Apparently, we all are at the stage of working remotely. And I guess, we’ve fastened our seatbelts already to dig ourselves into the proceedings right from the remote hiring process to virtual onboarding them.
When searching for qualified applicants, companies can list jobs with online search engines. These can include sites that specialize by industry or profession. What are the steps division to be taken on a serious note before we give a final check for the remote hiring process?
Considerations
It goes without saying that remote hiring comes with a different paradigm than conventional – with its own ways and challenges. So, while hiring remote employees, whether temporary or permanent, many things need to be kept in mind- right from where to get employees from, to how to accommodate the differences in their timings and working habits. But at the same time, the basics of hiring shouldn’t be ignored- the vision and the according requirements should never be compromised.
Right from the number of candidates required, to the exact roles and responsibilities of each prospective hire, and the corresponding expectations – everything should be specified. How to establish a game plan?
- Select a hiring team/individuals: It should be specified who is in charge of hiring. In the early days of a startup, the founders themselves have to hire candidates. However, as a company grows, different sections of a company hire accordingly, and HR also has to handle hiring in bigger companies.
- Nothing should be compromised with: The vision of the company and the oversight of the product/service built. And the employees should be hired accordingly: the ones who can actually follow the idea, and work accordingly. The exact skill set required for the employees, the general mindset, and ability, everything should be kept in mind while hiring.
- The scale is important: You never want to hire several employees at once, only to have them add to the deadweight later, or work understaffed due to a misconsideration or to save funds- it will only pressurize the existing workforce.
Planning
One of the major plannings includes building out a structured hiring process. It’s just another way to reduce the risk of biases and offers candidates a better experience. Have you planned already how to stay aligned with the team? It’s essential that you and your team remain on the same page throughout the hiring process. Especially where remote recruitment is concerned and your hiring team is distributed. You plan to keep your candidates engaged even if it’s from afar. You plan to ensure your data privacy which is a major concern for all of us in the digital age. And of course, planning to conduct virtual job interviews in response to COVID-19 and further.
Sourcing
Sourcing, as the name suggests, is the process of looking up potential hires for an open/future position. It does not involve screening of any kind, but rather involves outreach, across various platforms. As people are looking for jobs virtually everywhere, a company should tap into every feasible source that can get them better fit, more qualified hires. Obviously, the sourcing channels for remote hiring vary in behavior from those for conventional hiring.
How it works:
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Network:
LinkedIn does help. It is the single largest network of professionals across the world. It definitely helps that people can specify every little professional detail, making outreach more feasible. However, it is not very efficient for remote hiring simply because it is not possible to determine if a candidate is looking for a remote job unless they have specified so.
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Referrals:
Referrals are as effective in an established remote workforce as they are in any job. There are few better judges of potential best fits than the current best fits. However, if you are setting up a new remote workforce, you obviously don’t have enough employees to have a referral program.
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Job search engines:
They are a very primitive method of bringing candidates to jobs: they take the query and display the results for job openings across various sites. A very low percentage of actual hires come through this platform, and it is only expectable. They are too vague for something that needs to be as specific as possible.
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Remote platforms/marketplaces:
They are similar to job boards and search engines, but less vague. They are specific to remote and generally low-priced. The low price leads to more popularity among small and medium-sized employers, which leads to a bigger pool of jobs and candidates. However, the listings are not authenticated, and furthermore, not screened and vetted.
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Remote hiring agencies:
Agencies, like marketplaces, bring employers and candidates under one roof. They are higher priced than remote marketplaces, but they assess and curate their talent pools, so they can provide a set of shortlisted candidates to employers, as per their requirements. CrewScale is a remote hiring agency.
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Communities:
Being connected with people in similar fields as yours is one of the best things you can do to stay on the lookout for talent. Not only it gives you more relevant options, but it also gives you a chance to be better acquainted with people around, and the hiring process becomes smoother.
Screening
One of the first and basic steps in any kind of hiring. Screening is a process where the recruiters qualify the candidates for further stages of interviews with the help of educational background, work experience, skillset and gauge their interest in this job position.
A primary challenge associated with screening remote talent is that there are way more candidates for companies to screen through. As the bounds of time zone and/or geographical location are broken, people from all around the world apply. This calls for more refined and specific methods to screen talent.
How to vet remote talent
Vetting remote talent adds a newer dimension to the vetting process. Apart from the basics – work ethics, time efficiency, and general authenticity and capability of the candidate, it is also important to see how effective the candidate has been in a remote work environment. Taking into account their remote-readiness is important, mainly the remote working tools they are proficient in, as well as their network connectivity.
Resume screening
Perusing resumes is a tedious but essential part of the screening process. It is a glimpse into all the relevant qualifications of a candidate. These qualifications are- education, work experience, technical/professional skills, as well as soft skills.
