Home
What is remote hiring

Remote Hiring Guide

We've been learning the best methods to hire and work in an office setting for over a century. Now that the clock has reset, we must race to develop new best practices for the remote era.

This abrupt shift in culture toward remote employment creates a business opportunity for startups. Adaptive startups will gain an advantage and become magnets for the greatest talent.

Managing and engaging a remote team as a leader is different for a number of reasons, the primary being: there are no face-to-face interactions.

Your culture is how your employees and customers see, engage with, and work with you. And this culture trickles down to every communication and experience.

When hiring remotely, chances are you’ll receive a huge number of applications. It is established that remote hiring and working eliminates the location factor; hence, it is obvious that the number of applications would increase, too.

Looking at the rising number of remote employees, there is a need to hire right, fit candidates to build your product. Organizational goals are the same, only the way of work and recruitment process has changed. A few months ago, a telephonic conversation followed by a face-to-face interview were the key stages of recruitment process. However, remote hiring slowly became the norm as the world was hit with the pandemic.

The way we think about remote working has been changing over the last decade which can be accredited to a number of things: digitization that made way for better, smarter collaborative tools, measures through which employees and candidates can be monitored, and increasing importance of work-life balance, just to name a few.

Remote working is on the rise across the world and so is remote hiring. It involves sourcing, screening, interviewing, and hiring remote employees from different locations using technology.

Many global organizations are adjusting the key elements of the hiring process, updating HR policies, and investing in relevant technologies to implement successful remote hiring processes in the wake of the global crisis.

iMocha Hiring Trends Report 2022

Prefer a PDF? We got you!

Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

How to engage in a good rapport with an interviewer?

Answer: Being enthusiastic and maintaining eye contact. Communicating with a friendly smile in the first few minutes will make the interviewer feel that you are confident, reliable, and good at communication. This will help you create a good impression.

How do I prepare for a remote interview?

Answer: Start preparing by clearing the surroundings and making your space look professional. Make your hardware and software ready in advance to avoid a glitch during the interview. Check all your devices are working fine, especially the microphone. Make your you have a strong internet connection. Read about the company and its culture.

How do you answer why do you want to work remotely?

Answer: First, decide what your reasons are professional and personal ex. Reducing workplace distractions, allowing you to work whenever you want, optimizing your time, etc. Think about the company’s benefits and then link them with yours. Make the interviewer believe that you are the right fit for the organization. Prepare a script for your answer and show the interviewer that you’re a self-starter.

How should I dress for a remote interview?

Answer: Dress as if you are going for an in-person interview. Even though the interview is online, make sure you dress appropriately. Wear a formal shirt, trousers, tie, and jacket for men and a suit jacket for women. Always remember if you are comfortable with what you wear, it reflects in your body language and boosts your confidence.

Can I use notes in a video interview?

Answer: It’s absolutely normal to take a look at your notes during your remote interview. You can always carry handy notes if you can manage to do it subtly. If you feel that you need help answering specific answers, you can use the notes. But make sure that you are not reading all the answers as a script.

What do employers look for in video interviews?

Answer: When it comes to remote interviews, employers would definitely want to know why you want to work from home. How confident you are to carry out the tasks assigned to you remotely. They also look for your motivation, basic skills, and affinity for the job. As we know, remote interviews are concise, don’t forget that this is an opportunity to represent yourself in the best possible way.

Where do you look during a video interview?

Answer: In an online interview making eye contact is difficult. Make sure you sit at a comfortable distance from the screen first and then look straight at the screening rather than into the camera. This way, the interviewer will feel that you are looking at them in a natural conversation.

What is the best color to wear for a video interview?

Answer: Virtual interviews are increasing as a preferred method of hiring remote employees for recruiters. So, while appearing for a remote interview, do not go for bright/dark colors, as these colors do not translate well on screen. Also, avoid colors that are similar to your skin tone and blend with the background. Go for neutral and pastel shades.

Adapting to remote work necessitates relearning how to find and hire the finest people virtually.

It has two sides to it:

  • The first half of the equation is finding out how to spot talent within the confines of a remote hiring process: what attributes to search for and what questions to ask.
  • The other half of the equation is to retrain yourself on how to attract the proper talent.

Top remote job interview questions to hire employees

We have divided the remote work interview questions into five categories to help you easily build your remote interview process.

