More people than ever want remote jobs—a 2022 CNBC article reported that, compared to traditional in-person jobs, remote roles are attracting seven times more applicants. But just because there are more remote candidates to choose from doesn’t mean it’s easier for employers to know which ones will be the best fit in a work-from-home position.
Hiring teams need to have a solid sense of what they’re looking for when vetting remote applicants. Read on for three tips on how to screen remote workers to help ensure that you’ll hire someone who will be well suited to not only the specific job duties but to working remotely.
Know What Makes an Exceptional Remote Worker
The first step to making a smart hire for a virtual role is to have a solid understanding of what qualities make someone good at this type of job. A candidate who excelled at a position with the same title as your remote position but worked in an office might be a poor fit to work from home—so it’s important to recognize the differing expectations and skill sets required.
Here are some talents to screen for when searching through resumes to hire a remote worker:
- Ability to work independently
- Unlimited job posts
- Low, flat membership fee
- Access top-level remote advice
- Unlimited resume searches
- Reach the right candidates
- And so much more!
- Self-motivated
- Disciplined
- Tech-savvy
- Strong communication skills
- Driven to produce results with less direction
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Develop Interview Questions to Test for These Skills
It’s fair to assume that if you’re hiring for a remote position, your interview process will likely also be conducted virtually. This means you’ll want to do what you can to determine which candidates fit the description above while interviewing them via phone, video call, or email.
Since you may not have the opportunity to meet the candidates in person, the questions you ask during the interview stage become even more critical. Check out this list of 12 questions to ask remote workers during interviews, which cover the gamut of important issues, from why they want to work from home, challenges they’ve faced in the past if they worked remotely, their level of technical skills, and their ability to focus when working independently.
Use Online Platforms to Help Inform Your Decisions
One thing that’s similar no matter what type of role you’re hoping to fill is that there’s more information available online than ever before that can help flesh out your understanding of a candidate. Whether it’s spending some time reviewing their LinkedIn profile or checking out other social media pages that your candidates have made public, this reconnaissance is fair game in recruiting.
Social pages can be even more important in helping managers hire for remote positions, since they can fill in the gaps that you may have in understanding an applicant’s personality, work style, and priorities if you haven’t met them in person. While it’s certainly not the only resource you should use in your decision-making, these collected insights from social media can provide additional insight about how well you think candidates might fit with the remote role and company culture.
Identify and Hire Great Remote Workers
Screening candidates for remote jobs can be time-consuming for companies and hiring managers since it involves thinking about what’s needed in different ways than a traditional in-house hire. But doing your due diligence to understand what makes someone a great remote worker, then leveraging appropriate interview questions paired with your own research, will give you a much better chance of determining if remote workers will be a good fit.
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