Remote terminology and FAQ
Introduction
To get your first fully remote job, you need to understand what the job postings mean. There are many specific terms and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about working remotely. We try to explain all of them for beginners and some more complicated terms as well.
What is different in a remote job interview?
First of all, you have to do the interview remotely meaning by video chat. The recruiter or hiring manager will send you a meeting request with a link to for example Zoom or Google meet.
What is the difference between Work from home (WFH) and Fully remote?
What is the difference between working from home and fully remote work?
Some companies allow working from home but not Working from anywhere WFA.
Maybe the remote work can not be performed on a laptop because you need an external monitor or you need to use a computer. This means that you can not work fully remote.
Some companies do allow employees to work from home but not working from everywhere.
What if I like to work remote without video meetings and without calling?
You can search for non-voice fully remote jobs. For example remote transcription jobs or translation jobs.
Many remote jobs like project manager or customer service roles are voice-based or even most of the time with video meetings. There are jobs where you just answer chats or emails so you can work also with a slow or unreliable (mobile) internet connection.
What do I need to work remotely?
A reliable good speed internet connection is essential especially if you will have video meetings all the time. Your Up and Down internet speed needs to be at least 10 Mbps, you can test this at speedtest.net. A fibreglass connection is usually the most reliable. Cable or ADSL connections can work also. If you live rural and there is no good wired internet connection available, you might try 5G mobile internet or Starlink satellite internet that is becoming available worldwide recently.
Can I work remotely on 5G mobile internet?
This depends on the availability of the 5G network where you live. The theoretic speeds are amazing and sometimes we actually got amazing speed results with 5G mobile internet.
What you need to work remote on 5G mobile internet:
A mobile phone that supports 5G, we bought the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE 5G for 649 euros in April 2022.
A network provider that offers 5G mobile internet without any data limits
Great 5G network availability in your house and other locations where you like to work remotely.
Ideally, unlimited roaming in for example Europe or the US depending on where you live of course.
The best 5G speed test result that we had:
Many times the speeds are still okay but not that great like this:
A definite downside is that 5G is not symmetric, meaning that you can work by downloading a lot but if you are in video meetings and you need to share your screen, the speed might not always be enough. For video meetings ideally, you need 10 Mbps up and 10Mbps down internet speed.
This test was done using the fibre internet which has a maximum of 100 Mbps up and 100 Mbps down on the mobile phone over wifi:
Some mobile 5G speed tests were faster than the fibreglass connection at home. 🤓
Remotework.com Tip: Speedtest has also apps on the phone to test your internet speed in different locations where you would like to work remotely.
Note: we have 5G mobile internet to be able to work at the beach, in a park or even in the mountains. Yoigo Spain also allows data roaming in Europe only limited by a fair use policy and the option to pay extra in case you use a lot of data while roaming. Our 5G mobile internet is also the backup connection in case our primary fibreglass connection is having issues. When we work in the garden, a park or by the pool we are often out of reach of the wifi network and can use the mobile phone as a wifi hotspot. We pay 25 euros per month, the only disadvantage is that international calling is not included.
Tip: bring a power bank (external battery) and charging cable to charge your mobile phone because on a mobile hotspot the phone uses a lot of battery power.
Motivational image: working in an amazing location by the pool.
On-site
On-site working is clear, the employee is expected at the office all the time. An employee or candidate has to live within a reasonable travelling time or distance from the office of the company. Some job advertisements are On-site (location-based) however the company might still consider a hybrid or even fully remote work if they are not able to find an employee close by.
Hybrid working
Many employees were against working from home at first. The changes in the last two years have forced them to try it. Some can not wait to get back to the office five days a week but others like to keep working partially or completely from home. They prefer to work hybrid for example 3 days from home and 2 at the office or 2 days from home and 3 in the office. This gives the advantage of meeting colleagues in person and less traffic and travel times as well. Usually, highly concentrated work is done better at home. This depends on the situation at home, with young children at home there can be a lot of disturbances. Also, a dedicated workspace at home or even better a home office helps to improve the ability to work efficiently at home and deliver the desired results on time.