Adaptability

  1. Describe a situation when your employer abruptly changed plans. What was your reaction to the changes?
  2. Describe a time when things were rapidly changing. What was your working environment like?
  3. We're short on resources, and things are a little hazy here; what would you do to handle the situation?
  4. Describe a moment when you had to make a last-minute alteration to your plans. What methods did you use to communicate the changes to your coworkers?
  5. Who has been the most challenging individual you've ever worked with? (in terms of characteristics).

Speed

  1. Is it more vital to move quickly and complete the task, or to take your time and complete it correctly?
  2. Can you give an example of a time when you assisted your team in completing tasks quickly?
  3. Describe a moment when the company you worked for moved too quickly and caused a problem. What were your thoughts on this? 
  4. In terms of your goals and timelines, how do you prioritize establishing procedures and systems over shipping?

Initiative

  1. What are some self-started initiatives you've completed in the past? Why couldn't you persuade your boss at the time if it wasn't implemented?
  2. Explain a moment when you went above and beyond what was required of you. Why were you so adamant about getting it done?
  3. What is your best work-related concept, and what difficulties did you have to overcome to make it a reality?
  4. What would be your biggest difficulty and how would you address it if you were to get this job?
  5. What new things will you have learned in two years, and who do you want to add to your network? How would this position assist you in achieving your goals?

Essential questions

  1. Tell me about a time when you were passionate about your job. What did you like the most about it?
  2. Describe a period when you were completely absorbed in your task. How did you handle it?
  3. When was the last time you were working on something and looked up to see how much time had passed, only to be surprised at how quickly it had passed? What were you doing, and why were you so engrossed in it?
  4. Describe something you're proud of that you made at work or outside of work.
  5. What's the most interesting thing you've recently discovered about yourself at work? What method did you use to learn it? Why?
  6. Tell me about a niche product or something related to your hobbies or passions about which you have strong views and why.

Job permanence

  1. Give me a rundown of your most recent assignments. What did you learn from each, and why did you decide to leave?
  2. What do you desire from your next employment that you don't already have?
  3. How long do you think you'll stay here? What are your plans for the future?

Former Experience

  1. What was the most successful team you've ever been a part of? Why did it do so well? What role did you play?
  2. What aspects of your work do your coworkers most admire and respect?
  3. What do you consider your innate talents, and what have you worked the hardest to master?
  4. What was the most successful team you've ever been a part of? Why did it do so well? What part did you play?
  5. What superpower do you have? What is one thing you do better than most of your peers in your field?
  6. In your professional life, who have you learned the most from? What did you discover?
  7. How do you push your work's boundaries and limits?
  8. What advice would you provide to someone just starting out in your field? What are the best things to study and accomplish with your time, and what is a waste of time?
  9. What have you achieved so far in your profession that you are most proud of?

Talent magnetism

  1. Would you be able to join us immediately if we hired you today?
  2. Can you recall a moment when you hired someone for a company where you worked?
  3. Who are the three most remarkable people you've ever worked with, and what makes them so? If we recruited you, do you think you could persuade them to join you here?

Work-from-home questions

  1. What motivates you to work from home?
  2. What are your work priorities?
  3. How do you strike a balance between your job and personal life?
  4. How do you keep track of how well you communicate throughout the day?
  5. What resources do you require for your home office to succeed in a remote position?
  6. How do you plan your everyday routine?
  7. What communication channels do you employ, and for what purposes?
  8. How can you stay productive while working under the supervision of a team leader who isn't always available?
  9. In a remote work situation, how do you collaborate on team projects?
  10. How do you keep organized? What methods or programs do you use?
  11. In a remote scenario, how would you handle limited face-to-face interaction?
  12. What would you do if your remote team was unavailable?

These are some important remote interview questions you can include in your remote hiring process. Beyond the interview questions, further aspects of your employment process must change to accommodate a more distant world.

There's an opportunity here. The present hiring systems aren't suitable in this remote era; therefore, now is a good time to improve how we hire.

Hiring in bulk is one of the top benefits of remote hiring. You can interview a larger number of people remotely than you could in person. This, in principle, implies you'll have a better chance of meeting the ideal prospect.

Secondly, doing interviews remotely will make it easier to digitize and arrange questions between sessions. It's an excellent time to modernize your old analog hiring practices. The waiting and hiring times, redundancies between interviews, and inconsistencies among interviewees can be eliminated. We can be more organized and coordinated while working remotely.

Third, some biases may not manifest themselves immediately, which may aid us in making better hiring selections.

