Over the years, remote work has seen a steady rise around the world. It has become even more necessary as the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. With that said, here's your guide to choosing the right remote team that will suit your work setup.
Remote Work On-Demand
Before anything else, let's look at some stats. The pandemic appears to have brought remote working to the spotlight. But this setup has been seeing an upward trend over the years. In 2017, remote workers around the world reached 3.7 million. And based on Upwork's Future Workforce Report, this trend shows no signs of stopping: by 2028, 73% of all teams will have remote workers. Buffer's survey also shows that remote work is becoming the new normal. 99% of the respondents said they would pick working remotely, even part-time, for the rest of their careers. These figures show that remote work is here to stay. You'll have little to no regrets in choosing a working setup that won't die out anytime soon—it will also benefit you, your business, and your future team.
Challenges in Hiring a Remote Team
Every business owner knows it's critical to hire the right people. Your team will be crucial in helping you grow from a small startup to a multi-channel business. However, screening candidates for a remote team comes with challenges. You need to find people who are independent and self-motivated and take the initiative. They must have these soft skills to work effectively, even when you're not physically present to manage your team. Plus, depending on your target countries, you'll need to find these individuals out of hundreds or even thousands of resumes. It can make your screening process more difficult and time-consuming. Don't worry, though. We'll share a simple screening process as well as an alternative solution for your hiring needs. I Want the Alternative Solution
Screening Remote Workers for Your Team
The goal of screening applicants is to find the best candidates suited to work in a remote environment. Aside from embodying the right experiences, skills, and qualities, they must also be comfortable in your work setup.
To help you get started, here are five steps you can follow to filter the right people for a remote job role.
1. Know What You Need
Diving right into talent pools without a comprehensive job description is asking for tons of work. Before posting anything online about the job role, make sure you know everything you need to find in a job applicant. Here's a checklist of some essential information that need to be in a job description for a remote role:
- Your definition of "remote work"
Fully remote is when employees do all work outside the company premises, and semi-remote is when they can work from different offices. On the other hand, a flexible work-from-home schedule is when they'll be required to report onsite if necessary.
- If a potential employee should have prior experience at working remotely
If you're building a remote team from scratch, it's best to hire individuals who have remote work experience. They would face fewer challenges when adapting to your setup.
- The time zone you follow
For offshore applicants, it's helpful to show them from the get-go if they would need to adjust their schedule according to your timezone.
Aside from these items, you also need to cover the general information in job descriptions. It includes:
- Duties and responsibilities
- Ideal traits and skills of a candidate
- Previous working experiences relevant and helpful for the role
- Company perks and benefits
Check out this example of company benefits found in all our job listings:
With these items, when a job seeker sees your job description, they can do a self-evaluation first before sending their application. Pro Tip: Ask for a cover letter! It would show you how a candidate communicates in written form, which you'll soon see is a crucial skill in a remote work setup.
2. Conduct Initial Interviews
After going through the applications you received, conducting initial interviews is the next step. It's where you assess your job applicants if they are culturally fit in your company. Plus, here's your chance to ask them about the information they stated in their resume. On top of the typical interview questions like "Tell me about yourself" and "What are your strengths and weaknesses," you can also ask them about their capabilities to work in a remote environment:
- Do they have the equipment necessary for them to work remotely?
The bare necessities are a laptop or a desktop computer and a stable internet connection.
- What are their laptop or desktop computer specifications and internet connection speed?
It's another way to help you prepare in case you hire them and you would need to fund their equipment upgrade.
- Do they have experience with the tools you use for video conferencing, chatting, file management, and project management?
In case you hire them, their answer will help you determine how much training they would need for your tools.
An initial interview for a remote role is usually done via email or audio call. With email, you can see if your applicants can write coherently and respond in a timely way. On the other hand, an audio call would allow you to assess their verbal ability and listen if they can coherently speak out their ideas. Either way, an initial interview is usually short. But with the right questions, you can further filter your job candidates and take them to the third step.
3. Assess Your Applicants' Skills
Job seekers tend to falsify or exaggerate the contents of their resume. To avoid falling victim to exaggerations or false claims, you can assess your job candidates' skills with online tests and test projects. You can instruct your potential employees to take online tests that will assess soft skills like self-motivation, self-confidence, and communication—some of the competencies necessary in a remote work setup, according to a study from Cornell University. MindTools has a free index of self-tests that you can use. Another way to assess soft skills is by reviewing a job candidate's cover letter. You can see how a job candidate writes, which can be a reliable indicator of their communication skills. Plus, a cover letter can also show you how well they know your business and the role they want to fill. For hard skills, you can give your applicants a test project. Since it's close to the real-world scenario of a remote setup, it can indicate how they would perform as part of your remote team. When you do this, make sure they have a deadline relevant to the job role's day-to-day tasks. And since you're looking for an independent employee, you'd want to give them space unless they ask you questions. Remember, for both hard and soft skills tests, you'll need to have a benchmark to determine easily which among the candidates have met your standards.
4. Have Video Interviews
When you're hiring remotely, the closest thing you can have to a personal interaction is a video interview. It helps you build a fuller picture of a candidate. Even with your screens getting in the way, a video interview allows you to check their body language. Whenever an applicant answers your question, you can see from their facial expressions if they're honest and genuine. Plus, you can see how they work under pressure, considering the stress that applicants usually experience in this part of the screening process. Moreover, it's your opportunity to ask them questions more relevant to the position. Compared to the initial interview, a video interview lets you dive into the job role's nitty-gritty. Aside from that, here's another chance to ask more questions relevant to the remote work setup:
- What are the qualities that make them valuable as a remote worker?
- Do they have any concerns about working remotely?
- How do they stay productive outside of an office?
- How do they avoid miscommunication?
- How do they address miscommunication when it happens?
You can check out Skillcrush's article for more questions that you can use.
5. Do Background Checks
At first, doing a background check sounds like cyber-stalking. However, we live in the digital era, where most people regularly update their feeds and timelines. With that said, you can't just ignore your potential employee's social presence. Their activities in their social media accounts are a hint of their behavior outside work. Their LinkedIn account has more valuable information about work—it usually contains past work experiences. But aside from that, you can also see their references, to whom you can reach out should you need to confirm details on their resume. On top of that, you can also read recommendations about them. This section on LinkedIn allows you to see what their colleagues think of them, which can give you further insights into your candidate. On the other hand, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram can become your sources of more candid activities. In these sites, individuals usually hold no filter and post whatever they want. These can pave the way for you to assess their behavior and personality and determine how they would fit your work culture. After this step, you're a job offer away from hiring your first remote employees.
Build an Offshore Team through KDCI
Now, here's the alternative solution. Your business is only starting. It's hard to keep track of everything, from human resources to operations. Having an outsourcing partner can help you take your hands off building the right team—we'll help you focus on growing your business. From building a customized offshore strategy to managing an operations team for you, KDCI Outsourcing follows a streamlined process to ensure that you'll get the best remote workers. You can outsource job roles for the following departments:
Even better, we have access to a large talent pool of qualified professionals in the Philippines, so we can guarantee that you'll only get the best team suited to your remote work setup. Partner with Us Published: January 31, 2019Updated: June 18, 2020
