Tips on hiring a remote worker

Understanding how to get the right remote worker to fit your organization and business needs is essential in having a successful remote work setup. This will affect your productivity, business continuity and of course, profit.

Here are some helpful tips to guide you in hiring the right remote staff.

Know the right skill sets for the position.

Understand first what skills and knowledge are needed for the position that you are hiring for. If this something that you are not familiar with, you can do research and ask for advice from the experts for that post. List down all the major and sub-skills you would prefer for the candidates to have. You can even add the preferred age, gender, location and educational background to the list. This will also be helpful when you’re already filtering applications.

Use the right platform to post job ad.

There are already several platforms available online on where you can post and advertise your job opening. Find the right one that would suit you and your budget. Read reviews and descriptions for each platform to find out which are trustworthy.

Ask the right questions.

Now that you already know what you need and you’ve already scheduled interviews with the applicants, the next step is to make sure that you have the right questions. Aside from the usual interview questions about their work and education background, availability, expected salary, list down additional questions that would help you get to know the applicant more. Search for additional behavioral questions that would help you know their behavior at work, how they prepared themselves for remote work, their attitude and past experiences in doing remote work and how well they can work on their own. These questions will help you in knowing how efficient, productive and trustworthy the candidate is, even with less supervision.

Know their purpose for working remotely.

Applicants may have the right skills and attitude but it is also a good idea to know why they would want to work remotely. Know their purpose and goals will give you a better insight on the candidate.

Observe their communication practices and soft skills.

A candidate may be perfect in writing, they may satisfactorily answer all your questions, but do they have the right attitude and practices to match you and your business? How fast did they reply to your email or messages? How well were they able to express themselves during the interview? Are they good in navigating technology? These questions will help you be mindful in observing other skills and behavior that were not addressed during the interview or were not part of their resume.

Give the candidate a test project.

You think you have the right one, but you’re still not sure if they are fit for the job? Give them a paid test project or put them on probation. This will protect both of you if the candidate will not produce good results in the future. This will provide you an avenue to end their contract professionally if in case it didn’t work out.

Confidently knowing that the candidate can work efficiently in a remote setup is equally important as their skill sets and knowledge. Even is that person is “perfect” for the role, but if they cannot thrive in a work environment, then it will just be a waste of time and effort for the candidate and to your business. Take your time in assessing each applicants and if needed, involve the rest of the team in the hiring process.

With DyCom SmartStaff, you don’t have to worry on giving too much time and effort filtering the right applicants. We follow strict guidelines and process in making sure that we have the right people for our clients’ business needs. Contact us to find out more