Looking to work online? GoRemote is here to help Filipinos like you

If you've spent any time on the internet the last few months, you're probably already familiar with the term "the new normal." It's been repeated in promotion emails, by your boss, by your parents, and by businesses you frequent. It's become the de facto slogan for being adaptable in the face of something as unpredictable as COVID19, and you probably won't stop hearing it for a while.

For many of us, the new normal looks like adjusting to working from home instead of enduring the commute to your office. It's your bosses and co-workers learning to operate remotely, whether it be through Google Drive, Zoom, Slack, or any of the other tools at your disposal. Based on short term projections, it's in companies' best interest to stay that way for the foreseeable future, and this will undoubtedly change the conversation around remote work.

Luckily for Dorxata, its team was already accustomed to working remotely. Founded by a team of millennials who grew up completing group projects through Messenger and Google Docs and whose entire professional lives were built in the digital age, remote work wasn't a very big adjustment. As Dorxata CEO and founder Miko Garrido says, "We were remote even before the pandemic, and we saw how it helped the team weather the pandemic itself."

Unfortunately, not everyone is so lucky. With a shaky future and a floundering economy, many people were let go of their jobs and are struggling to keep their heads above water financially without risking their health.

And so the idea for GoRemote was born.

With the pandemic changing the very way society functions, many companies changed drastically. Business downsized, employees were let go, and many people were faced with deciding between earning a living and protecting themselves. With remote work, you don't have to make that choice.

We've been really lucky with our remote work in the past, and that has a lot to do with the opportunities we were lucky enough to find, and we wanna increase those chances for people.

Garrido and his co-founders at Dorxata understood how privileged they were to be able to pursue the opportunity to work remotely, and decided to make it their mission to extend a hand to other Filipinos looking to do so as well.

"We want people to feel safe when they're looking for opportunities so they don't have to choose between their health or making a living," says Garrido, who built GoRemote with the goal of building a service for Filipinos, created by Filipinos in the Philippines.

Job searching is an exhausting process in normal circumstances; it's worse in our current climate, with all this uncertainty looming over our heads, especially for people who aren't accustomed to the world of online job hunting.

GoRemote cuts away all the fat and provides a streamlined, no nonsense job application. The development team studied what they liked and didn't like about other job sites and hoped to provide out what they lacked — to figure out in what ways their plethora of features became barriers instead of bridges. Through a simple interface and utmost transparency, they put the jobseeker first.

GoRemote is focused on ensuring the Filipino people are given the chance to find and chase opportunities that will allow them to work safely.

"In that sense, we made GoRemote from the perspective of people and families or close loved ones who got laid off. It's our way of giving up to the community," Garrido emphasized when asked about their advocacy, "We've been really lucky with our remote work in the past, and that has a lot to do with the opportunities we were lucky enough to find, and we wanna increase those chances for people."

Not everyone is blessed with the skills necessary to be able to pick up remote work right away: one has to be technologically advanced, know where to look, and to be able to vet jobs and companies so one isn't taken advantage of. GoRemote hopes to make their site as easy to use as possible, to bridge the gap so that Filipinos who might see other sites too daunting become more willing to take the plunge.

We are the first service that is made by Filipinos in the Philippines for Filipinos.

With an all Filipino team, GoRemote also hopes to be able to cater to the needs of the average working Filipino. "Our priority is Filipino talent," Garrido says, as he explains that GoRemote's userbase will be exclusively local, with the Filipino workforce being the heart and soul of the site, "We understand what it's like in the Philippines and the challenges that come with that."

GoRemote will stick to two major questions when vetting companies: 1) Is it reasonable? 2) Is it legitimate? Rather than focusing on filling the site with subpar openings from unvetted companies, GoRemote will focus on quality over quantity. With a simple and clean UI that allows each job posting the space it deserves, GoRemote will encourage jobseekers to click on the first few they see rather than rely on excessive filters.

One of the many roadblocks GoRemote will have to face are companies that don't have the jobseekers best interests at heart. Everyone has a story or two of an outsourcing job looking to use Filipino workers to save a quick buck. GoRemote hopes to combat that directly: "We want to evolve alongside the community, we want to listen carefully to what they say when they give us feedback [and tell us] 'I don't think that this is fair or justifiable' because it's not. We want to do our best to make sure that we detect any company underpaying Philippine talent."

What the GoRemote team wants to make clear is that their duty is to the Filipino people. In these ever changing times, it's important to give people the resources needed to adapt. And they believe that pushing for better digital infrastructure to support remote work is the way to go.

"It's also because we believe in [remote work]. We've always been a remote team. We know that it works, and there are hiccups but there are also a lot of pros, and we believe the pros outweigh the cons in a lot of cases," Garrido says, who is proud of the work his team has done on a mostly remote basis, "We know that an exclusively remote work website is going to answer the question: where do I go if I need to stay home, if I have kids that I can't leave behind, or for other reasons I can't leave my home. If the reason is no longer COVID, remote work is still going to be really relevant and having a service that you can just go back on is something I think is something that endures."

Garrido hopes that GoRemote can become an enduring presence in the landscape of Filipino job hunting, not just during this pandemic but beyond: "Our hope is that GoRemote is a presence that people can trust to provide opportunities even when they aren't afraid of COVID. They would still want to consider remote work, because of all the advantages it has for us."

The team at Dorxata and GoRemote is aware that they're not pioneering anything when it comes to pushing remote work in the Philippines. Especially now, the economy is heading towards that direction with or without them. One of their primary goals is to help it along that path: "Our position is really we wanna accelerate the advent of a more remote career oriented workplace."

The important thing at the end, with all the talk of features and UIs and marketing is stripped away, is the people. GoRemote exists out of the desire to help Filipinos to lift themselves up and reach for things they don't realize is within their grasp.

One of the most defining aspects of the internet is its ability to level the playing field. Remote work is just the next step for many people, and 2020 just brought all the joys and benefits of it to the forefront. GoRemote believes the Philippines is ready to seize that.

For Filipinos, by Filipinos. As it says on GoRemote's home page, it's Made in Manila with love. Go seize opportunities now.

You can check out GoRemote here.