In today’s global economy, more and more employers are turning to remote or distributed workforces as part of their hiring strategy. This requires a certain level of trust in remote employees to be organized and productive self-starters. To screen for these soft skills, recruiters should tailor their questions accordingly.

There are many advantages to using a remote workforce—such as the ability to draw from a larger talent pool and cut back on overhead, to name a few. Optimize the value of your remote team by hiring employees that not only have the right skill sets, but can also work autonomously and stay productive with minimum supervision. 

To determine if candidates for remote positions will be an asset to your organization, it’s important to ask the right questions during the interview process. To that end, here are 12 questions every recruiter should ask when hiring for a distributed workforce:

1. What are the biggest challenges you often face at work?

This question helps you understand how the candidate works and what may potentially trip them up. A thoughtful answer also indicates that they have the mindfulness and self-awareness to continuously make improvements so they can become a more productive member of the team.

2. What does your typical workday look like in your current role?

Gain insights into how well a candidate organizes their day and prioritizes assignments. Employees who apply a clear structure to their days tend to be more productive and able to devote their energy to high-value tasks that matter most. 

3. How do you start your day?

Employees with a morning routine, which puts them in a positive mindset, are typically more focused and creative. They’re also less stressed and more likely to have healthy habits that will help them stay productive.

For example, something as simple as meditating for ten to fifteen minutes every morning can have a profound impact on an individual’s alertness and sense of well-being for the entire day.

4. What do you do when you’re not working?

This question will give you an idea as to a candidate’s ability to maintain a work-life balance. People who pursue a variety of interests and have a balanced social life tend to be more effective in managing their time. They understand the approach of working smart (not just hard) and are able to focus on important tasks that will yield the greatest results.

5. How do you switch off from work?

It’s often hard to leave work behind when the computer is just right across the room. However, the ability to limit work hours allows an employee to stay mentally and physically healthy, which is the key to maintaining productivity in the long-run.

6. How do you prioritize your tasks?

Productive team members focus their time and resources on tasks that will move the needle the most and have the ability to prioritize their assignments autonomously. This question helps you identify candidates who can manage their workload effectively to get the most done while maintaining a certain level of quality.

7. What does your work environment look like?

Experienced remote workers have a consistent work environment that allows them to screen out distractions and stay productive. They should also be equipped with a computer, a reliable internet connection, and other tools necessary for the job. If the role requires the employee to communicate with clients or customers frequently via phone or video, the candidate should have a dedicated workspace to ensure that they won’t be interrupted.   

8. What are your biggest challenges when working remotely and how do you overcome them?

Remote working comes with its own set of challenges (e.g., finding a quiet space, battling the occasional feeling of isolation) so look for employees who have developed strategies to prevent these issues from impacting the quality of their work.

9. How do you deal with distractions?

Many remote employees work from home and they may encounter more distractions than in an office environment. Distraction is a major productivity killer so it’s important that employees have developed effective techniques to help them focus and use their time intentionally. 

10. How do you stay upbeat and positive during your workday?

It’s often harder to get out of a rut when team members are working on their own. Negative moods can lead to lower cognitive performance and limit the ability to think creatively. An ideal candidate should have developed coping strategies so they can minimize the impact of mood fluctuations on their productivity.

11. What do you do when you have a question but your team is offline?

If a team member is located in a different time zone, they may encounter an issue when no one else is online to assist. Look for candidates who are resourceful and have developed strategies to handle various scenarios independently. They should also demonstrate the ability to weigh the severity and urgency of the issue at hand so they can react appropriately.

12. Can you share a time when you took initiative at work?

Remote team members need to work autonomously with minimal supervision. Look for candidates that are driven to achieve results. This question helps you identify self-starters who are willing to take initiatives and go the extra mile. These employees also tend to be more confident, which often makes them more productive and creative.

Final Thoughts

As remote work becomes more and more commonplace, it will be increasingly important for recruiters and hiring managers to know exactly what to look for in prospective candidates. The questions outlined above will help you to find workers who can contribute to your company’s success, even from afar. 

Interested in more tips and tricks on how to make the most of interviews for remote jobs? Familiarize yourself with the benefits of video interviewing!

Gauging the talents of in-person candidates requires skill and experience, but qualifying that same talent remotely poses particular challenges of its own.

Telecommuting has been on the rise since the early 2000s with SHRM reporting that 68 percent of companies now offer remote work options, up from 54 percent in 2014.