Fourth, some people who would be terrible office coworkers could be fantastic remote employees, and vice versa. Who we regard to be the best performers will alter due to remote employment.

Fifth, vetting becomes more crucial. If you never meet the people you recruit in person, references are even more critical. Remote candidates should also expect a longer and more thorough vetting process and be prepared to put in more effort during the interview process, possibly even working with your organization in a "try before you buy" scenario.

While working together in an office, it is easy to walk up to someone for guidance or support, but this simple process turns into planning and scheduling meetings and following up when you’re working online.

So, needless to say, managing and engaging a remote team requires different skills and practices.

Establish a conducive communications channel

There isn’t anything called over-communication while you’re working remotely. Schedule recurring daily, weekly, or bi-weekly meetings to ensure you’re on the same page. Some of the questions you need to ask are:

  • What’s the update on the ongoing project?
  • What dependencies do you have, and on whom?
  • What support do you need from me?
  • What would be your priorities this week?

Open communication would help employees understand what is expected from them in the short- and long term.

Lookout for the hints for stress

Remote work can be isolating. The nondescript office banter, no matter how banal it might seem, is essential, not just for building office friendships but for creating an engaging environment where each team member is supportive of each other. But this sense of kinship with your peers is lacking when you’re working remotely for a long duration or permanently.


So, it is crucial for leaders to stay on the lookout for hints of distress in their employees. Learn how to breach sensitive conversations and let your employees know that it is okay to take mental health days. Moreover, you can suggest alternate working models to your employees to avoid burnout.

Focus on the output, not the process

While working remotely, people are often juggling their professional and personal life at the same time. Many people would have parental duties to cater to, too. This means that your team might work at times unsuitable for you, and they might be unavailable for some meetings.


Schedule meetings at a previously approved time, use collaborative tools and technology to present to each other and have faith in your employees.


Brian Kropp, Vice President, Research, Gartner, believes that what’s getting done is more important than how your team does it. Communicate to them effectively what’s expected so they can schedule how and when to do it.

Increase recognition

Recognition serves two purposes: employees feel motivated and more engaged in their work, and other team members understand what behavior they have to emulate.


According to a recent survey by Gartner, this desire for being recognized increases by 30% in the remote working scenario. In a traditional setup, managers acknowledge and identify the efforts of their employees within the office space. Informally, a simple 'good work' in front of the team works wonders, too. However, the physical space isn't a possibility while working remotely, so you, as a leader, would have to set up formal ways you can recognize their work.


Since there's a lack of visibility while working remotely, ask your employees if they have any hindrances while working and whether their peers tried to help them. This way, you'd be able to recognize efforts and behavior worth rewarding and share those accomplishments with teams.

Remote work culture does just that, albeit in a remote scenario. You would have to help your leaders enforce a remote work culture. You would have to enforce it because a culture, even a remote one, doesn’t get created by accident; it has to be intentional.


However, with organizations shifting to remote working, the older practices for building organizational culture wouldn’t be as effective. So, here are a few methods using which you can create an excellent remote work culture:

Communicate effectively

Tell your team what remote work means for your organization and team. Communicate how they are expected to interact and when.

Tell them exactly what remote working means to you: whether or not they're expected to stay active for defined hours, whether or not they have to complete certain hours every day, and whether they'll be expected to travel to the office periodically. You must also include this information in your job descriptions so applicants know what they are signing up for.

This would also help you as some may self-select them out, and you wouldn't have to screen and make efforts to recruit them.

Furthermore, it is important that everyone in the team understands company values and vision. Leaders must continue to emphasize them because people feel a sense of connection to the mission they are working towards.

Set Examples

Your leaders are responsible for setting examples. For instance, if your leaders expect the team to stay online for defined hours, they should remain online, too.

If leaders don't follow through on what they expect, team members will feel unmotivated and discouraged to do so.

Moreover, building remote work culture also means translating company values into an online environment. If, for example, one of your values is transparency, you need to set an example of how to introduce transparency in your remote work culture. This could be in the form of daily stand-ups, weekly organizational or department meetings, company town halls, etc. How you're setting examples for your team directly impacts how your team takes them forward.

Know the difference between a good and a bad remote culture

Hailley Griffis, a leader at Buffer, believes a healthy remote culture is simply one that your employees like and respond to.

Understand what your team is responding to, ask them whether they've been enjoying working a particular way, and try to gauge whether your teammates encourage each other to work cohesively.

