Amazon is likely the most widely recognized and trusted online merchants worldwide. According to Forbes, Amazon was listed the 2nd best employer to work for in 2020. So did you know Amazon offers work-from-home jobs in many states across the U.S.?
With the current pandemic reshaping the workforce, remote working is now top of mind for executive management, human resource and technology teams. This is great for those of you who prefer to work from home full time or part time. Many categories are available as work from home jobs including project management, IT, marketing, finance, business development and sales and even operations.
Fortunately, a large organization like Amazon has thousands of remote job openings for virtual workers across many of these departments. Let’s dive into getting an at-home job with amazon, why you might want to work for amazon and what you can expect from working there.
What Kind of Amazon Work-from-Home Jobs Are Available?
Please be aware there will not always be openings in every category. Please refer to the company’s job board for current openings, requirements and job descriptions.
Amazon Customer Service
Most of Amazon’s virtual call centers offer home-based jobs, so there are many excellent opportunities. While you aren’t usually able to schedule your hours quite as freely, and there are requirements for getting the job. For starters, you will need a dedicated phone line and access to high-speed internet.
Amazon only hires remote agents in certain states. You will need to check their jobs site for the most up-to-date state restrictions.
Amazon customer service positions are highly coveted. They are employee positions and do offer a guaranteed hourly wage. Openings are typically seasonal and fill quickly. You will want to keep an eye open, or set up job alerts to stay on top of finding out when your favorite companies are hiring.
These positions also tend to be temporary positions with the possibility of becoming permanent if you meet your metrics and attendance requirements. These jobs can be part-time or full-time.
There is frequently a demand for bilingual reps and military veterans and spouses.
Job Requirements
Amazon prefers the same set of qualifications for its at-home customer service representatives as many other companies do. They’ll ask for at least a year of customer service experience, at least a high school diploma, and some experience working from home. You’ll also need access to a quiet working environment if you’re applying for a job with the call center.
Technical skills include familiarity with chat services, email programs, Microsoft Office, and the general online shopping experience. General computer experience is always important when you’re working remotely. You’ll also need basic customer service skills, including the ability (and desire!) to do some problem-solving.
I also want to add that it will also go a long way if you can share your enthusiasm for online shopping in general, and for Amazon’s business in particular. If you’ve been shopping enthusiastically with Amazon for years, bring it up! Likewise, if you’ve had great experiences as a customer of Amazon, it wouldn’t hurt to share how eager you are to provide that same level of satisfaction to other customers.
Listen to the language Amazon uses to describe itself, and find ways that you can fit into that type of company culture. For example, their customer service jobs reference being a company that’s “customer-obsessed” — so bring that level of enthusiasm to your application.
Human Resources Anyone?
One of the interesting things about human resources is that you get to work with humans, right? Amazon has found a way for you to be a human resources manager, contractor, investigator, etc., and still work from home. The positions for HR are not easy-breezy with their details. These positions seem to challenge individuals, offer travel opportunities, and get you a nice set of experience working with a qualified team of like-minded people.
Some of the basic qualifications for the manager position are a bachelor’s degree, six-years’ experience, and (at least) one year of experience in a supervisory role. Amazon is serious about its HR solutions.
Job Requirements
Blah Blah
Amazon has Healthcare Jobs Online Too
Amazon currently has over 100 virtual location healthcare jobs listed that can provide you a healthcare challenge as well. Some of the jobs listed are Bio-Pharma Consultant, Senior Solutions Healthcare Architect and Healthcare Data Scientist.
The bio-pharma position does require IT knowledge, travel, and consulting experience. The healthcare architect will be working with a team to develop and innovate new solutions for healthcare partners. The healthcare data scientist role will allow you to work on leading edge Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence technologies.
These positions will not only provide you with exciting job experience in healthcare, but will also boost your own personal profile and skillset.