So, what do we know about the remote worker? The New York Times (NYT) helps us answer this question (though they themselves acknowledge the definition is somewhat nebulous)…

“The most complete definition is someone employed full time at a private, nonprofit or government organization, who works at least half the time at home.

“The typical telecommuter is a 49-year-old college graduate — man or woman — who earns about $58,000 a year and belongs to a company with more than 100 employees, according to numbers culled from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey.“

Remote work/ telecommuting options can save companies money (the same NYT article found that the US federal government saved an estimated $32 million by asking their employees to work from home on snow days). And, numerous studies have shown remote workers are more productive and work longer hours.

With more and more companies seeing telecommuting as a viable option for their employees, it follows that remote interviewing will increase in popularity as well – from initial phone screens to online technical skills tests.

For many, the idea of remote interviewing can be daunting, as it’s common to rely on in-person meetings to get ‘a sense’ of a candidate. To surmount these initial growing pains, the following provides top tips for recruiters and hiring managers looking to win at remote interviewing.

1. Find the best ways to connect.

During an interview, so much is determined by body language, which isn’t something that always translates over a screen. A survey from Twin found that 50 percent of interviewers eliminate candidates based on the way they dressed, behaved, or expressed their body language.

That’s why it’s important to try to find communication solutions that will best replicate the benefits of in-person interactions (while also remembering judgments based on appearance and clothing could be biased so it’s good to eliminate that criterion from the application process). To do this, try using different communication tools for the various stages of the interview process, such as an audio tool for the preliminary screening and a video conferencing option during later rounds.

While there are plenty of business tools that perform one of these tasks well, implementing a unified communications system will ensure an organized approach when communicating between multiple candidates.

2. Prep the tech.

Delays caused by technical difficulties can completely disrupt a scheduled day of remote interviews, at times with costly consequences. Within the span of a year, a single employee can spend 91 hours, or over two work weeks, of their time fixing computer issues.

Technology snafus can make a company appear unprofessional and will ultimately decrease the time recruiters and hiring managers have to evaluate each candidate. Prepare in advance for a day of remote interviews by asking the following questions:

• Does this room have a strong internet connection/cellular reception?
• Is all of the necessary equipment plugged in and turned on?
• Does the candidate have the interview information, including time, date, and links?

3. Choose the team wisely.

A re:Work study found that having three interviewers in the room led to hiring the best talent 63 percent of the time, while a team of seven would increase hiring success to 72 percent.

Having multiple perspectives of a single candidate is typically a good thing, but when interviewing remote applicants, streamlining an interview team to a smaller group will help reduce interruptions and simplify communication.

Phone calls or video conferences should include only the core team necessary to make the decision.

If the team can’t be winnowed down, assign roles to each person, including which team members should be speaking and which are responsible for silently observing and notetaking.

4. Become an effective listener.

In-person interviews offer plenty of opportunities to demonstrate active listening, from securing eye contact to head nods. Since 93 percent of all communication is nonverbal, these tiny cues are essential for establishing an understanding between interviewer and interviewee.

During a remote interview, it may be difficult, or in the case of a phone call impossible, to represent any of the visual cues that show listening. Fortunately, there are other ways to show active listening…

• Looking into the camera as a way to replicate eye contact.
• Eliminating outside noises that may interfere with the interview.
• Waiting a few additional seconds for a response before speaking accommodates the time the interviewee needs to think of a response and compensates for any lag time or delays in the signal.

Don’t forget to share with your own remote interview hacks! #HiringSuccess

Twenty percent of turnover happens within the first 45 days, here’s how to get through this delicate period with optimum retention!

Bad hires are more than just a drain on company morale (which by the way is a big deal). Bad hires are estimated to cost several times that person’s first-year salary. In fact, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh was quoted as saying that his own bad hires had cost the company well over $100 million. In almost every industry, salaries and variable costs related to the workforce are, by far, the highest costs of doing business. Point blank, hiring the wrong person should be avoided at all costs. What happens, however, if the hiring decision process is being blamed for a poor or non-existent onboarding process when the problem lies with poor onboarding?

Why your poor onboarding process could be your company’s biggest threat:

Imagine the time, effort and money put into recruiting, interviewing, vetting and hiring the best candidate for your team only to have that investment squandered as they walk through your doors. This is an all-too-familiar tale in companies where onboarding is not done right or not done at all.