There isn't a one-size-fits-all when it comes to remote work culture; it has to be tailored to you and your needs. This involves taking active feedback and understanding how to introduce changes for things that aren't working for you.

Establish your rituals

A good working culture includes certain rituals, too. This helps in keeping everyone working collaboratively

.

For instance, you can establish daily sunrise and sunset stand-ups to know the day-to-day updates on running projects. You can also schedule a weekly or bi-weekly meeting with each team member to understand where they are headed or if they are anticipating any hiccups in the future. Establishing the agenda of each ritual beforehand would keep the communication streamlined and to the point.

Schedule fun during office hours

No matter how mechanical it may sound to 'schedule' fun, it is important to do so. This would help you establish a sense of camaraderie within your team.

You can do so by conducting periodical award ceremonies and creating celebratory moments. You can even hold certain cultural events online, like gaming or trivia. Even though you cannot force everyone to participate in those events, you'd let your employees know that it is okay to take time to unwind.

Moreover, while working remotely, the line between working hours and personal hours can blur. So, establishing these 'fun' hours would also help your employees feel at ease during work hours.

This means two things for you as a recruiter: you’ll have a wide pool to choose from, and you’ll have to screen a number of unqualified candidates.

So, to make sure your remote hiring process is as smooth as possible and you get the applications of relevant candidates, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Define the requirements clearly.

Responsibilities, expectations, and what defines success for them: these three points are the most important for any candidate. So, rather than focusing on the desirable character traits and education, tell them what will be expected of them. This will help the candidates match their skills with the requirements and assess whether or not they match the role.

Determine whether or not to focus on a time zone.

While working remotely in a team, it is vital to get on calls spontaneously to ensure the work gets done. Especially when there are dependencies within the team (which mostly are), it is better to focus on a particular time zone.

However, this limitation may not be necessary if hiring for an individual contributor role. You may enable an asynchronous communication process for such employees. This will help you in keeping the working process smooth.

So, assess your requirements and decide whether or not it is feasible to focus on a time zone.

Define the requirements clearly.

Even though many organizations are engaged in remote recruitment and accepting remote work, a few expect the candidates to join their offices when it is safe to do so. If this is true for your organization, you need to specify that to the candidate beforehand to avoid confusion and possible attrition later.

Furthermore, explain clearly what remote work means for you: whether you expect the person to log in for continuous hours or not; whether or not you have stipulated working hours; whether they’d be compensated for remote work facilities, i.e., internet, ergonomically sound set up, etc.

In addition, state what skills are expected from them while working remotely: excellent collaborative and communications skills, discipline, ability to work with a team, etc.

Define an assessment process.

The traditional recruitment methods would not be as successful during remote recruitment processes. Traditionally, a candidate is screened by a recruiter, and an on-campus assessment is scheduled, after which the interview rounds are scheduled. For remote hiring, you have flexibility with this process, too.

There are a number of ways to do this. You can have a skills assessment round before or after the screening process.

Roche, a multimillion pharmaceutical company, moved to an assessment first, screen second method because of the high volume of applications. They instituted a small situation-based question for candidates, which they had to submit with their application. While Roche’s applications dropped from an average of 300 to 80, it didn’t suffer in quality.

You can also place aptitude tests or business communications proficiency tests. This would help you gauge whether or not a candidate fits the bill.

After that, you can screen the candidate and assess them specifically for the role. This two-way assessment process will help during the interview process, as many skills will have been assessed already.

Keep the interview process transparent.

Communication is key during this process. Communicate with your candidate the platform you’ll be using, who’ll call, who will be present during the interview process, and their designations. If several people are conducting the interview, decide amongst yourselves the topics you’d be focusing on.

Furthermore, it would help if you did a trial run of the interviewing tool you’ll be using to avoid glitches during the interview process. Check whether or not the mic, camera, and speakers are working. Familiarize yourself with the tool you’ll be using as well.

You must also digitize everything. During traditional interviews, hard copies of candidates’ profiles or resumes used to be kept; this used to work as a great starting-off point. The same can be used while remote hiring, too. Keep a soft copy of the candidate’s resume aside to refer to.

And lastly, communicate with all the interviewers immediately after the interview. Identify the pros and cons of the candidate you’re interviewing. A lot of vital information may be lost if you follow up after a few days, so it is vital to regroup on the same day and debrief each other.

