Best jobs in Wisconsin for remote or flextime work
More jobs than you think may lend themselves to remote or hybrid work.
Among many upheavals caused by the pandemic, the labor market has seen what has been dubbed the Great Resignation, as millions of workers leave their jobs while employers across industries have trouble filling positions.
The pandemic greatly expanded viewpoints about how work can be done remotely and shifted power toward employees, who are changing jobs and professions in record numbers. Greater flextime to balance work with family life is also increasingly becoming a bargaining chip as more companies make permanent moves to a hybrid or fully remote-first workforce.
Which jobs stand to benefit from this rising remote work wave? PeopleSmart, an online prospecting tool, analyzed data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and other sources on nearly 800 job classifications and found that nearly a quarter of those jobs can be done fully or partially remote.
Those positions were then ranked, taking several factors into account, including median income, current job availability, and expected job growth in the next 10 years, among other factors.
According to the data, the top five jobs for remote/flexible work overall are:
- Software developers and software quality assurance analysts and testers;
- Financial managers;
- Medical and health services managers;
- General and operations managers; and
- Computer and information systems managers.
For Wisconsin, the top 10 jobs for remote/flexible work, and their median incomes, were ranked as follows:
- Management analysts — $81,340;
- Software developers and software quality assurance analysts and testers — $91,810;
- Human resources specialists — $59,370;
- Computer systems analysts — $80,990;
- Logisticians — $62,870;
- Web developers and digital interface designers — $60,710;
- Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products — $61,360;
- Administrative services and facilities managers — $108,980;
- Clinical, counseling, and school psychologists — $84,830; and
- Market research analysts and marketing specialists — $58,060.
It should come as little surprise that millions of Americans are still working remotely two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the world has started to open back up in the past couple months. For as many professionals who crave daily in-person interaction with their colleagues, there are plenty of others for whom remote work just works.
According to Upwork’s “Future of Workforce Pulse Report” released in December 2020, one in four Americans will continue working remotely for the foreseeable future. By 2025, 36.2 million Americans are expected to be working remotely, an 87% increase from pre-pandemic levels, the study revealed.
A report from FlexJobs, an online job service for professionals seeking flexible work, also shows more than half of companies have hired new staff remotely during the pandemic.
“While a number of factors contribute to remote job growth, including the influence of the pandemic, [many] fields are naturally highly compatible with remote work,” says Sara Sutton, founder and CEO of FlexJobs. “But because of the unprecedented focus on remote work, we’ve seen a big increase in people looking for jobs that let them work from home, as well as more companies than ever allowing remote work and hiring for remote positions across a variety of fields.”
Per FlexJobs’ criteria, a “remote job” is defined as a professional-level job that allows the worker to work from home either entirely or part of the time. Remote jobs are also known as telecommuting jobs, virtual jobs, and work-from-home jobs.
To secure a remote job, FlexJobs recommends job seekers frame their application materials like resumes and cover letters very specifically when applying to a remote job vs. non-remote jobs.
Betsy Andrews, a career coach at FlexJobs, notes, “While remote-friendly employers will consider an applicant that has never worked remotely before, it’s always a good idea for an applicant that has remote experience to highlight this in their resume as it may ‘give them a leg up.’ Reflecting this experience catches an employer’s attention because it shows that an applicant possesses self-initiative as well as the communication, collaboration, problem-solving, and time and task management that is paramount within a remote environment.”
Specifically, on your resume and in cover letters, highlight any previous experience you have working remotely. If you’ve worked at a distance from your co-workers, across time zones or physical distances, that counts. If you’ve worked from home occasionally or regularly, that counts. If you earned a degree or certification online, that counts. If you volunteered on a project where you did most of the work from your home office, that counts. Remote work skills and experience can come in many forms, and they should be mentioned on your resume if you want to land a remote job.
Three ways to highlight your remote work experience and talents on your resume:
- State it clearly. List “Remote Work” next to your job title. For example, Director of Marketing (100% Remote Work).
- Include it in the descriptions of your past jobs. For example, “Led a team of five customer service reps in a completely remote work environment, and successfully earned an average team satisfaction rating of 94%.”
- Build it into your skills section. For example, make sure you talk about the types of skills it takes to be a successful remote worker — time and task management, communication, self-management, the ability to work independently, and comfort with technology are some of the top skills employers like to see when hiring for remote jobs.
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