• Retention starts day one. The job market is competitive. Recruiting and retaining good employees is more important than ever. The September jobs reports that announced a decline in the unemployment rate by 0.2 percentage to 3.7 percent; the lowest seen in the U.S. in decades. Fewer job seekers are actively looking, and in certain fields like tech, finance and medical, these sought-after pros can pick and choose where they land.  
• Culture is contagious. Culture is a recruiting competitive-edge that wins top talent to your team. Lack of communication, poor training, and high turnover rates not only cost your business money, they negatively impact your culture.
• Your brand is on display. What happens inside your company, no longer stays inside your company. With online networking on LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and other platforms, new candidates now have the ability to learn what truly happens in your organization. Make sure what they see is positive!

Four ways HR tech solves your onboarding conundrum:

So, if you recognize your human resources and onboarding weaknesses, you’ve made a great step toward identifying the problem. And, no need to panic, you’ve got a bevy of tech tools that you can easily tap into to help you get your onboarding up to snuff ASAP!

1. Reach remote teams. The number of remote workers in the U.S. workforce has been trending upward for the last ten years. While offering remote work options is a great recruiting tool, it can create some training and communication challenges. Technologies like enterprise chat and robust, cloud-based project management systems are readily available that allow new team members to stay connected, get face-to-face training (even if it’s screen-to-screen) and provide visibility to progress.
2. Dot Is and cross Ts. Compliance is an ever-evolving area of human resources. When hiring new employees, it’s important to comply with federal, state and local regulations and document that compliance. By using HR tech tools to digitize the entire paperwork process, you can protect your company from risks of non-compliance or poor record-keeping. And the new hires will love you for streamlining this not-very-exciting-but necessary part of the onboarding.
3. Communication flow demystified. Your current employees, as well as your new employee, need a constant flow of communication. In fact, a top complaint of unhappy employees is that their company did not let them know when things changed. Transparency, easily accessible communication, and consistency are the keys to keeping your workforce (both new and existing) feeling in-the-know.
4. Gain key insights. HR tech tools can also provide you with insight as to what’s working with your onboarding efforts and what’s not. Using qualitative tools (like creating confidential feedback channels) and quantitative tools such as performance metrics or training follow-up surveys.

Your company only gets one chance to make a first impression with your new hires. And up to 20 percent of turnover occurs within the first 45 days of employment. The good news is there are countless technology tools to help support and grow with the demands of your unique team.

Build a robust talent pipeline for these competitive reqs with takeaways from LinkedIn’s 2018 report.

Every professional should enter 2019 with a comprehensive knowledge of their industry landscape. For recruiters, this means understanding the labor trends that will affect their talent pipeline.

Though a technical skills gap is evident, with the demand for check jobs increasing 14x from 2012 to 2016. What the recruiting industry has seen is no simple trend of everyone exclusively needing digital skills. In fact, the biggest skills gap lies in oral communication — ahead of social media, design, and web development — according to LinkedIn’s 2018 U.S. Emerging Jobs Report.

Skill sets, specialized by industry, are no longer prominent; rather, businesses seek to round out their team’s capabilities with a mix of hard and soft skills. For example, two-thirds of the most recruited jobs in tech are sales-based, while the same number of most recruited jobs in non-profit organizations are tech-based.

To better understand the nuances of the ever-evolving talent economy, and prepare recruiters for 2019, we bring you the highlights of The 33 Most Recruited Roles of 2018. Learn which roles are most competitive, and the specific methods for beating out the competition for top talent.

Take a look at the most recruited jobs overall.

1) DevOps Engineer

DevOps Engineer is the most recruited position of 2018. When sourcing candidates, it’s good to keep in mind that this newly popular role is a blanket term for a wide range of responsibilities that may vary between companies. LinkedIn suggests searching “adjacent terms” like “Site Reliability Engineer”.

2) Enterprise Account Executive

Also, know as AEs, these are the folks who will ensure your top customers are happy. Hot cities for these candidates include San Francisco, New York, and Boston. Recruiters should also check out Austin, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C., where — according to the LinkedIn Talent Insights — supply is high and demand is much lower.

3) Front-End Engineer

The demand for top coders who can make a company’s website interactive and visually appealing reflects the overall shift from brick-and-mortar to virtual storefronts. What business doesn’t have an online presence in this day and age?

LinkedIn advises recruiters to look towards Beijing for applicants, a city with a similar supply of qualified candidates as San Francisco, but far less demand.

Now let’s view the most recruited roles by industry…

Technology

• Enterprise Account Executive
• DevOps Engineer
• Sales Development Rep

Note two of three “tech” jobs are actual sales roles, proving soft skills are still relevant.

Finance

• Data Scientist
• Senior Software Engineer
• Senior Tax Associate

Work-life balance is the primary concern for data scientists. Recruiters who highlight this as a tenant of their company culture are more likely to snag the top candidates.