How to onboard people remotely -

People often confuse onboarding with orientation. While both are equally important, onboarding is the process that sets the tone for your candidate’s experience with you.

Orientation consists of one-time information like the perks they’d have access to, the policies in place, and your organization’s mission, culture, and history.

Onboarding, on the other hand, are activities that induct new employees regarding the tools they’d be using and the products and concepts they’d have to familiarize themselves with. Onboarding is often tailored to suit different roles, while orientation remains the same.

To create a seamless online onboarding process, here are some tips to follow:

Have a dedicated schedule.

Since remote workers don’t have the luxury of walking up to people and asking queries, onboarding remote employees may take longer than usual. So, to save time and effort, create an onboarding plan with defined agendas. Send them links for the meetings beforehand, and include all reading and video material in an email.

If you require them to work on an LMS for the onboarding, include the familiarization material in the email.

Rather than onboarding one person at a time, create groups to onboard them at the same time. This would also help you save time and effort because the same information wouldn’t have to be repeated multiple times.

Create a personal connection.

Ask the team members to introduce themselves to the recruits to help people make personal bonds. You can facilitate this by sending lunch or snacks to the team and setting up a virtual tete-a-tete.

You can also engage the recruits in the cultural activities of your organization so they get to engage with people outside of their teams.

To hire remotely, selecting the right and trustworthy candidates is extremally crucial for any organization. So, how you can ace your hiring process all without meeting the candidates in person?

Let’s look at the fundamental elements of remote hiring:

Remote Hiring metrics:

To get a fair idea of how your remote hiring team is performing and to measure the effectiveness of remote hiring process, deciding the key recruitment metrics is very important. Remote hiring metrics will help you get valuable insights at every stage of the recruitment funnel. Ther are various things to measure during the remote hiring cycle. Here are the most important remote hiring metrics that every human resource professional should track:

Sourcing Metrics:

Vacancy rate: It all starts with how many positions need to be filled. This metric gives you an idea about trends in the job market or your organization’s growth. If the vacancy rate is high, it indicates high demand or low supply of talent, high job churn status, and rapid business growth. It can be calculated as:

Number of applicants: It’s a very basic metric that will not tell you how many job fit applicants have applied. However, it will definitely help you measure effectiveness of your recruitment marketing initiatives.

High or low number of applicants indicates how effectively you are sourcing applicants, and it tells you how many candidates you need to attract in order to find a good hire. For instance, if you want to sourcing candidates for in-demand roles and still the number of applicants is low, it shows that the job description is not clear.

Application completion rate: Application completion rate is nothing but a ratio of how many people are actually submitting your job application form. High application completion rate means applicants are serious, and there is not glitch in your application process. But low application completion ratio means applicants are leaving without submitting. The reasons could be long and repetitive questions, demands sensitive, personal, or irrelevant information. It could also happen due to technical issues.

Application completion rate = Number of submitted applications / Total number of applications started

Time and Cost Metrics:

Time-to-hire: Time-to-hire is the most important remote hiring metric. Due to the global crisis, recruiting team of every organization is trying their best to hire remote employees as early as possible and support business continuity plans.

Time-to-hire means the number of days from the moment a candidate enters the pipeline to the moment the candidate accepts the job offer.

This metric is important to identify the loopholes in your remote hiring process and targets areas of improvement.

Time-to-hire = Day candidate accepted the offer - Day candidate entered the pipeline

Measuring time-to-hire is a great step to stay on top of your hiring process. This metric provides you inputs into the great and not-so-great parts of our recruitment process.

Cost-per-hire:

What expenses do you incur while a candidate goes through your recruitment funnel? It takes the total costs spent on recruiting for an open role which includes:

External cost: This consists of advertising cost, agency fees, candidate expenses, training cost, etc.

Internal cost: Time spent by recruiter and manager (avg. wages * hours spent), new hire onboarding time, lost productivity, etc.

(Total internal recruiting costs + external recruiting costs) / (total number of hires in a given time frame)

Cost-per-hire recruiting metric helps you measure how much it cost to hire a new remote employee. It can vary depending on the size of the organization, the level of the position, and the capability of a recruitment team.

Being a remote recruiter, you must be facing constant pressure to reduce cost per hire. The right way to control your recruiting cost is to create your detailed budget while keeping your average cost required to hire a new employee in mind.

