Entry-Level Remote Jobs: Which Positions Hire New Workers Now

Entry-level remote work in the US clusters into four job families, and the daily work differs more than the titles suggest.

Customer service. You listen to customers' questions and concerns, give information about products and services, take orders, calculate charges and process billing, review accounts, handle returns or complaints, and record the details of each contact (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Tools are a headset, a ticketing or CRM system and a knowledge base. Expect a supervisor to monitor your call volume and quality — that happens in home-based setups too (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025).

Data entry. You compile, sort and verify the accuracy of data before entry, compare it against source documents or re-enter it in verification format, and locate and correct errors (O*NET OnLine, U.S. Department of Labor). Quieter, more solitary, usually with an accuracy target.

General office and clerical work. Deliberately broad: answering telephones, bookkeeping, typing or word processing, operating office machines and filing, under titles such as Administrative Clerk, Clerical Assistant, General Clerk and Office Assistant (O*NET OnLine, U.S. Department of Labor, 2026). Genuinely remote postings lean on the typing, data and phone parts.

Virtual assistant work. Administrative tasks done remotely: managing email accounts, scheduling calls and meetings, making travel arrangements (Indeed Career Advice).

Shifts are what people underestimate. Customer service roles often involve evenings, weekends and holidays, and call-center work may require early-morning or late-night shifts because some centers run 24 hours a day (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025). Remote rarely means flexible; schedules are usually fixed and assigned. Employers typically specify a stable internet connection and a quiet, private space, and some ship you a locked-down laptop.

These categories post genuine entry-level remote roles for US-based workers. Check each type directly rather than relying on aggregators alone.

• Retail and e-commerce brands with home-based support teams, often in seasonal hiring waves — filter their own careers page for "remote".
• Outsourced contact center and business process outsourcing providers, which staff support for other brands and hire in cohorts with set training classes.
• Insurance, benefits administration, healthcare billing and financial services support teams, which usually run background checks and sometimes require licensing.
• Staffing and temp agencies, which fill many clerical and data entry roles as temp-to-hire placements.
• Remote-first startups and small software companies, which hire a few support or operations associates and value writing ability over call experience.
• Small businesses, solo professionals and agencies hiring virtual assistants — usually contract and often part-time to start.
• Freelance and task marketplaces, useful for a track record in data entry, transcription and admin support; read the fee and dispute terms first.
• State and local government and public universities, posting clerical roles on official state portals.
• State workforce agency job banks and CareerOneStop, which also covers virtual interviews, background checks and negotiating salary: https://www.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/job-search.aspx

Rates depend on the occupation, your state and metro area, the industry, the shift and whether you are an employee or a contractor. Check the occupational data and live postings yourself rather than trusting a number in an ad.

Confirm two things in any offer: whether you are a W-2 employee or a 1099 contractor, and whether training hours are paid. For tax questions, use Internal Revenue Service guidance or a licensed tax professional, not a recruiter.

1. Pick one lane first — customer service, data entry, clerical or virtual assistant — based on whether you prefer live conversation or quiet accuracy.
2. Write a one-page resume in the language of the job. Borrow task wording from the official occupational profiles: handling complaints and recording contact details (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025), or verifying accuracy against source documents (O*NET OnLine, U.S. Department of Labor). Retail, hospitality, caregiving and volunteer work all count as evidence.
3. Fix your setup before you apply: stable internet, a working headset, a quiet space, a professional email address.
4. Create profiles in three places — your state workforce agency job bank, one or two large boards with remote filters, and a professional network profile. Use CareerOneStop to prepare for virtual interviews and background checks: https://www.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/job-search.aspx
5. Apply directly on employer career pages as well as through boards, and track what you send and when.
6. Make the first application concrete: three to five lines naming the role, the shift windows you can genuinely cover including evenings and weekends, your typing or ticket-handling experience, and one line on your home setup. Resume attached as a PDF.
7. Set up payment properly once hired: a bank account in your own name for direct deposit and the correct tax form completed with the employer. Never pay a fee to start a job.

Work through this before you hand over a Social Security number, bank details or ID. Job scams reach millions of people a year and cause billions of dollars in direct losses, based on complaints to BBB Scam Tracker (Better Business Bureau).

• Verify the company is registered through your state's Secretary of State business registry, and confirm the job appears on its own careers page.
• Check the recruiter's email domain matches the company domain; free webmail for corporate hiring is a warning sign.
• Check reviews and complaints with the Better Business Bureau and report anything suspicious to BBB Scam Tracker: https://www.bbb.org/scams/employment
• Apply the easy-money rule. A job promising a large amount of money in a short time for little work is almost certainly a scam (Federal Trade Commission, 2026): https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/job-scams
• Refuse reshipping work outright. Roles advertised as quality control manager or virtual personal assistant that involve receiving packages, discarding the packaging and reshipping goods are never a real job (Federal Trade Commission, 2026), and reshipping accounts for a large majority of scam offers reported to BBB Scam Tracker (Better Business Bureau).
• Never deposit a check and send part of the money onward. A legitimate employer will never ask; the check is fake and will bounce (Federal Trade Commission, 2026).
• Confirm payment method and fees: W-2 or 1099, direct deposit or platform payout, pay frequency, deductions. Decline gift cards, cryptocurrency or money transfer apps.
• Pin down time zone and shifts in writing: which time zone the schedule uses, whether evenings, weekends or holidays are required, and whether training is paid.
• Get the offer in writing with title, pay rate, classification, start date and schedule.