Many companies have converted from working in an office to working from home.
While it’s not been easy, plenty of businesses have taken advantage of the benefits of working from home, such as increased productivity, significant cost savings, positive impact on employee health and wellbeing etc, and continued to do so. Not all businesses are thinking of going back to the office, so from an HR perspective, some new skills need to be learned.
In this series of blogs, we will start with the remote hiring of a new employee through to remote onboarding, remote induction, remote probation, and remote objective setting.
The practice of remote hiring is still a relatively new concept for most businesses.
When you’re hiring for remote roles, connecting with quality candidates will remain a priority no matter the distance. There are new tools available that can help you and your business connect with candidates.
The primary communication channels are, of course, phone and video interviews, but it’s also helpful to use assessment tools to evaluate the candidate’s skills and make objective hiring decisions.
You will need to keep in mind a few guiding principles when recruiting remotely as follows:
Video interviewing is a core skill
With face-to-face interviews being absent, video interviewing is your number one opportunity to get to know your candidates. You may want to practice video calling regularly until you are very comfortable with it. It’s also best practice to make sure you have a back-up plan in case you lose connection during the interview. Also, it is important that both your business and the candidate, have secure network options in place – this will help ensure cyber security on both parts.
Elongating the hiring process
Getting to know someone takes time, and candidates are no different. Factoring in the distance and virtual communication of remote recruiting, you may want to consider elongating the process. Whether this is adding an extra step or booking a more extended interview time slot, it will help you to get to know your potential employees better.
Get the whole team involved
You may be the one responsible for recruiting, but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get opinions from colleagues about the candidate. I’d definitely recommend you do this.
You need a much deeper insight into the candidate’s skills, personality and experience. Getting the views of colleagues early on in the process, will help give you a detailed and diverse assessment of these qualities and more accurate results.
Customise the interview questions
In addition to the standard questions you ask based on the job description and person spec, you may want to add a few questions that are based around working remotely. You’ll want to be looking out for how the candidate responds to time management, discipline, communication, consistency and proactivity.
Here are a few questions you could ask:
- What did you do when a manager was absent, and you had to make the decision yourself?
- How do you prioritise projects?
- How do you communicate with other employees?
Introduce psychometric testing
This will give you an additional insight into the candidates preferred working behaviour and how that might change when under pressure. I’m a fan of Thomas International for this.
By keeping all the above in mind, you will be prepared to start recruiting remotely and find the best candidate.
If you need any help with remote recruiting, please do get in touch.