Digital nomads, as they’re called, are part of a growing niche of freelance writers, entrepreneurs, artists, and more. Rather than staying put and working from one stationary apartment, they choose to spread their wings and travel the world while they work from their laptops.
Thanks to this growing trend, there are plenty of online tools and services popping up to cater to these freelance explorers. For example, entrepreneur Pieter Levels created the Nomad List, a website with resources for digital nomads including apartment listings, chat rooms, job offers, and more.
Digital nomads can find everything from tools to help them choose a city to visit next and a Slack community that hosts around 2,500 members.
One such tool that designed to assist employers and freelancers find a possible match is Jobbatical. Through this online service, employers can create an account and have one of the site’s team members help create a job listing page. In an interview with Small Business Trends, Jobbatical Marketing Chief Isabel Hirama explains:
“We love helping teams from all over the world find their next great team member, and we’ve already had over 600 companies use Jobbatical since our launch seven months ago … We create the listing ourselves and work hard to make them come to life – something employers have really appreciated, that they don’t need to do the heavy lifting of copywriting, formatting, publishing, etc.”
Jobbatical focuses on shorter employment terms for their freelancers: almost like a vacation, or an adventure. There are also many internships posted to the site, making them perfect for college students looking to get away for the summer while still getting work done.
Businesses from around the world can post their job listings, lasting anywhere from three months to a year. But, why such a short period?
The idea of working at the same company for five or more years will often result in terrified looks (especially from the younger crowd) which roughly translate to ‘Five years is a long time, will I really still be here?’ Through sites like Jobbatical, potential employees are able to get their feet wet while gaining both job and personal experiences, without the pressure of having to commit to a career.
While the notion of moving into another country for good makes most people a bit nervous, one year seems more like an adventure. They can try a new country, city, and job all at once, and if they like it, sometimes freelancers become full-time employees. If not, there aren’t any hard feelings.
For more remote countries (for example, Estonia, where Jobbatical is based) this also means getting a bit of time in the spotlight. Talented professionals from around the world can explore options in places they have never heard of, but wish they had.
Small businesses and startups can certainly benefit from these ‘trial period’ type job listings. Hiring another employee can be a big risk for small and new businesses, and in using this site they are able to test out potential team members as well as attract some people and talent they may have never been able to reach otherwise. Rather than seeing accepting a new job a starting small business in another country as a ‘bad career move’, it’s more of an exciting summer abroad.
Image: Jobbatical.com
Aira Bongco
More and more people are now using what they are good at to make money. I think that it is a good trend as people are now following their hearts. I just hope that it is not just out of greed. More than making money, people still need to do good to other people so I hope that they also do that too.
Completely agree, 5 years feels like an eternity to work somewhere these days. Bravo, Jobbatical!