Jaira Romero Is Helping Women Find Full Time Remote Work With Her New Startup

For some companies, working remotely has helped them improve their diversity measures by allowing them to employ professionals who may have issues with transportation or with their health, thus making working in a “traditional” office space indesirable. Also, for many people, working remotely can provide flexibility by allowing professionals to literally work wherever they please.

Despite the benefits, oftentimes finding remote work can be just as difficult as finding traditional, office setting work. After a bad experience while searching for remote work, Jaira Romero decided to launch her startup Remote Woman to help women locate full-time remote opportunities. With over 50,000 users and curating jobs from top companies like Zapier, Github, and Stripe, Jaira is building the next big thing in tech for women all over.

Recently, we caught up with Jaira and she shared more about Remote Woman and tips on how professionals can transition from working in an office to working remotely.

Who is Jaira Romero?

I’m the Co-founder of Remote Woman. Born and raised in Los Angeles, I’m 31 years old, and I’m a first-generation American whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador. I have a career background in tech, television, media, and advertising.

What is Remote Woman?

Remote Woman has the best remote jobs at female-friendly companies.

We’re on a mission to enable professional women to find meaningful careers in a world that increasingly demands flexibility, diversity, and inclusivity in building innovative solutions. The community is growing so quickly because women can trust that every company has been personally vetted.

Every company must pass the criteria of 1) women have the opportunity for upward mobility inside the organization. 2) actual remote-friendly culture (not just remote-tolerant) 3) is a stable, legitimate business. The goal is to close the gender gap and encourage diversity & inclusion in the tech space globally.

What tips can you give women to avoid scams while searching for remote work?

Scammers are pretty good at stealing someone’s identity. The key to avoiding scams is to verify their identity – and not just by confirming their name matches a LinkedIn profile! I recommend that you insist on video calls with your main point of contact. As well, ask that you would like to do at least one video chat with another member of the company (to learn more about the organization). Typically, scammers will get scared off by this & legitimate companies will encourage you to learn more. 

What experiences led you to create Remote Woman?

I was looking for a remote job last year and ran into a variety of problems.

The three main issues were 1) most of the roles that were advertised were skewed towards men 2) some companies weren’t remote-friendly 3) some companies weren’t legitimate or stable.

One of the worst experiences I had was almost getting scammed by a company that posted on the most popular remote job board. Seemingly legit, I went through hours and hours of remote interviews for what seemed like my dream remote job only to find out that they were phishing for my personal information to scam me. Luckily, I was able to spot the scam before it was too late. But this isn’t the case for other women that have been taken advantage of. This is why I started Remote Woman – to close the gender gap in tech and bring trust to remote work.

What advice would you give women who want to transition from an office role to a remote role?

It was a difficult transition for me to transition from an office role to remote – although it’s worth it!

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not all sunshine & rainbows once you go to a remote company – communication can be tough. I recommend practicing communication, organization, and time management with your existing company (but without face to face communication). Prepare by using tools like Slack, Zoom, Basecamp, Trello, Asana, etc. Besides good practice, this is critical to acing your interviews with recruiters at remote companies – they want to know that you will succeed in the transition before making an offer.

Read the rest of the article by Mogul Millennial here.