Hiring a remote workforce comes with certain benefits. Recruiters can access specific talent, the best in a category, and reduce direct overheads by a significant factor. Skilled people who choose to be a part of the remote workforce ecosystem enjoy the benefits of multiple roles, enhanced flexibility, and a better work-life balance.
Also, due to reduced costs, more funds are generally allocated to hire the best remote talent. Therefore, in-lieu of these advantages, you will find that the most potential hires are highly motivated.
However, as a recruiter or manager, you must realize that hiring and managing remote employees is different in certain core aspects compared to a regular full-time workforce. You need to revamp your process and include parameters that are suitable for hiring remote employees.
First, make sure you need and will benefit from a remote workforce. Next, brainstorm and chalk out a perfect remote management plan for your business. It should include remote communication and tracking systems, delegation and assignment dashboards and payment policies, among other things.
Next, comes the process of recruitment.
Proven Ways on How to Hire Good Employees Remotely
- First, Create a Profile that Fits Each Vacancy
“Yes. You might be thinking that this is a very obvious one!â€
However, although a common factor in both full-time and remote hiring, the parameters you chalk out will differ.
A remote portfolio must mention the key attributes: soft and hard skills. As a recruiter, you may pinpoint certain personality types, skill-sets, attitudes as ideal attributes for various remote profiles.
This will instantly communicate to candidates about the ideal thought process and motivation required. It will allow them to assess themselves. In the end, only those will apply who think that they are the best fit.
For instance, the ideal profile for a Content Writer should be:
- Excellent writing skills ( take a test)
- Organized research skills
- Fast typing turnover
- Instant communication (within agreed timings)
- Priority to delivery deadlines ( take a test)
- Compliance to proofreading and editing feedback
- Team communication
- Knowledge of Word formatting, basic WordPress SEO, Google Docs, Google Suite, Team Communication Software, etc.
- Adherence Standards like Grammarly Premium
Once you have chalked out a profile, filtering becomes increasingly efficient. It is because, on the one hand, you have a transparent approach and on the other, the candidates have a clear idea of what is needed.
Other random factors that are crucial include your business timings and location (if the job serves a location or geographical area like customer support). Providing such additional filters allows candidates to carefully analyze whether they can dedicate the time and cater to specific needs. Only those who find themselves a good fit will apply.
Creating a detailed profile is the first step toward how to hire good employees. It allows you clear judging parameters, save on costs, including training and project delays.
- Look for Organizational Discipline
Working in a non-office environment is highly distracting. Therefore, you will find the most productive remote professionals to be highly organized and methodical in their work culture. So, it is something that you must go for first before assessing everything else.
No supervision is a clear operational drawback of running remote teams. Many times managers are entirely in the dark about delivery ETAs. Sometimes, questions are asked at the last minute! It has happened to us and can happen to anyone.
After a small learning curve, we realized that testing the organizational skills of the candidate is a must before moving ahead with the recruitment process.
You can make the assessment more valuable by exposing them to a trial work environment. The outcomes will certify the organizational discipline as well as the professional skills of any potential hire.
You can Create a Paid Test
The payment must be on an approval basis. To clarify, it means that you only pay the candidates that excel in the test and get on board for further recruitment processes.
Creating a test shouldn’t be difficult for your recruitment team.
It can be a hackathon (small or large/ online or offline, based on your requirement) if you need people in IT and Computer Sciences.
It can be content writing, graphic designing, or photo/video editing test. These are professional attributes.
The organizational attributes that will clarify the discipline and culture of a potential remote hire are:
- Strict adherence to delivery deadlines.
- Result-oriented approach.
- Instant email communication.
- Research and clarification beforehand & not at the last minute.
- Transparent and precise team communication skills.
- Respectful and healthy team behavior in a remote online environment.
- Choose the Right Tools for Online Interviews
You have the right candidates for your remote profiles. Now you need to move to interview rounds and determine on a personal level who fits best. This can be done over the phone and video interviews. Hence, it is a good idea to use third-party apps that allow you to enhance these sessions and choose the perfect person for every specific role.
Using apps like Saberr, you as a recruiter can use data across various cognitive and professional parameters and see the potential efficiency of a candidate for the desired role.
You can record multiple interviews and watch them later using apps like Spark Hire. It gives you a clear advantage over real meetings. You can compare these interviews after that, pinpoint pros and cons simultaneously across multiple candidates and make a well-informed decision about the best one.
Other apps like Jobma and HireVue simplify remote hiring even further by allowing freedom to schedule and answer questions according to their comfort. They add a certain aura of flexibility to your recruitment that attracts the best remote skills!
- Ask Behavioural Questions
Remote candidates need a higher level of motivation and dedication compared to those working full-time in an office. Office-goers have team members to keep them on track, to pull them up and when needed, to hold them in line.
The same is not the case with remote employees. As mentioned earlier, supervision is highly limited, and there is only a virtual team that communicates on a strictly professional level.
Therefore, the questions you ask must assure you of the professional aptitude of the candidate. However, they should answer questions like:
- Career goals and passions
- Self-discipline and direction
- Work approach and remote work culture
- Time management and work prioritization
- Internal motivation and productivity hacks
- Self-learning and exposure
- Team playing capabilities
It would be best if you looked for authentic examples in the form of past experiences and projects. One should correlate these with genuine mentions in their CVs before affirming them. Candidates with higher levels of self-motivation are ideal for remote hiring.
- Technical Aptitudes Are Mandatory
If you are looking for technical profiles, then it should not concern you.
However, remote employability spans across industries and borders. It also involves intensive use of communication software, project deployment, execution, and delivery. Therefore, it is best for those who are proficient with digital applications and tools.
Digital aptitudes must include:
- Using and adapting to team communication software like Slack, Flock or Monday.com.
- Microsoft Office.
- Google Suite.
- Email communication and tracking.
- Remote management tools like TeamViewer.
- Corrective communication tools like Grammarly.
- Ask Your Network for Referrals
Referrals from your trustworthy network are an excellent way to hire good employees remotely.
These people can be other recruiters and managers who have successfully hired the right people or the top-notch hires that you have scalped.
While the former will give you competitive suggestions, the latter are inclined to make welcome suggestions to protect their reputation.
These people have first-hand experience working for you and will refer only to those that meet your requirements.
As the world moves one step closer toward becoming an interconnected global village, the concept of remote workstations is becoming embedded in day-to-day businesses. 43% of US workers already work on a remote-operational model. This number is bound to rise as today’s millennials are increasingly inclined toward stress-free enriched living. More than 86% of people believe that a flexible job would bring them less stress!
A Stanford University study found that productivity was higher in people who worked from home by the factor of a week! The same study found that attrition among remote employees was 50% less than that in office-workers. It means retention is better for the remote workforce.
Due to its clear advantages, remote hiring is a trend that is promulgating the global workspace. A survey by Global Workplace Analytics and FlexJobs caps the growth of the remote workforce at 159% over the past 12 years.
To sum up, candidates on paper can be perfect for specific roles. However, only a detailed interview process can ascertain whether they will deliver in a remote environment. Using tests and then analysis based tools will help you filter the absolute best of the lot.
In the end, let us again revise that the approach to hiring full-time and remote employees should be different. The above guidelines will help you in formulating a detailed recruitment strategy and hopefully lead to an exceedingly productive remote workforce for your business.
