We appear to be reaching remote-work equilibrium, after years of conflicting trends and predictions. The share of open jobs listed as remote on the career site Indeed has held steady between 8% and 8.6% for the past six months.

That’s roughly triple what the rate was in 2019 but markedly less than it was in 2022. Back then, more than 10% of jobs were advertised as remote, and many others were understood to be for obvious reasons.

Not only is the remote slice of the market narrowing, the overall pie is also shrinking amid layoffs and slower hiring.

If you’re wondering what the remote job market will look like in the long run, there’s a good chance what you see today is what you’ll get for the foreseeable future.

“Being remote raises the bar,” says Mathieu Roche, chief executive of the digital-advertising firm ID5.

Roche’s company employs about 85 people in marketing, engineering, sales and finance. They all work from home and gather for occasional off-sites in places like Rome, Amsterdam, Berlin and Mallorca. This sweet arrangement draws hordes of applicants to every job opening.

Coming out on top requires surviving a gantlet. The company worked with consultants to develop a personality test aimed at determining whether a candidate is wired for unsupervised production. There are several rounds of interviews with a recruiter, hiring manager and a panel of potential colleagues.

The winning candidate needs a distraction-free home office and must be game for odd hours because co-workers are spread across time zones. It also helps to have a compelling reason for wanting to work remotely.

If you manage to get an offer, brace for a cost-of-living adjustment. The days of collecting New York salaries at New Hampshire and New Mexico addresses are waning.

Know your odds

Millions of people got a taste of the WFH life and loved it. When you apply to work from home today, it feels like every single one of them is in the candidate pool with you.

Forty percent of applications submitted through LinkedIn are for remote roles, even though those jobs represent only 8% to 9% of listings.

JobHire.AI, which makes an artificial-intelligence tool for job hunters, recently analyzed more than 600,000 users’ applications. It found remote roles are roughly four times harder to get than in-office or hybrid positions.

Business sectors with the biggest shares of remote opportunities include technology, information and media, says Kory Kantenga, LinkedIn’s head of economics for the Americas.

“Here’s the challenge: Hiring is very slow there,” he says. He adds that work-from-home arrangements in accounting, law, consulting and financial services have mostly dried up.

So, where is there hope? Startups and midsize companies are often more willing to let employees work remotely. It’s one of the few ways they can lure talent that would otherwise go to blue-chip brands.

Some have entirely remote teams. Others say in job postings that they will consider a work-from-home deal for the right candidate.

To make your case in this situation, it is important to present a record of effective remote work, says Kevin Rockmann, a management professor at George Mason University who studies telework. That can mean specifying on your résumé what you accomplished in previous jobs without in-person oversight.

Another key is asking questions during interviews to understand your prospective manager’s reservations. If the boss is worried about slow response times, for example, you could talk up your habit of answering email and Slack messages right away.

“You could even have your references speak to that,” Rockmann says.

Price of freedom

Leaders generally prefer to keep employees where they can see them, but it is possible to spin remote work as a headache reducer for your would-be manager. The key is positioning yourself as a hire who will deliver results with zero office drama.

“Most employers wouldn’t say this, but some like it because the relationship tends to be more transactional,” says Keith Wolf, managing partner at the recruiting firm Murray Resources.

He says the no-fuss pitch tends to work best when a candidate has performed a nearly identical job in the past.