Working remotely doesn’t always mean working from anywhere. Some companies will require you to be in a certain country, a certain state, I’ve even seen job postings that want you to be located in a specific city or within a certain number of miles of one of their offices or a major airport.

While this situation may not be desirable for a lot of you, there are reasons some companies can’t allow you to work from anywhere you want. Those reasons include tax and legal liabilities.

But there are some companies that really don’t care WHERE you work in the world. Typically these are remote-first companies.

What is a remote-first company? These are companies that were either started remotely or adopted a remote structure very early on. They’ve been remote since well before the pandemic. They’ve always valued the idea that the best talent pool is a global one and employees should be trusted to get work done without having to be face to face.

Remote-First companies also tend to be more people-centric, more forward-thinking, and have really cool benefits packages! Sometimes they include having your birthday off, having a MINIMUM days you’re REQUIRED to take off, offering sabbaticals, offering time off to volunteer, unlimited PTO, full healthcare coverage, funds for development and training, annual retreats, all kinds of cool things.

Here are a just few companies I know of that are pretty unbothered with your location OR they have lots of location options:

1. Automattic
2. Stripe
3. Hopin
4. Remote
5. Elastic
6. Affirm
7. Oyster
8. Buffer
9. Zapier
10. YNAB
11. Duck Duck Go
12. GitHub
13. Shipwell
14. Skillshare
15. Dropbox

If you live outside of the US or your goal is to move outside of the US, these are the types of companies you should be looking at! Here’s a few suggestions for your strategic plan to grab a job with one of these companies:

1. Expand the list, look up some of their competitors and add them to the list
2. Take a look at all these company’s careers pages and the types of jobs they hire for. Identify 5-10 of these that you would LOVE to work for
3. Once you’ve narrowed down your list to 5-10, start networking with them on Linkedin. Follow their CEOs or Founders. Also connect with three types of people that work there:
   1. Recruiters or Talent Professionals
   2. People you would report to if you worked there
   3. People who work in the same role you would have if you worked there
4. If someone from those companies is speaking at a virtual event, ATTEND! Especially if it’s free.
5. Apply for jobs! Strategizing is cool and all but it will get you nowhere if you don’t actually apply for jobs m’kay!
6. Make sure you’re getting notified when they have new job listings that match your profile

You can get more help targeting these companies and applying for remote jobs with them by grabbing my Remote Ready Bundle. It will walk you through how to apply for the jobs, how to nail the interview, and how to negotiate your job offer!