you a little background with myself and I, how I got started with this. Several years ago in 2017, I was still at my day job. I was still doing my nine to five. I was a therapist. It wasn’t the worst job and it wasn’t the best job.

You know, I enjoyed what I did, but it just wasn’t something that I wanted to do because first of all, I wanted to have more freedom with what I was doing. Second, I wanted to be working remotely so I could have more freedom with my time to be able to travel. And that job really didn’t give that to me and didn’t really allow me to do that. And also, I had been doing it for almost 10 years, and I needed a change with my life. And that’s when I started my podcast and also my website. And that’s really where my journey began. In terms of writing, I was still in my nine to five. I wanted to do something different. So I started my show and also started a blog to start writing. And I had no idea what on earth I was doing. I really didn’t know what blogging writing was all about.

I had friends who were doing it that I had met on my podcast. And one of them, Esther, she’s a hilarious person if you really meet her in person. And she’s also very frank and very honest. And which is one of the things that I really admire about Esther and love about her is because she just tells you how it is. And there was at one point when she was looking at my content and what I was doing, she was like, What on earth are you doing?”, and she was looking at my SEO and she said to me, “This is not how you do it. You have to really learn how to do this correctly so you can make this into a career or even make this into a part of your business.”, and that’s exactly what I did. So I just wanted to give you that background because to let you know I had no idea what to do.

I didn’t have any background in it. I didn’t go to school. And obviously most of us, if you went to college, you did write essays and things like, like that, but it’s so different from writing essays to creating a blog to learning SEO and all that good stuff. So it’s very different. So here are some of the things that I did to be able to do this, make this into a career and make this sustainable. And it allowed me, and it was one of the things that helped me to start really having a flexible lifestyle, being able to work remotely and have what I do right now. And of course this is from my experience, it could be different for anybody and everybody, but I just wanted to give you this background with what I was able to do and how I did it.

So the first thing is, I would say is before leaving your nine to five or my nine to five, I started a blog, like I had mentioned, and I practiced writing and publishing my content on my website, The Offbeat Life, that’s where I really learned, “Okay, what should I write about?”, and I learned a difference between what I was interested in and what people were actually searching for. And that’s where SEO came into this whole thing, right? It’s one thing if you love your subject, it’s one thing if you love to write about something, but it’s another thing if people will actually want to read about it. So if it’s just something like a hobby that you want to do, then that’s great. You can write about whatever you want, but it’s another thing if you want it to become your career or a part of your business, you have to understand what people actually want.

So that’s when I started really learning SEO. The first time I ever heard about it was from my friend, and I told you about, Esther, and she taught me the basics. And then I started to learn more on my own by taking courses like Stupid Simple SEO, you may have heard of it, if not, you can search it on Google or you could go on our website. We do have more information about that and that’s really one of the things that I started to do to learn more about it. And then what I did was I wrote a blog post almost every single day and became consistent with my content and tried to learn how to become a better writer, how to do this more effectively, what I, first of all, the topic that I needed to write about learning, SEO and all that good stuff.

Now, while I was doing that, while I was trying to learn how to write, I also learned how to design my website using Canva, Photoshop, Lightroom and WordPress. So those are some of the applications that I really learned. And those are some of the things that you should also learn yourself because there’s, they’re kind of the skills that a lot of companies are looking for, right? Depending on what type of remote work you want, they want you to be able to use certain applications that they can use and you can use when you are doing the job. So I learned how to design my website. I learned how to do basic html and I also learned through Photoshop, Lightroom, WordPress, I learned how to edit photos. I learned how to edit videos. And then through trial and error, I started getting inquiries from people who wanted me to create content for them.

And I still remember my first client, the first one I ever got paid writing for was from a recommendation from a friend. And this client wanted me to write their social media post, then create a website for them, and then create their email marketing. So it was kind of amazing that they trusted me enough to not only create their website, but also create their social media posts, their email marketing. And I learned all of that from trial and error, from my own experiences from my website and being able to write to my own audience. And it’s kind of interesting when you do this on your own, you become a Jack and Jill of all trades because you will be exposed to a lot of skills that you didn’t learn before. And if you’re just patient and you are interested in this, then you’re going to keep learning about it.

And all of this, you know, from that first client, I earned thousands of dollars, and that client also introduced me to another person that they knew who also became a client, which allowed me to elevate my skills and keep going with it, and also allowed me to add new skills on my resume when I was ready for, you know, for me to get to that level where I felt confident that I could not only do this for myself, but for others as well, right? And it also helped me land my first remote flexible job, which is really great because you, and you know, I wanted to have something that still allowed me to pursue my own business, but also gave me more income that I could earn and allowed me to have flexible schedule for myself. I know it can seem really daunting at first if you don’t have any experience.

But if you just find something that you are interested in, and this is a really, I believe the most important thing, you have to stick to it. You have to be consistent. You have to show up every single day so you can learn, you will be able to learn a ton of skills that will be useful to not only yourself, but also to other people. Now, there are a ton of tools that you can learn about, you can master them that will help you become employed. And all you have to do is learn and try and try and try and do every single day. So really, it’s all about trial and error. You’re going to fail. You’re going to feel like you don’t know what you’re doing for the most part, and then things are just going to click after a while. And that’s exactly what happened to me.

So as I mentioned this started in 2017 and I was able to do this on my own. And then I landed a remote job about like a year ago. And before that I was getting my own clients and I wanted to create more income more steady income from a single company. And that’s why I decided to have a flexible remote job, which really worked out. So if being a writer is what you would like to do, or really any other remote jobs that you wanted to learn a skill from, you don’t necessarily need any formal experience or even go to college for it because I didn’t do it and I’m sure a lot of people who have done this, I’ve met a lot of people who didn’t go to college for this, that have gotten a job from writing and other skills too.

Because really what they’re looking for is somebody who’s willing to not only learn, but also has a resume with some of the skills that you can really show them, you know, things that you are able to show that you did well. And really, the website that I created in this podcast allowed me to get really, interviews and job offers because they saw that I can do this and do this well. So I would recommend just learning on your own if you don’t have schooling and create great things every single day. This is gonna allow you to add skills on your resume and will make you more employable. It may take a while and you may have to stay in your regular nine to five for a bit before landing a remote job, but the best thing to do is stay consistent, believe in yourself, and really enjoy what you’re doing because that’s going to keep you going in the long run.

So that’s about it. Those are my tips. That’s how I was able to do it. If you have any questions for me, make sure to reach out to me at hello@theoffbeatlife.com and I will try to answer your questions as best that I, as best as I can and that’s about it for today. I hope this helped you out. I will talk to you again later.

Bye-bye!