Do You Need Remote Work Experience to Get a Remote Job?
If you’re thinking about applying for remote roles, this question probably comes up quickly:
Do I need remote work experience to get a remote job?
It’s a fair question. Remote job listings often look intimidating.
Part of the challenge is knowing where to find legitimate remote roles in the first place. When you don’t hear back after applying, it’s easy to assume you’re missing something essential.
Here’s the short answer:
No, you don’t need prior remote work experience to get a remote job.
But you do need to show that you can work remotely.
That distinction matters more than most people realize.
If you’re still trying to understand the full remote job search process, including where to find roles and how everything fits together, I walk through it step by step in How to Land a Remote Job.
Why So Many Job Seekers Think Remote Experience Is Required
Most people don’t start their remote job search believing they’re unqualified.
That belief usually forms after friction.
Either they apply to remote roles without a clear strategy, don’t hear back, and assume the silence means they’re missing a requirement. Or they pause before applying at all and do a quick reality check to see if remote work is even an option for them.
In both cases, the same conclusion often follows:
“I probably need remote work experience first.”
In my work with job seekers, I see this belief come up most often when people are applying to remote roles without intentionally positioning themselves for remote work. It’s not that they lack experience. It’s that they aren’t clearly showing impact or proving the core behaviors that signal remote readiness, like working independently and communicating well.
Job descriptions can reinforce this confusion.
Remote job postings are rarely written in plain language. They often rely on formal business wording, internal jargon, or standardized templates that don’t reflect how the role actually functions day to day.
For example:
“Client retention” often just means keeping customers happy so they don’t leave.
“Stakeholder alignment” usually means keeping the right people informed.
“Cross-functional collaboration” often means working with other teams.
Very few roles explicitly require prior remote work experience. And when they do, it’s usually stated clearly as a must-have, not a deal breaker.
The real issue isn’t the absence of remote experience. The real issue is misunderstanding how the remote job search actually works and what hiring teams are evaluating.
How Remote Hiring Teams Actually Evaluate Candidates
Remote employers care far more about whether you can do the job than whether you’ve done it remotely before.
Relevant experience for the role is almost always weighted more heavily than remote experience. Hiring teams are evaluating candidates differently now, especially with how the remote job search has changed. If a hiring team is confident you can deliver results, remote experience becomes secondary.
What they’re really evaluating is whether you can:
Work independently without constant supervision
Communicate clearly, especially in writing
Manage your time and priorities
Take ownership and deliver outcomes
Remote experience can help signal these traits, but it’s not the only way to demonstrate them. Someone who has never worked remotely can still be a strong remote hire if they show these behaviors clearly.
This is why people often misdiagnose the problem. They don’t understand how remote hiring actually works, so they assume they’re missing a requirement. They focus on whether they’ve worked remotely before, instead of whether they’re showing how they work.
Remote Experience Isn’t Binary
Remote experience isn’t all or nothing. It’s a spectrum. This is where transferable skills become critical.
You may already have experience that demonstrates remote readiness, even if your role wasn’t officially remote.
This can include:
Fully remote roles
Temporary remote arrangements
Hybrid or occasional remote work
Partial remote setups
Working on distributed teams
Async collaboration using tools like Slack, email, or project management platforms
Volunteer work or extracurricular experience can also count if the work itself was remote, especially when it involved:
Independent execution
Clear communication
Coordination with othersDeliverables and deadlines
What matters is not the label of the role, but how the work was done.
How to Position Yourself If You’ve Never Worked Remotely
This is the exact point where most candidates I work with get stuck. They assume saying “I worked remotely” is what matters, when what actually matters is showing how they work, how they communicate, and how they take ownership.
Positioning for remote work isn’t about making claims. It’s about proving behaviors.
Resume positioning
Focus less on where you worked and more on how you worked.
Highlight:
Projects you owned independently
Decisions you made without close supervision
Outcomes you were responsible for
Skill framing
Use language that reflects how remote teams operate:
Async communication
Documentation
Clear handoffs
Accountability and follow-through
Language shifts
Avoid framing yourself as inexperienced.
What not to say:
“I don’t have remote experience yet”
“I’m new to remote work”
Instead, show evidence of how you:
Communicate clearly
Manage responsibility
Deliver results without being micromanaged
There’s a big difference between saying you’re good at communication and actually demonstrating it.
So, Do You Need Remote Work Experience?
No, you don’t need a remote job title on your resume.
What you need is to clearly show:
That you can do the job
That you can work independently
That you can communicate effectively
That you can be trusted with ownership
Once you understand how remote hiring really works, this question stops being a blocker and starts becoming a positioning problem you can solve.
Ready to stop guessing?
If this post helped you realize that remote experience isn’t the real issue, the next step is learning how to move forward without waiting until you feel “ready.”
The Remote Job Search Reset is a FREE, short, bingeable series designed to help you stop guessing and move forward with a clear remote job strategy, even if you’ve never worked remotely before.
Inside, you’ll learn:
How remote hiring actually works behind the scenes
What matters more than having a remote job title on your resume
How to move forward confidently without waiting until you feel “ready”