Hiring Process Metrics:

Candidate response rate: Candidate response rate is the percentage of candidates who respond to a recruiter’s outreach. This remote hiring metric will help you track and analyze your candidate sourcing strategy in a different way. Candidate response rates help you identify which communication channel is more effective, which messages are understood by candidates properly, and when they respond. To improve your candidate response rate, you can take following actions:

  • Personalized approach
  • Follow up continuously
  • Use a multi-channel outreach strategy

Candidate response rate = (number of responses / number of candidates contacted) x 100

Offer acceptance rate: Offer acceptance rate is the percentage of job offers accepted by applicants. With the help of this metric, you can check the overall effectiveness of recruitment strategy. High acceptance rate shows that the remote hiring team has managed to fill the talent pipeline successfully, created and conducted effective and thorough remote hiring process, worked hard on providing good candidate experience, and offered the best offer to the candidates.

On the other hand, low offer acceptance rate shows that the remote hiring team failed to provide good candidate experience or may be the incentives are not competitive or the recruitment strategy is not effective.

Offer Acceptance Rate = (No. of Acceptances / No. of Offers) x 100

Roles and Responsibilities of Remote Hiring Team

The remote hiring team is responsible for designing and implementing remote hiring programs and policies that will help organizations manage the remote recruitment and work culture. They play a role that is strategic as well as operational, with an aim to hire employees that are capable of helping organization achieve its goals.

Remote hiring teams are responsible for everything: candidate sourcing, screening, interviewing, and hiring the right talent using effective remote hiring tools.

The number of people involved in a remote hiring process may be different in every organization. Most remote hiring teams include the following members:

Management

  • Designing remote hiring strategies
  • Monitoring and taking corrective measures if needed
  • Deciding priorities and goals while hiring remote employees
  • Determining the financial budget for remote hiring
  • Communicating goals and KPI’s to hiring managers and recruiters

Hiring Manager

  • Identifying the hiring needs
  • Notifying the recruiter about vacant job position
  • Providing detailed description about the role to the recruiters
  • Designing roles and responsibilities of hiring team
  • Helping and managing recruiter throughout the remote recruitment process
  • Setting expectations for remote interview process
  • Conducting final interviews to check job skills using video interviewing platform

Recruiter

  • Coordinating with hiring manager to know the recruitment needs
  • Resume screening
  • Identifying a proper method for candidate skills assessments
  • Performing background & reference checks
  • Scheduling telephonic and video interview with candidates
  • Coordinating with the hiring managers for interviews
  • Following up with hiring managers as well as candidates
  • Selecting the right remote hiring technology to communicate employer information and benefits during remote hiring process

How to Manage a Remote Interview Process:

Evaluate your current hiring process:

Switching to remote hiring is crucial for each organization these days. Recruiters and hiring managers are trying their best to hire remote employees with the necessary skills for the role. To hire job fit candidates, you should first utilize the moment to review and modify your current recruitment process into remote hiring get the expected outcome.

Earlier, hiring decisions were based on the multiple in-person meetings with potential applicants. Hiring teams were able to identify whether the candidate has required skills, competencies, values, and whether or not they are culture fit to perform once hired. However, when it comes to remote hiring, you need to think about the following questions to design and implement successful remote hiring process:

  • Does the current recruitment process give the information you require?
  • Does it set clear expectations and instructions for remote work?
  • Is it effective to hire remote employees?
  • What is the alternative for in-person meetings?

Choose the right remote hiring tools:

An accurate remote hiring tool gives you an opportunity to shortlist, interview, screen, hire, and onboard the right talent for your organization. Everyone is aware of the fact that to implement a successful remote hiring plan, choosing a right tool is extremally crucial. However, there are plethora of remote hiring tools available in the market and deciding which one is suitable for your recruitment needs is a complicated task.

How to select the right remote hiring tool?

  • Decide your recruitment goals:To decide which recruitment assessment tool to choose, you need to first define the purpose of the tool, what problems it would solve, and what results you expect in your remote hiring process. Identify your recruitment goals first and, then, search for a suitable remote hiring tool that can help you hire right talent for your organization.
  • Decide what type of remote hiring tools are required:Once you know your goals, the next step is to decide what kind of online hiring tools will enable you to conduct the remote recruitment process seamlessly. Some tools are better suited for conducting online interviews, some are essential for skills assessments and onboarding. You need to decide the tools as per your requirement and recruitment strategies.
  • Evaluate remote hiring tool as per your needs:Final step in selecting your perfect remote hiring tool is finding a tool that provides the right combination of all the features you need. If there are various vendors who fit your hiring needs, you need to compare and evaluate each one of them in order to make the right choice.