Advantages of hybrid working
Hybrid working gets you remote working experience so you can apply for a fully-remote job later. You can also still connect in person with your colleagues, clients and manager to have social contact. You can still work two or three days undisturbed at home. Some people feel that you have non of the two advantages, not fully office based and not fully remote. Hybrid working is good for when most of your colleagues work office based and for those that need personal contact and social connections from work.
These regions are often used in remote job vacancy listings:
APJ = Asia Pacific and Japan
APAC = Asia-Pacific
EMEA = Europe, Middle East and Afrika
DACH = Deutschland (Germany), Austria and Confœderatio Helvetica (Switzerland).
LATAM = Latin America
DevOps combines software developers (Dev) and operations (Ops).
More info about devops can be found here.
CDT is an abbreviation for US and Canadian Central Daylight Time.
PTO = Paid Time Off (vacation days)
Temporary working from home or Temporary Remote
If there are restrictions or if the government mandates it, many companies will switch to temporary remote work for those jobs that allow it. As soon as it is possible again, the work goes back to the office. Also in case a company just started hiring in a new location, maybe later they will get an office asking you to work office based. Temporary remote gives you the opportunity to try remote working, how it is for you. Also, you will get remote working experience making it much easier to apply for a remote job later.
What is the difference between Work from home (WFH) and Fully remote?
What is a remote-friendly company?
This means that the company is open for employees to work remotely although they might also have offices or fully office-based employees.
Remote as in visiting clients
Remote work does not always mean working from home. A field service engineer who repairs printers works remotely but On-site with the clients. The same is for an account manager that visits prospects to sell products or services or an oil platform engineer.
Fully remote
Many international companies are fully remote. This means that they allow their employees to always work from home. Some do have offices in big major cities that their employees can go to if they wish. Fully remote companies often can offer a contract in most countries in the world. This means that you could change to a country while keeping the same job.
Remote first
There are many remote-first companies. This means that they do not have any offices anywhere in the world. These companies are often IT companies or startups that develop software or have cloud-based services. Some remote-first companies offer compensation for the costs of co-working spaces. Others fly all their employees from all over the world to one location once or twice per year to have a vacation trip at some amazing location in the world so that everyone meets in person.
The downfall of remote working: work-life balance
You can go to work by opening your laptop, great right?!? Yes, but working from home can also mean that your private life and work life start to mix. If you have some task or report that you have to finish it can be tempting to work more hours for example in the evening or on the weekend. If you work and live at home, you might not have much social contact in person. This can lead to feeling lonely or isolated from people. If you work remotely all the time, it can be more difficult to cooperate and understand your colleagues whom you never met.
Remote working salaries
Some companies pay the same salary for a job no matter where you live. Some companies adjust the salary for a job to the income level of the country where you live while doing the job. The costs of living as well as the income taxes can have a big influence on how much money you need to live a good life. No matter where the employee lives, the value that they create in the working hours should be the same for the company.
FT / PT Maye not known to everyone, Full Time (FT) and Part-Time (PT)
WFH = Work from Home
WFE = Work From Everywhere
WFA = Work From Anywhere
Benefits that are useless for remote workers
Many companies started giving free meals during lunch, fruits and snacks at the office and a Friday afternoon drink social gathering. Maybe even a gym at the office, a roof terrace, table tennis or darts. These kinds of perks have no value for employees that work fully remote. They benefit more from a monthly gym allowance, a health or spa budget and a co-working allowance, so that they can enjoy the benefits offered by the company locally. A working from home monthly compensation for electricity use, heating and so on is nice to offer.
Time zones
Some companies have teams working in various locations all over the world. For example, software developers work in shifts in various time zones. That way you can work for this company in the European as well as the US time for example. If a person works in Europe for a company based in the US, the time zone can be very inconvenient. The US working hours stretch well into the evening in Europe. This makes a normal social life during working days almost impossible. You finish your working day for example at 21:00 local times. Some people with remote jobs change continents. Then they can better find a new job in the local time zone or see if they can be switched within the company to a team from the region that they reside (live) in now.