Job Requirements
Blah Blah
Project Manager
Job Requirements
Blah Blah
Campaign Manager
Job Requirements
Blah Blah
Benefits of Working for Amazon
Intro Blah Blah
Healthcare
Blah Blah
Paid Time Off (PTO)
Blah Blah
Tuition Reimbursement
Blah Blah
Other Perds
Blah Blah
Should You Work at Amazon?”
– Compare to industry salary rates
– Discuss diversity and inclusion and things like a bias-free interviewing process
– Looks great on your resume. Who doesn’t know Amazon?
What to Expect for Pay, Schedules, and More
Interviews for at-home customer service agents are conducted over the phone or via video chat, which means you can interview at home. Training is paid and done mostly at home, though you may be required to go onsite for some training depending on the position.
Pay is determined by the position.
Many of the customer service jobs are full time, but sometimes part-time work comes available. As a customer service representative, you’ll be expected to be available to work during Amazon’s customer service hours (which include nights and weekends, not to mention holidays).
How to Apply to Work from Home with Amazon
Amazon’s job site has two main sections — one section is for fulfillment (which is things like working in the warehouse) and the other is for remote jobs. If you want to work from home, you’ll want to stick with the remote jobs.
You can access the job site by going to www.amazon.jobs and clicking on “Remote Career Opportunities” — or just go straight here. From there, you can search for the role you want (like “customer service”) or you can apply some filters using the checkboxes on the left, and take a look at what’s available.
You’ll need to prepare a cover letter and resume for your application. Your cover letter is your chance to explain why you think you’d be a great fit for the job, even if (or especially if) you don’t have the stated requirements. For example, if you’ve got a history working with sales, a lot of the skills you used can be “translated” to customer service even if you aren’t specifically doing customer service in your sales job.
Location Requirements to Work for Amazon
Amazon delivers just about everywhere, but the list of states where you can work is shorter. Basically, you’ll need to reside in a state where Amazon has one of its offices. Below is a list from one of the most recent openings. This can change at any time.
- Alabama
- Arizona
- Arkansas
- Delaware
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Illinois
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Maine
- Maryland
- Michigan
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Nebraska
- New Jersey
- New Mexico
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- Pennsylvania
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Vermont
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Wyoming
When you visit Amazon’s remote job listings, you can filter them by the state (or states, if you’re relocating) where you want to search. This will help you narrow your search and focus on the opportunities where you qualify instead of wasting time clicking through dozens of jobs that you couldn’t apply for.
Special Groups
Blah Blah
Veterans
Blah Blah
Students
Blah Blah
Other Types of Jobs Available at Amazon
When you check out the Amazon job board that’s specifically for remote work, you’ll find a huge variety of jobs. These are a few of what I saw when I looked it up for this post:
- Sales, including technology sales and account management
- Data analysis
- Software development
- Customer service/satisfaction including fluency
They were also recently hiring transcriptionists. You just never know what will pop up!
Amazon Virtual Locations Lets You Build a Career from Home
The above positions are not all Amazon has to offer. If you visit their Virtual Locations Job Page, you will see a plethora of positions available around the globe and in a wide variety of capacities.
When you head over to the Amazon virtual locations page, you’ll likely find something right up your alley if you’re looking for tech support, management in operations, deliveries, areas, logistics, and more. Other items you may want to look into are IT services such as cloud support, or a solutions architect; Amazon has security jobs too. All the positions named above are just a peppering of jobs offered from Amazon.
Some of these positions require degrees, experience, travel, and more. Each of the jobs listed has specific requirements; if you are looking to work with Amazon for technical support, one current job opening requires a bilingual person (who speaks fluent Japanese and English), lives in the United States, and a High-School Degree (or equivalent). This position requires that you do not live 50 miles or less away from the physical customer service site. There are a handful of states that you must live in to be eligible for these positions. (Usually, if you live within a commutable distance – 50 miles or less – from a physical location, they require you to work onsite instead of remotely.)