Set an Ideal Process for Your Remote Hiring Team:

Like regular recruitment program, you will also have to include multiple stakeholders when it comes to remote hiring. The process includes applying various methods, recruitment assessment tools, and metrics. Setting an ideal process and making your remote hiring team understand how it works is the most vital step towards hiring right fit candidates. So, to set an ideal remote hiring process, educate your team about how to conduct remote interviews by giving them the following information:

  • What are the ideal steps in remote hiring?
  • How to manage remote hiring workflow?
  • How should they customize the process according to specific roles?
  • How many candidates they should have in talent pipeline?

Communicate the Interview Details:

The success of your remote hiring strategy depends on how effectively you communicate with the applicants. Effective communication is required to carry out the hiring process with ease. While hiring remotely, it always better to communicate everything twice or thrice to the applicants. You must be a master in conducting remote interviews but it might be candidate’s first experience. So, provide each minute detail to them and improve your remote recruitment game. Let them know the below details:

  • The date and time of the remote interview
  • About your team members who will be conducting their online interview
  • The recruitment tool you are going to use

Moreover, it is vital that they are given sufficient time to understand the tool.

Ask the right questions:

During remote interview, you need to ask questions that will examine candidate’s remote working habits, behavior under pressure, and identify their motivation for working remotely such as:

  • What is your remote work experience?
  • How to you manage remote work hours?
  • What tools have you used to complete and manager remote projects?
  • Why do you want to work remotely?

Don’t forget tell about your company culture:

While working remotely, candidates will not get a chance to visit your office or meet your employees in-person. So, you have let them know everything about your company. Candidates who prefer a good company culture are most likely to join soon. It helps you attract potential employees and reduces your hiring efforts. To introduce our organization culture:

  • Give them introduction of each team
  • Tell them your company vision and mission
  • Let them know your company history and culture
  • What values you hold and what are your expectations from employees

Give candidates an assessment:

It becomes extremely difficult to gauge candidate skills and knowledge while conducting remote interview. You can give your candidates an online skills assessment or simulator with a firm deadline of a day or two. You will be able to evaluate their skills, competencies as well as see how they will work once hired, how quickly they work, and whether you like their work or not.

These reasons, however, pale in comparison to what COVID-19 did for remote working and remote hiring. Within a span of a month, remote working turned from a nice-to-have perk to a must have for business continuity.

But the reason why remote hiring is the future extends beyond these reason, here are a few:

Source

Ease in process and availability

Hindrances such as location, schedule clashes, flexibility, etc. that used to affect the time-to-hire metric significantly isn’t a problem anymore because meeting virtually is convenient for both recruiters and employees.

Earlier, a candidate had to take paid time off from work just to appear for an interview, now the same candidate can set an hour aside from work and appear for an interview. While the problem of time zones may still be a concern, connecting online has never been easier.

Accepting the new normal

In the pre-COVID world, the norm was to meet the candidates in person and assess them on-campus. With several global changes reshaping our understanding of work, the face of hiring is changing as well. Now, with "remote work" being the norm, recruiting strategies have changed as well. Sourcing, assessing, interviewing- all measures that once used to be offline have effectively been translated to online tools.

Location isn’t a limiting factor anymore

Recruiters now have access to a more diverse pool of candidates as location is not a barrier to remote hiring. More often than not, candidates look for jobs within the same city they are residing in to avoid uprooting their lives. With remote work, the location of work and the location of employees/candidates is irrelevant. So, candidates would be more eager to work for you if you offer remote work as a perk.

Save time, save money

According to a recent poll by Global Workplace Analytics, a small to medium-sized enterprise saves approximately $11,000 by allowing their employees to work remotely.

So, the saying "time is money" is more accurate than ever. By hiring remotely and enabling a remote working culture, you’d be saving money, and not just in person hours. Running a working space means leasing an often-expensive workspace, paying water and electricity bills, buying office supplies, and providing in-office meals and snacks.

While introducing scope to work and hire remotely will mean saving on these overhead expenses as well. Furthermore, it is a fact that online meetings stay structured, i.e., people seldom lose focus from the agenda, saving an extensive amount of person hours.