Work from anywhere
With remote work, working from anywhere has become a new advantage that your company can offer. For example a month from a vocational destination, you can work your normal hours a day and then enjoy your vacation. This way you can change scenery, while just taking a few days off for travelling or a day here and there to do some activities. You get a break from working and living at home while keeping your salary. People that are constantly travelling while using mobile internet or wifi to work live a nomadic lifestyle. They are often called digital nomads living for example in a campervan or living in various rental places. When they have a video conference, they often use a background that hides where they are. Digital nomads can work on the beach, in a bar or cafe or co-working spaces. A downside of this working from anywhere can be bad internet connections making especially video calls impossible. Also not having a desk and chair or noisy places might interfere with the quality and amount of work that can be done. Because there is only a laptop to work from, they can not use a second screen to work more effectively. Travelling outside of your normal time zone can be an issue if you have a lot of meetings or if you have fixed working hours. You might have to wake up in the middle of the night to start working or you have to work in the evening local time.
Harder to get a remote job
Especially if a remote job is offered based in many countries, there will be a lot more job applicants so there is more competition to get the job. For a local job a company might get 25 applicants while for a remote job it can be 250. So getting a (fully) remote job is not that easy. The company might also offer a lower salary for a fully remote job.
Based in
A remote job can still be only available while you reside (live) in a specific country. Many jobs for example are based in the US only. It doesn’t matter what state or city you like to work from but it has to be in the US. This is because the company is registered in the US and pays the salaries from their US administration paying the social fees like income taxes in the US. Some companies offer much wider ranges for being based in for example EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa). Their criteria can be for example a timezone plus one or two hours difference. CET (Central Europe Time) plus or minus two hours maximum.
Flexible working hours
Many companies are still holding on to fixed working hours like nine to five. Some are already allowing you to work when it is convenient for you. If you have to bring your children to school in the morning, you can work an hour or two in the evening. If you live in a warm country and take a siesta in the afternoon, you start your working day in the early hours. Many remote jobs have a certain amount of results that need to be done at a certain date and time. As long as you deliver on time the results that are needed your work is done. If it takes you a bit less than the normal 40 hours or a bit more the company doesn’t mind. Some jobs like service technicians might ask you to be flexible. If there is a big issue for a major client, you might have to work extra to fix the problem. If then the next day you only work 4 hours that is fine too. The key is to have a good balance between giving and taking as in any relationship.
NGO = Non Government Organisation
Video calls or video meetings
Video calls (meetings) make it difficult to work from anywhere and at any time of the day. If you have a video call planned with a major client early in the morning, you can not go out until late the night before and start at noon. Working in a different time zone or scheduling your work according to your wishes is very difficult when you have a lot of meetings. Especially software developers can work literally any hour of the day even offline because they work on a local machine. However, if they work on a common project in a team, they might have to work certain hours online as well. When applying for a job or offering one, try to get clear exactly what is possible and what is not.
Cultural acceptance of remote working
Especially in 2020 and 2021 working from home and remote working has gained a lot of popularity because of the pandemic. It is important that we start to accept in our culture remote working, That a hard-working person is not always in a suit in the office, navigating traffic in a car every day.
Climate change, global warming and CO2 exhaust gases
In 2022 the goals for energy reduction, renewable green energy and CO2 reduction are more important than ever. Fully remote working eliminates the daily travel to and from work and therefore can make a large contribution to reducing energy consumption. If for example, the US’s economy is growing rapidly, they will need more employees, more houses and more cars Unless they hire fully remote employees that might not even live in the US. Building houses creates CO2 gas emissions, just like building and driving cars, more traffic jams and so on.
Distributed teams
Some companies work with distributed teams meaning that all of their employees are spread out all over the world. This guarantees that your colleagues are very diversified and that everyone has the same chance of getting promoted. When you work for a company that has mostly office-based employees and you work remotely, you will miss out on casual conversations, Friday afternoon drinks and overhearing conversations of your manager or colleagues talking to clients. This can be a drawback so some people looking for their first ever remote job prefer to apply only to companies with distributed teams.
Laptop lifestyle
If you work from home, you can not work from anywhere or everywhere. If you have video calls all day long or you are doing customer service with a headset on the phone, you can not enjoy the laptop lifestyle. The laptop lifestyle in terms of working remotely means that you can work anytime from anywhere in the world at any timezone. You start working when you open your laptop and log-in and you stop working when you close the lid. With a laptop and possibly with a mobile (4G or 5G) internet connection, you can work from anywhere. The laptop lifestyle is a great advantage of working remotely.
