How to Recruit and Hire the Best Remote Workers Use these hiring tips to build an effective remote team.
By Mike Swigunski Edited by Dan Bova
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Recruiting and hiring top-quality workers is one of the most difficult aspects for any type of business, but when you decide to hire remotely a new layer of complexity gets added. Hiring remote workers requires a slightly different approach and process. Due to the massive shifts in the global workforce, the field of online remote work has been grown inexorably. Consequently, there has never been a better time to scale and grow a remote team.
Maybe you are struggling to find quality candidates for your role or perhaps you are overwhelmed with candidates, but don't have an efficient hiring system in place? The good news is that there is a massive influx of remote workers during these times. A large portion of job seekers are shifting to remote work so they can meet the growing economic requirements while prioritizing their health and safety. If you want some help hiring a great remote team, keep the following tips in mind.
1. Provide benefits that workers actually want
Having good benefits is one of the ways that you can ensure that you get plenty of interest in your job listing and also increase employee longevity. This can include higher-than-average pay, company trips, flexible hours, unlimited vacation, and so on. Depending on the nature of your company, the exact variety of benefits may differ.
Related: 4 Essential Traits for Great Remote Workers
For example, companies that don't require physical meetings and can thrive solely with online video calls and chats may not need to offer company meetups. However, if you hire a remote worker that you eventually want to send off abroad as an ambassador for your brand, then paying for the flights and accommodations will be necessary. In any case, highlight the benefits for every job posting and on your career page. If you aren't sure what benefits to add or remove, then consider surveying your current employees. You may be surprised by the benefits that remote employees actually prefer.
2. Require a short video in the application
As the owner of a business, you want to get to know each of your applicants in a genuine and personal manner. Since physical interviews are not feasible when hiring remote workers, you can instead have them record a short 2-3 minute video. This often works out well for you as the employer since it provides a small barrier for applicants and saves you time otherwise spent organizing the logistics of an interview.
Related: The Complete Toolkit for Leading Remote Workers
For best results, give your applicants clear guidelines to follow while recording their video and use this as a small test to see if they are able to follow instructions correctly. Having a video in the application will save you a lot of time and allow you to focus on the best potential applicants.
3. Market your roles internally and externally
If you want to find the best possible remote employees, you must market your job listings around both internally and externally. Ask your current employees if they have any trustworthy friends, family, or acquaintances that they can refer over to you. If so, be sure to offer some incentives to them as a token of your gratitude if you hire one of their referrals.
Also, be sure to market your job listing on multiple job boards. This way, you can receive a high level of applications to sift through. With more options, you will be able to quickly shortlist those who are not good applicants from the handful that you are considering seriously. If you get flooded with too many applicants, you can consider utilizing an applicant tracking system to help stay organized.
4. Share the company vision
Part of how you can make your business successful is by only working with those who you know believe in you and your company. If you hire employees who do not align with the company vision, then there is a good chance they will not stay long-term with the company. After all, if all they care about is the paycheck, they will not be a great person for you to pursue.
Related: How to Work from Home Successfully
As the owner of a business, you deserve to have the respect and loyalty of your remote employees. This is why you should hire remote workers that share in your company vision. For best results, have a way to quickly gauge who they are as a person in their short video, cover letter, or something similar. The idea is that you can determine a fit without investing too much time.
5. Utilize an Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
If you are trying to hire remote workers and have a solid pool of qualified professionals that you need to sift through without wasting too much time, then utilizing an applicant tracking system (ATS) will be extremely beneficial. For starters, this type of software can help you automatically shortlist applicants that will simply not be a good fit for your company based solely on keywords found on their resume. Some of the core features of an ATS are interview scheduling, career page hosting, resume storage, and much more.
In addition, an ATS will help you as the employer stay organized during the hiring process. Before the digital era, employers were forced to sift through a large stack of papers while looking through their applicants. With software, you can easily organize all of your applicants' information and make things much easier while you decide who is the right fit for your company.
Ready to build your team of remote employees?
If you have been hiring remote workers but are unable to get the ones you have been looking for, then use the tips above as a guide to getting high-quality workers. At the end of the day, though, you are the one who knows what is best for your business and should be the one who makes informed decisions keeping your needs in mind.