However, the numbers of remote employees across the US and Europe were already increasing. As per the US Census Bureau, in 2017, 5.2 percent of the population in the US worked from home. Furthermore, as per the recent survey by SIEPR, 42 percent of US employees were working from home in 2020. This implies that WFH is essential to support businesses and prepare for the post-pandemic situation while fighting against Covid-19.

The stigma attached to remote hiring before Covid-19 seems to have vanished. As a result of which, recruiting remotely has become the new normal. Almost every organization is developing plans to hire more remote workers, even post-pandemic, as the advantage of having an agile workforce has more benefits.

Legal considerations for remote hiring:

Recruiting a remote workforce has many benefits for an organization; the most important is saving on overhead expenses. But remote hiring also comes with its own set of laws and regulations that employers should consider.

Privacy and security:

While working from home, your employees will have access to confidential data, which includes financial, password, proprietary information, other employee details and compensation, and confidential communications between employees and customers. During day-to-day activities, this information is exchanged and can lead to unwanted vulnerability. Ensure employees' files and equipment are secure, devices are password protected and changed regularly, employees are using safe wireless connections from an authorized vendor, and they are aware of the company policies regarding confidential and proprietary information security.

Payroll:

Companies with remote employees in multiple states and countries need to ensure they are paying their remote employees in accordance with laws in those regions. Decide what needs to be done to comply with each state’s regulations. Assign these tasks to someone from your company to check state and local laws when it comes to minimum wage requirements, permissible payroll deductions, the information that must appear on paystubs, payday frequency requirements, etc.

Training:

When it comes to legally mandated training, related anti-discrimination provisions, and laws prohibiting sexual harassment, employers should not forget remote employees. Provide this information by sending emails or writing it down in an employee handbook. Furthermore, ensure that the provisions are applied to remote employees as well.

Hiring laws:

Just like in-person recruitment, the remote hiring process must comply with all EEOC guidelines and treat remote workers the same when it comes to the terms and conditions of employment. You can’t reject an applicant based on race, gender, sexuality, religion, age, disability, marital status, or any other protected identity category. They should also receive the same opportunities for upskilling, training, mentoring, and career growth as other employees to eliminate discrimination.

Importance or need of remote hiring:

We are witnessing a flexible workplace revolution. As per Inc, most of the remote working respondents are planning to continue remote working for the rest of their careers. The perks are absolutely clear for employees, such as no daily commute, flexible work schedule, freedom from the desk, etc. But it isn’t just employees who attain the benefits, employers are also considering remote hiring as an important part of recruitment, attracting diverse talent, retaining top talent, gaining competitive advantage, and even saving on operational costs.

Let’s take a look at the benefits of remote hiring:

Benefits of remote hiring:

Increases productivity:

Every organization that is working remotely and plans to continue remote working post-pandemic has realized that employees that are working remotely are more productive than employees working in offices.

1. They do not get distracted by co-workers or bombarded with continuous meeting requests. They are able to focus on their work without disturbance resulting in increased productivity.

2. Not every employee remains productive during official office work hours. Remote working allows them to work as per their own schedule and boosts productivity.

3. It helps them balance their personal and professional life. In their own comfort zone, their mental and physical well-being improves, and they work efficiently.

Wide talent pool:

When you hire employees from a defined region, you get a limited number of qualified candidates. Through remote hiring, you get access to a wider and more diverse talent pool from around the globe and from various time zones. With different locations, time zones, and a diverse workforce, your team can cater to different business regions seamlessly.

1. You do not have to insist on overtime even for an important deal. Your remote employee from another region can continue working.

2. Today’s generation prefers flexibility in their workplace. In order to attract millennials and Gen Z’s highly skilled talent, remote hiring is an added advantage.

Reduces business costs:

If you are emphasizing remote hiring, you help your organization cut down on the cost associated with office expenses like rent, workspace maintenance, utilities, electricity consumption, stationary, food, and beverages.

1. Remote hiring helps you deal with inflexible long-term lease and inefficient space utilization.

2. Remote working reduces and stabilizes expenditure.

3. Other day-to-day expenses, such as facility maintenance, food benefits, etc. are also saved.

Increases employee retention:

One of the biggest challenges that every organization faces is employee retention. Many companies cannot compete when it comes to providing benefits, freedom, and flexibility. So, it's important to have an employee retention policy in place.

1. Remote hiring includes plenty of directions and sets clear expectations with employees

2. Remote working as well as hiring maintains clear communication, and it eliminates the need for micromanagement