Recruiting Remote Workers Takes a Fresh Approach

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered a huge shift in priorities for both companies and workers. As these businesses adjusted to the shift to remote or hybrid work, they also saw clear benefits from these arrangements, from increased worker productivity to and lower business costs.

If your business is new to hiring off-site talent, how should you approach the process? Where do you find these professionals? What types of skills should you look for in these workers? What types of questions should you ask candidates to assess whether they will thrive in a remote work situation?

Hiring remote workers with Wavely is easy. We’ll only match you with candidates that are looking for remote situations. It’s as easy as signing up. With other job search sites you run the risk of being inundated with applications from job seekers who lack the skills you are seeking—that’s not the case with Wavely, we’ll only make connections for employers and potential employees that are a good fit.

Ideal Skill Set

• You want to hire people for remote jobs who won’t need a lot of hand holding or direct supervision. Look for candidates with initiative. You want self-starters who can see a need and then take the appropriate actions without having to be told what to do.
  
• Communication and collaboration are musts for managing a remote team. Your employees will need to use a range of tools to interact with their colleagues, including video, email, phone and instant messaging. So, look for candidates who can speak clearly, write unambiguously and listen attentively. And they must be able to work effectively with colleagues, no matter where they’re located, to deliver high-quality projects on time.
  
• Ideal remote workers should be very comfortable with using common cloud-based software and collaboration tools and audio and video conferencing platforms.

Video Interview

After reviewing resumes and narrowing your list of candidates, your next step is to set up video interviews. Meeting candidates by video will allow you to see how they present themselves. You can also gauge whether they are set up with the basic equipment and connectivity to work from home seamlessly.

As for interview questions, consider asking potential remote hires some or all of the following:

• What is your history of working remotely?
• How do you stay focused and on-task when working from home?
• How do you stay engaged and motivated over long periods without in-person interaction with coworkers?
• What are the greatest challenges of working off-site?
• What is your approach to work-life balance when your job is remote?

The process for how to hire remote workers is likely different from what you may have done in the past to hire on-site team members. You will need to adjust your onboarding process, too. But overall, your hiring goals are the same. You want to recruit talented workers with the skills, attributes, experience and positive attitude to do their job well and add value to your organization.