Three years on, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are as tangible as ever. For one, companies and employers everywhere have either completely changed their work modalities, or are undergoing thorough policy adjustments.
It is clear that remote work is here to stay, no matter how close we get to the pre-pandemic state of things. Many people increasingly choose to apply for companies that offer fully remote or flexible work arrangements.
Therefore, it is important for employers and HR professionals to improve their hiring practices to ensure they are able to hire and onboard remote employees safely and effectively. Here are a few tips to help you navigate this process.
#1 Make the best use of video interviews
When conducting video interviews, it is important to set clear expectations regarding the technology and format for both the interviewer(s) and the job candidate. These expectations include specifying in the interview invitation email the video conferencing platform that you will use for the interview, as well as the format and length.
A video interview should emulate the purpose and structure of a face-to-face interview. However, online interviews can be more challenging for some candidates, as they may be more self-conscious or nervous when going through a remote hiring process.
To help candidates feel more comfortable, start the interview with some small talk to help build a rapport and defuse any potential tension or awkwardness. Then, explain the structure of the remote interview clearly, preferably with a step-by-step description of all segments that will follow.
Once you’ve gone through all parts of the interview, it is essential to give the candidate the opportunity to ask questions and provide any additional information at the end. While some companies choose to receive feedback via an online form that they subsequently email to all candidates, a chance to express their thoughts in person is just as relevant when conducting a remote interview as it is during a live one. Above all, this extra step can help establish trust and ensure that the candidate has an enjoyable recruitment experience.
#2 Ask the candidate everything you want to know
Asking the right questions during a remote interview, during which time and format constraints can have an impact on the flow of the conversation, is crucial to fully understand the candidate’s qualifications for the role. That is why you should structure the questions in a way that allows you to remain conscious of time and cover all necessary topics.
In order to ask as many quality questions as possible, stick to a good question structure. Consider some of the following types of questions to ask, one after the other:
- Open-ended questions. Open-ended questions allow the candidate to provide detailed and informative answers in a sort of freestyle. Examples include “Can you tell me about a task you worked on that you’re particularly proud of?” or “How do you approach problem-solving in general?” Open-ended questions are a great way to help ease the candidate into the rest of the interview which will contain more specific questions.
- Skills and qualifications. Next, ask about specific skills, experiences, and qualifications that the candidate should possess in order to demonstrate they are qualified for the role. For example, if the job requires experience with a particular software or programming language, ask the candidate to give their own specific examples of using it in the past.
- Situational and behavioral questions. These types of questions will give you a sense of how the candidate has handled certain situations in the past, which may often arise if they are offered the role they are being interviewed for. For example, “Can you talk about a time when you had to work under a tight deadline, or juggle multiple projects at the same time?” or “How did you handle a difficult customer or coworker in the past?”
- Remote work experience. Given that the advertised role is remote, it is vital to understand the candidate’s experience working in this format. Ask about how they stay productive and motivated, how they normally manage their work day, what kind of remote time tracking system they’ve used, and how they handle communication and collaboration in a remote environment.
Asking questions that fall under the above categories will help you steer the conversation in a way that is pertinent to the remote role in question.
#3 Conduct a reference check
Background or reference checks are used to gather information on prospective employees from sources other than the candidates themselves, and they are absolutely crucial for remote hiring. A standard background check determines if an applicant is ineligible for a job due to factors such as a prior criminal conviction, traffic violations, poor credit history, or a misrepresentation of their education or career history.
Conducting background checks on everyone in your company is generally considered good practice, and needs to be done prior to onboarding remote employees. The checks typically involve contacting the applicant’s previous employers, supervisors, and educators, as well as collecting the information needed to learn about any potential fraudulent activity they may have participated in. This process verifies prior employment they’ve listed in their resume and teaches you more about their knowledge, skills, abilities, and character from people other than themselves.
Many job candidates will exaggerate their accomplishments and talents in their cover letters and job interviews — this is normal. However, a small percentage of new hires may be downright dishonest about some aspects of their job history, or even lie about past legal transgressions. Something like that may be damaging to the quality of the company’s work or reputation in the future.
You should tailor the procedure to each individual function based on the degree of responsibility required. For example, for positions requiring financial management, you should specifically seek credit checks; for jobs requiring driving, you should clearly request driving record checks, and so on.
#4 Arrange appropriate skill tests
During a remote recruitment exercise, additional testing is frequently necessary to confirm a candidate’s abilities and level of expertise in a certain area. To that end, there are specialized skills tests that you can use to determine both soft and technical skills, depending on the position in question.
The use of skill assessments throughout the remote hiring process has several advantages. The most apparent benefit is that these tests enable recruiting staff to determine which candidates are the greatest fit for your company, reducing the risk of employee turnover. The results of skill assessments can also help you develop an appropriate employee compensation plan for each role.
A skills test often provides a number of questions in various forms to determine how applicants are able to perform job-related duties. A good skills test is structured so that it can be answered by someone who is already doing the job and measures important performance metrics properly.
Therefore, questions should be targeted precisely to the tasks of the available post. Many skills assessments involve immersive activities, such as coding challenges or work simulations, to simulate how a candidate might do in a real-world context.
Other job-readiness tests use proven psychometric methods to detect in-demand soft qualities such as motivation, conscientiousness, resilience, and emotional intelligence. A personality test differs from a skills exam in that it predicts how a person would act in a given situation rather than their ability to execute a task.
#5 Develop a digital onboarding system
Managing remote workers can be difficult due to not having much control over the employees’ environment and working conditions. In addition, the lack of face-to-face connection makes it far more difficult to establish a solid bond with and between new employees. A good digital onboarding system is therefore a crucial element of your remote hiring process.
For example, in order to avoid overloading new recruits with way too many teleworking platforms, companies should stick to a small set of successful tools to engage and train their remote staff. Use a tried-and-true remote training tool to onboard new employees, and make sure that you can keep using that same technology for subsequent training or development needs.
Create and distribute an all-around employee handbook as part of your digital onboarding process. This handbook does not have to be too long and can come in the form of a PDF file used to educate new hires about the company’s purpose, culture, and any accompanying benefits (consider key person insurance when hiring important employees, for instance).
Other onboarding resources can include a centralized HR platform used to outline roles and responsibilities once someone starts a new role. You can then match these against quarterly or yearly deliverables. A system like this helps keep remote employees up to speed with what you expect of them, and provides a clear direction regarding what they can expect from the company’s management.
Remote work has become a necessary and permanent aspect of business operations, and it is only sensible for employers to adapt their hiring practices to accommodate this fact. By following the above tips for safe and effective remote hiring, your company can navigate this new reality and continue to thrive in a post-pandemic world.