In a remote workforce, there is an amplified number of candidates, from various countries and locations. Many companies have the candidates fill up a portal with all the relevant details rather than asking for a resume because it helps standardize the applications.
Technical screening
When hiring tech professionals, it is also important to assess skills. After resume shortlisting, companies assess candidates based on their technical prowess – through skill tests, take-home assignments, and whiteboard tests.
In the screening stage, these assessments are more fundamental than in-depth, and their purpose is to pick out significantly better candidates or to weed out worse ones. These assessments are also useful in validating or invalidating claims made by candidates on their resumes.
Interview process
According to a survey, nearly 60 percent of the candidates rejected the job offer because the hiring process had more than two interviews. This stat is a reflection of how candidates view the lengthy hiring process and also the insane competition in the market that same candidates chose to work with another firm which offered the role.
Technical Interviews are a must for hiring any developer. Instead of conducting less-effective whiteboard interviews, a live-paired interview works wonders to determine the best job fit. The primary objective of conducting a paired interview is to study the problem-solving approach when in a team. How two candidates can complement each other in arriving at a solution in real-time.
How to conduct a normal interview?
Make use of ATS
The selection process can be one of the toughest parts of the hiring process. When a flood of applications is received, the recruitment team makes sure that top candidates get selected. Many employers rely heavily on an ATS, to administrate their hiring process. The information in the database is used to screen candidates, test applicants, schedule interviews, manage the hiring process, check references, and complete new-hire paperwork.
And the best part is hiring managers can schedule interviews and mail rejection letters through the ATS. So it becomes easier to use the same information to put individuals on the payroll once they are hired.
Define what you’re looking for in a candidate
Before you figure out what specific tasks a new employee should take on, the need for the hiring should be defined. Specify in detail what you’re looking for in a candidate. The most effective way is to look at your current employee: Experienced, innovative, and a good culture fit. Is that sufficient?
You can also encourage employee referrals. Whether they’re friends or co-workers, your employee would have insight into their work ethic and personality. By defining your company’s idea of the right candidate, you might be able to find one through the applications.
Highlight the little details
One of the major roles of the hiring team appreciated by employees is the highlight of the little details which encourages them to be a part of your organization. What are these? How do you present your company in an authentic way to potential applicants?
- Remote work as a job perk:
Employees want better benefits more than they want a pay raise. How do you attract and retain the employees? Give a detailed version of the perks of remote work as a job. Bring out the highlights of how a remote team will let you save big on rent, furniture, equipment or office supplies.
- Company Culture
By culture, it doesn’t mean swanky offices, unlimited holidays, surprise parties, unlimited laundry. Culture is the ability to work together as a team. To make decisions even in the absence of key personnel. To work productively when no one is watching. Feeling fulfilled when things are going south or north. And ultimately, serving for the mission. Give insights of your company’s culture in detail to your employees.
- Compensation and benefits (they’ll receive as an employee)
Who doesn’t like to be warmly welcomed as a new employee with an attractive package of perks and benefits? Health and wellness are the most desirable benefits for employees. Paying for technology and major equipment for the employees- a new laptop, monitor, and even a high-speed internet connection. Flexibility about leaves and absence from work, and paid vacation days off. If your company promotes such benefits, enlist them in the beginning itself.
Assessment tests
Tech assessments are basically a test of a candidate’s technical skills required for the position applied. This assessment includes a set of questions that are very specific to the position applied.
A candidate appearing for the position of frontend developer will be tested on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. The questions will mostly be multiple choice and some short answer stuff.
Project-based assessments
It helps you to fill that void between the way we assess candidates right now and the actual job requirements. The hiring decisions here are not influenced by the gut feeling or any biased preference, rather the output achieved on a task that closely resembles the actual project on the job.
For example, a candidate can be made to work alongside the existing team and put on a task to develop a small feature or work on a feature update for your existing product. The projects like these not only bring out the application of skill and knowledge of the candidate to the fore but also his/her ability to work in a team environment.
2-Round interview
- Face to face Interview
Once you are done with the assessment test, jump on the technical rounds. This might involve coding and testing a candidate’s domain knowledge by quizzing his theoretical knowledge. But this face to face interview round allows the recruiter to gauge a candidate on many parameters. It can be body language, interpersonal skills, and spontaneity.
- Final Interview
The final round is more like conducting an interview on a personal basis also known as the HR round. Evaluation is done on set parameters where strengths and weaknesses, goals are discussed. The confidence of the candidate talks about the need for the job more than the candidate himself.
Hiring and onboarding are two different concepts that people are confused with, already. Hiring employees is more likely to ensure a smooth transition whereas onboarding focuses more on running the job as quickly and effectively as possible. No doubt, each person on the hiring team offers valuable input by focusing on specific areas. Surely, it is important for the teams to understand the importance of these terms when exercising “remote working”. It’s time to contemplate the best ways to identify and engage well-qualified applicants.
