Remote work is becoming very popular, which is why many companies are wondering how to hire top talent remotely.
Some companies allow employees to work from home or another remote location several days a week, and some have made specific roles designed for remote workers. All this provides these companies access to a larger pool of talent.
However, hiring talent for remote work comes with challenges of its own. There are 4.7 million people around the world working remotely, but not all of them are ready for this kind of work. Simply put, you need to approach hiring remote employees differently.
Apart from considering their skills and experience, you also need to take into account their ability to work remotely. Before you go through with this, you need to know a few things about how to hire top talent remotely.
1. Sourcing is Very Important
Sourcing plays a vital role in the process as it impacts how your future employees will perform. Look for platforms that have a particular approach for finding remote employees. They should check their basic preparedness for remote work.
This will get a lot of poor candidates out of the way and speed up the process. Look for a sourcing company that has some certification for remote employees. With these companies, you can also filter out employees to shortlist potential employees.
You need to find a reliable recruitment agency that will deliver. This is easier said than done. Make sure to check their reviews and overall reputation. Ask them all the questions that are bothering and expect thorough answers. If they don’t communicate properly, look for some other partner.
The Large Talent Pool Matters
In the end, remember to ask how many potential employees they have in their database. If one wants to filter out the best candidates, there needs to be a vast number of them. Furthermore, this shows that the recruitment agency works hard on sourcing profiles from everywhere.
2. Define What You’re Looking For
Defining the position you need to fill is always essential. This is even more important when you are hiring a remote employee. After all, you won’t see that person and have the opportunity to talk live.
This is why you should include added requirements to the job description. Naturally, these requirements should be related to the role in question.
The role includes things like:
- A quality PC with a stable internet connection
- The ability to manage their own time and practice self-discipline
- The ability to work six hours or more per day
- Having good remote collaboration and communication skills
- The ability to multitask and manage several projects
Setting detailed requirements and presenting an ideal candidate will prevent a lot of unfit candidates from applying. This is a good thing because you won’t have to rummage through a ton of messages. When people realize they don’t meet the requirements, they will look for another position. It’s all about quality, not quantity.
3. Establish Your Shortlisting Criteria
To make your hiring process more efficient, you need to be good at shortlisting. One of the biggest challenges of this type of hiring is shortlisting the best candidates. But with a good shortlisting method, this process can be a lot smoother.
Take the time to define the criteria based on which you will score and shortlist candidates. And, once you’ve done this, use the same criteria for all applicants. You can split these requirements into two categories:
Must-Have Criteria
This should include things a potential employee needs to have. They should be essential for the role and carry more points. Consider instantly removing applicants that are missing a single must-have.
Nice-To-Have Criteria
As the name implies, these criteria should involve skills and abilities that aren’t essential. For example, it’s good for an employee to speak several languages, but it’s not necessary.
4. Set up a Thorough Recruitment Process
To ensure that you’re hiring the right people, you need to get to know them. At the same time, you can’t interview in person.
This means that you should be a bit more thorough with your recruitment process. Through that, you can learn more about their personalities and key character traits.
Here are some mechanisms you should consider implementing:
- Provide several online tests to see if they are ready for remote work
- Conduct several interviews online via video chat
- Include a paid trial period to see if they fit
- Convey your company culture and what they can expect from working with you
- The recruitment process should be structured with clear requirements
5. See If They Have the Necessary Equipment
Everyone has a computer today. But to work remotely, people need a reliable internet connection as well as proper software and hardware solutions. If you want your remote workers to be efficient, they must have a workstation they can rely on every day.
No matter what kind of work we are talking about, a stable connection is essential. Without it, you cannot collaborate, communicate, or share information. There are several ways you can do this. First of all, you can use a diagnostics tool that can automatically test someone’s device and give you the necessary information.
If not, there are many remote access software options you can use for this. These tools give you access to another computer anywhere in the world. You can do a manual check of the internet speed and what software they have.
The Bottom Line
That was five steps on how to hire top talent remotely.
Remember, that with remote employees, communication is essential. When they are just candidates, you need to communicate effectively with them, ask the right questions, and see if you have the right chemistry. Furthermore, when you’ve selected a candidate, establish a good onboarding process to get them engaged instantly.
At Codertalent, we’re with you every step of the way to ensure the entire process from candidate selection to placement runs smoothly. Head over to our Software Outsourcing page to learn more.
