Remote work is becoming increasingly common, so remote recruitment is essential to continue attracting and hiring top talent. Building a rock-solid remote team takes time and trust, especially when every interaction is virtual. How do you find the right talent for your team? This article examines the advantages of remote recruiting and outlines our 8-step process for hiring top talent.
Advantages of Recruiting Remotely
Candidates and hiring managers can endure grueling endurance tests during the hiring process. Many companies receive hundreds of applications per job posting. Finding the best candidates among so many applicants can be quite overwhelming. It can be complicated to match applicants' skills and potential with job requirements, so it can't always be fully automated.
Fortunately, hiring remotely can drastically help you source from a broader talent pool and help you reduce HR costs. Here are some of the advantages of investing in a remote team for your company.
Reduce Costs for Yourself and Your Employees
In many ways, remote work reduces overhead costs for companies. Now they don't have to:
- Rent or buy office space
- Use cleaning services
- Provide snacks and drinks
Working remotely also saves employees money. There is no need to spend on:
- Gas, car maintenance, or public transportation
- Formal clothing (including dry cleaning)
- Lunches at the office
FlexJobs found that remote workers can save up to $4,000 per year. Additionally, remote workers don't need to commute daily. By reducing overhead costs, you can offer more competitive compensation and invest more in your employees. For instance, you could sponsor gym memberships or sports equipment for home, online courses (not related to work), or even monthly massages. In addition, equipping a home office is usually cheaper than renting an office space.
Increase Employee Productivity
The Stanford study by Bloom et al. demonstrated that productivity increased by 13% for home workers compared to office workers, despite challenges associated with monitoring productivity and efficiency remotely. Remote work is not allowed in all sectors, of course. Finance, technology, IT, management, and professional services have the most potential for distributed work without compromising productivity.
Improve Your Brand
In a 2020 survey by Growmotely, 74% of professionals and entrepreneurs expect remote work to become the norm. This means that remote recruitment, too, is here to stay. Allowing employees more freedom and flexibility shows them you trust them to do a good job at home, with minimal or no supervision. In this way, you can develop a culture of trust, collaboration, and openness in your organization.
Improve Employee Satisfaction
In a McKinsey report, employees are likely to be more satisfied if they can work remotely at least once or twice a week. Most workers would prefer a hybrid or fully remote working model after the pandemic ends. According to the same report, up to 30% of employees would change jobs if they returned to full-time office work. Thus, if you want to retain your best employees, you need to be flexible, and if you want to hire top talent, you need a solid remote hiring process.
Source Top Talent from Around the World
Recruiting remotely allows you to tap into a global talent pool and not be limited to a specific area or country. It is true that global hiring comes with its own obstacles, tax challenges, and legal complexities, but these costs can be offset by reducing overhead. The legal complexity of remote work might still lead some organizations to hire in the country where they are based.
How Do You Recruit Remote Employees?
Creating an all-star team begins with stellar individuals. With these tips, you will be able to attract the best and brightest of the remote talent pool.
Define the Position You're Hiring For
Explain the duties and responsibilities of the role you're looking to fill, as well as the skills and qualifications required. Further, you need to define what "remote" means for this position: is it a fully remote or a partially remote (hybrid) position? How flexible do you want to be? You also need to decide on the geographical scope: will you hire locally or globally? This has tax and legal implications for you and your new employees. A contractor who works part-time for you instead of an employee might make more sense if you're hiring globally. Identify your exact needs.
Write and Publish a Clear and Engaging Job Posting
Give enough specific information in your job description and title to let people know what you're looking for. The following information should be included in a remote work job ad:
- Whether you accept contractor applications
- Equipment required for a home office and whether you will provide any (or if you are able to allocate a budget for this)
- The required time zone availability
As a result, you won't have to waste time reviewing applications if, for example, there is a time zone difference. Post the job ad on websites for remote work specifically, on LinkedIn, on your Careers page, and on classic job boards, such as Monster and Indeed.
Pre-Screen Remote Candidates
Now is the time to quickly pre-screen your remote candidates. Candidates who don't meet your basic requirements, such as:
- An applicant without the requisite skillsets for the role
- Appliacants without the relevant qualifications or experience
- Appliancnts whom you have a time zone incompatibility with
Keep disqualified candidates informed about the results of the pre-screening process to ensure a smooth remote recruitment process.
Tips to Better Managing Your Remote Team
A variety of online skills tests and personality tests are now available to help you select remote candidates. A skills assessment allows you to assess candidates' skills and knowledge in a specific area, such as, for example, outside B2B sales, cybersecurity, or technical SEO.