Retail

• Software Engineer
• Senior Financial Analyst
• Senior Brand Manager

Software engineer is not only the most recruited role for retail, it’s now the third most common role in the industry (up five positions since 2013).

Professional Services

• Senior Software Engineer
• Data Scientist
• Front-End Developer

Many data scientists come from a research background, so consider searching for related terms to source candidates who could transition to data scientist roles.

Education/government/nonprofits

• Software Engineer
• Business Analyst
• System Administrator

System administrators prioritize work-life balance, salary, and security in their job search, so be sure recruiters and hiring managers highlight these benefits when talking to candidates.

…And across functions.

Engineering

• DevOps Engineer
• Front-End Engineer
• Cloud Architect

Software engineers as a whole apply to jobs at a rate 13 percent lower than the general population, proactively recruiting these candidates is the most effective strategy to hire them before you need them—or a competitor does.

Sales

• Enterprise Account Executive
• Sales Development Representative
• Senior Sales Engineer

Company culture and mission are matter most to AEs, so emphasize the company’s story and work-dynamic when talking to these candidates.

Operations

• Senior Quantity Surveyor
• Delivery Manager
• Supply Director

The Bengaluru and Chennai areas of India, as well as London, tend to have the highest supply of delivery managers — be sure to scour these locations for qualified applicants.

Marketing

• Digital Marketing Manager
• Product Marketing Manager
• Senior Brand Manager

Product marketing managers are in high demand in San Francisco’s tech economy. However, supply is also high in Paris, Shangai, and Singapore, so consider extending your sourcing and recruiting efforts in these untapped geographies as well.

HR

• Technical Recruiter
• Recruiting Coordinator
• HR Business Partner

Sourcing technical recruiters straight out of university has become popular, and there’s a wide range of majors that can be relevant. LinkedIn found that technical recruiters come from a number of disciplines, including HR management, business administration, computer science, marketing, and psychology.

The top 3 recruiting strategy pointers.

1)

Source nontraditional candidates.

Consider partnering with coding boot camps, technical colleges, and vocational schools to fill those open reqs.

Companies should also consider expanding their workforce to include non-traditional options like remote workers or freelancers. Remote workers widen your talent pool and are proven to be just as productive as their in-office counterparts. Freelancers are valuable for project-based work and typically cost less than a full-time employee. It’s predicted that by 2027 50 percent of all workers in the U.S. will be freelnace, so building a network of contractors now could set a company up for future success

2)

Assess skills, not pedigree.

Make sure the skills called out in your job advertisement are relevant. Stick to essentials and avoid cliches. If your job description has 40 skills and includes the phrase ‘fast-paced environment’, start again.

Once the requisite job skills are defined, decide how to evaluate. The market for tech-based assessment is booming, and businesses that incorporate tech-based assessment tools into their hiring process tend to reduce bias.

3)

Upskill existing employees.

Upskilling employees, rather than relying exclusively on outside hires, is an increasingly popular solution to the talent shortage facing many employers today. Investing in learning and development (L&D) programs keep a company’s employees relevant while boosting employer brand. In fact, “career growth” is one of the top three reasons candidates accept an offer.

Telecommunications giant AT&T recently invested $1 billion into reskilling their 250,000 employees with great success – the workers who participate in the program are now twice as likely to get a new role within the company, and 4 times more likely to receive a promotion.

Their program includes an online portal that showcases all 3,000 roles at the company, complete with growth projection, salary expectations, skill requirements, a library of relevant classes and training demos, and contacts within the company to learn more. AT&T creates many of their courses in-house, but also partners with educational platforms and institutions to provide additional educational resources for employees.

Advice from AT&T regarding L&D programs is threefold: frame upskilling as a practical expenditure that will save time and money in the long run, transparency is key, and constantly get feedback.

Closing thoughts.

The key to acquiring top talent is playing the long game and looking to the future. Snap solutions can hold a business over while implementing the following programs, but they aren’t permanent fixes.

In today’s candidate-driven market recruiters all too often experience the pressure to make great hires without adequate support and resources. Thankfully, there are ways that recruiters can lighten the load. TA teams who learn to automate effectively, make the most of their data, and double down on employer brand will find themselves in the best position to attract quality talent to drive business.

Challenges are also opportunities, according to LinkedIn co-founder Allen Blue, who reminds us that, “Whenever companies are faced with that changing pressure, they look for solutions. That’s a great driving force,” he says, “it’s the energy behind HR innovation.”

Read the full report here!