Amazon Flex Wants You to be Your Own Boss
In the era of Lyft and Uber, of course, our boxes need a personal driver. Becoming an Amazon Flex driver is easy, and you get to schedule your time. Drivers make an hourly rate that slides. It depends on your location, how many hours your work, and if you get tips.
Amazon created the Flex App, where you schedule your time accordingly. The app helps keep track of the packages you’ve picked up, gives you directions, and grants you the ability to see how much money you’ve earned.
What states does Amazon offer Amazon Flex delivery jobs?
The one downside is that not all areas offer Amazon Flex at all times. While you can send in a query, and Amazon’s needs change frequently (the Get Started page suggests to check back often), you’ll need to make sure that you’re on top of when you check it.
Other Work From Home Jobs
Although Amazon is a big player in remote work, it’s far from the only game in town. The universe of work from home job opportunities is vast. Here are just a few ideas to get you thinking — and for even more suggestions, check out my big list of 150 Work From Home Jobs You Won’t Want to Miss!
Data Entry
This is a popular job for people just beginning online work because it’s so easy to get started. No special skills are necessary, and the work is simple enough. However, there are some trade-offs: It’s tough to earn much money in this field, so data entry is best suited for workers who are looking to pick up a little extra cash and not replace a full-time income. There are also some scams in the industry, so you’ll want to be sure you’re working with a real company that will pay you for your hard work.
Transcription
I had some transcription jobs when I first started working from home. They’re great for breaking into at-home work, and you can snag a transcriptionist role even if you don’t have any past experience in the field. That does mean that pay starts out fairly low, but after you have some experience, it’s possible to make a full-time living from your own home. If you have knowledge about specialized subjects such as the law or health care, consider niche work like becoming a legal or medical transcriptionist.
Proofreading
If your idea of fun is correcting mistakes in restaurant menus, then online proofreading could be a perfect work at home job for you. As a freelance proofreader, your job will be to spot errors in anything from Facebook ads to student essays. Many proofreaders prefer to focus on one type of content.
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Amazon Mechanical Turk, or mTurk, isn’t a “job,” but it is a lot of people’s – myself included – first exposure to remote work.
mTurk is what consider a small task site. As a Worker, you will be able to visit the site and pick up little tasks to complete in exchange for payment. You won’t get paid a lot on this site. And you aren’t guaranteed work. But, in exchange, it isn’t something that requires a lot of time or commitment either.
I call these types of gigs “commercial break money.” It isn’t something you should count on to pay the bills – it won’t – but it is something you can do to pass the time during commercial breaks while watching television. A lot of tasks only take a few minutes to complete.
Amazon mTurk pays by Amazon Payments which can be transferred to your bank account, or you can redeem your earnings for an Amazon Gift Card.
Learn more about Amazon Mechanical Turk here.
Get In the Door With Seasonal Work
While a lot of the jobs on Amazon’s remote jobs page are actually not for customer service, thousands of at-home customer service agents are hired each year. Positions pop up occasionally throughout the year with big hiring recruitment leading up to the peak shopping season (November through January). This means we usually start seeing an abundance of these temporary customer service positions posting around August. These are generally listed as seasonal work.
That said, if you really want to work from home for Amazon, it’s a good idea to go ahead and go for one of these seasonal jobs. It’s always possible that if you do well in the temporary role, you’ll be offered a permanent spot when one comes open.
Seasonal work might be what gets you in the door, but be aware that seasonal workers may not qualify for the full-time employee benefits package.
Work From Home Jobs Summary
Whether you choose to become a full-time independent contractor with a company like Amazon or blaze your own path as freelance writer or social media manager, taking an online job gives you flexibility and opportunity like never before.
I know lots of people who have been very happy with their Amazon work from home jobs. The pay is decent and the benefits are great, so if you’re able to maintain the work schedule they require of you, it could be a perfect fit. Go see what’s out there and get started!