Using personality and culture tests, you can determine if a candidate is culturally compatible or adds culture to the organization and discover their strengths and weaknesses. Rather than evaluating applicants, this is meant to better understand them and manage them more efficiently in the future (which is particularly important for remote recruitment).
For an in-depth understanding of your candidates' communication style and language abilities, you can also conduct short asynchronous video interviews. Save the hiring team time and energy by analyzing results, comparing candidates, and making only a few selections.
Conduct Structured Interviews
In remote recruiting, we recommend using structured interviews, i.e., interviews during which you ask the same questions in the same or similar order and take detailed notes. Hiring a diverse workforce is easier when you use structured interviews to mitigate hiring biases.
Make sure everyone on your hiring committee understands what the ideal candidate should possess if you have a hiring committee.
Dig Deeper to Filter Out Candidates
Taking the time to speak with the references provided by your candidates can help you find the right candidate. Ask references how they know the candidate beyond the superficial "how do you know him?" questions. Asking them detailed questions will help you gain a third-party perspective on your candidate's abilities and work ethic if they were selected as references.
Additionally, you can reduce unconscious bias during the hiring process by only allowing your operations and recruiting teams to see resumes and LinkedIn profiles. Instead of looking at a resume or LinkedIn before interviews, conduct exercise-based interviews to reduce unconscious bias and ensure that all candidates have a fair chance.
Dig Deeper to Filter Out Candidates
Make an offer to your best candidate after comparing results. Confirm their availability and the degree of flexibility your company offers. Plan to buy and have equipment shipped to them if necessary in order to ensure they have all the equipment they need. Depending on their location, you might need to allow at least a week for this.
Create a Smooth Onboarding Process
Virtual onboarding is particularly important if your new hire only works remotely. As part of onboarding, you can schedule a Zoom chat with the new employee's team and check in weekly with them. When onboarding begins, make sure they know who to contact if they have additional questions.
Onboarding details should be discussed with the team manager and see what additional training is needed and how it will be handled. Ensure the new employee knows what their first tasks are, what the exact requirements are, and what success looks like in the role. Make sure they have access to all the necessary information, systems, and files.
3 Interview Tips for a Successful Remote Hire
It can be challenging to interview candidates when you have never met them in person. You can narrow down the field and find the right candidate with these simple tips.
Embrace Video Chat
The body language of anyone can speak louder than the words of any person. A video chat is a better way to get a feel for candidates than a phone interview. Even better, your first meeting in person will feel like you've already been friends for a long time.
Ask the Right Interview Questions
Remote work is not for everyone. Using these interview questions, you can determine if a candidate is a good fit for your remote team.
- Motivation: What motivates the candidate? A remote worker who is driven to do great work is someone who doesn't need someone checking over their shoulder every five minutes. Find out if your candidate is a self-starter who knows how to maximize their time.
- Purpose: What makes you want to work remotely? A candidate's reasons can give you insight into their drive and work ethic.
- Experience: Have you ever worked remotely? It's not enough to say yes or no. Ask them if they enjoyed working remotely and what challenges they faced in the past.
- Structure: What is your daily routine? People with a little structure are more likely to succeed, whether they have a regular schedule or clear boundaries between home and work. Assess whether a candidate aligns with your company culture by thinking about how your organization works.
- Home setting: How would you describe your home office? Home offices that consist of a kitchen table or non-stop coffee shops can be a recipe for distraction. There are times when those spots are just fine. When needed, someone should be able to close a door to create a quiet and productive environment.
- Accomplishments: What is your biggest accomplishment or project? Especially if their pet project took place remotely, this question could reveal a lot about their problem-solving, teamwork, and communication skills.
Take Feedback After the Interview
It is always a good idea to take feedback after an interview. As a result, you will be able to learn from your experience and understand areas where the remote recruitment process needs to be improved. Do a simple survey and keep it simple. Consider asking questions like how the interviewing process could be improved or whether the software or platform used for the remote interview was convenient.
Hire Top Remote Talent Globally
Hire Top Remote Talent Globally
Recruiting remotely can be challenging, and if you're a fully remote company, you need to be especially careful, for example:
- Your company brand and image
- The legal and tax implications of remote work
- Your company culture
- Team engagement in a distributed environment
- Cultural, similarity, and other unconscious biases
The benefits of remote hiring include access to a global talent pool, reduced overhead costs, improved employee satisfaction, and employee retention. If you want help hiring remotely, it's important to have the right processes, technology, and strategy in place. The right hires can save you time and help you scale your business. Universal Creative Solutions can help you implement proven systems to hire the top remote talent globally.
