The Complete Guide: How to Find Top-Notch Remote Employees

Qualities of a top-notch remote employee

1. Goes beyond the limits

The best remote employee does not limit himself or herself in a given task or workload. A person who shows passion and diligence toward his/her daily work goes beyond what he/she is tasked to do.

2. Aptness

If you plan to build a start-up, one of the many challenges you will face is creating an efficient workforce. One thing you can do is to look for individuals who show aptness. Undoubtedly, they know what to prioritize and where to focus on.

3. Good communication skills

Due to the limited face-to-face interactions, miscommunication has been the greatest challenge of working remotely. The remote set-up imposed physical barriers. For this reason, your company needs to have remote employees who acquire good communication skills.

Most of the work happens via e-mail, virtual meetings, and chat. Your entire team will struggle if your employees cannot communicate well. Being proficient in verbal and written communication will be a great advantage.

4. Shows commitment

Keep in mind that you cannot monitor your remote employees 24/7. It will be challenging for you to motivate them. With this, hiring the right people in your team who can show their commitment will surely ease your job.

To support this claim, the Buffer team studied several employees who work at a big and established company. Eventually, they found out that 10 out of 13 employees have worked as freelancers before working as full-time employees. The amazing part is that among the 13 employees, 10 show the abovementioned qualities and characteristics.

How you find top-notch remote employees

1. Within your network

Most of the time, prosperous and well-known business owners started their company with friends. You might also want to apply it in your case. Think of your former colleagues or even friends. Have you enjoyed working with them? Do you think working with them again will be a great idea? If your answer is “yes,” try to reconnect with them and ask if they are willing to be a part of your company.

More importantly, you already know their work ethic. Knowing your employees very well is an integral part of the business. You no longer need to spend more of your time getting to know them.

2. Referrals

Employment referral is one of the ways to find potential employees through recommendations from someone you know. Simply ask your family and friends if they know someone who is looking for a job and might want to apply to your company. One good thing about referrals is that job posting will not be necessary anymore. ‍

3. Job caravans

It is a bit odd for a remote company to join a job expo and or career fair, but it works very well for some companies like Zapier. According to them, joining job caravans helps them connect with people in local areas and cited that many people are looking forward to working in their company. There is nothing wrong with trying. You will never know the results unless you try.

4. Post on your website

If you have a website, it is best to utilize it and inform your readers that you are hiring. It will surely give your company dozens of applications since they are already familiar with your company’s culture.

A study conducted by Zapier found out that 1 among 10 of their current employees applied to their company through a job post on their website. They are adding that their readers are always thrilled whenever they have a new job posting.

5. Ask help with your current team members.

There are some cases where employers use their employees’ social networks to find prospective job candidates. By doing this, you are allowing them to find the people they want to work with. Another great benefit of it is that it could increase their productivity and role satisfaction. Simply seek their help and ask them to spread the word for your company. Let them do the talking. ‍

6. Post on job boards

The most used and effective way to find job candidates is to post on job boards. There is a certain job posting site for every country. For instance, if you want to hire remote employees in the Philippines, it would be best to put your job posting in onlinejobs.ph. You just need to indicate all the information they have to know, and you will indeed be surprised with the number of applications you will get every day. Additionally, it is guaranteed that all the people who go on online job websites are looking for a job.

7. Maximize your social media accounts

No one will disagree that social media has been an excellent platform for everything. Luckily, you can use your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram accounts to inform people about your new remote position. The more engagement you get, the larger the audience your job posting can reach.

Small remote companies, particularly start-ups, are overwhelmed with the challenges of sourcing the right candidates. That is why you are highly encouraged to take advantage of every tool, step, and tip this article can give you.

Let us now dig into the most important part of this blog. This section will answer the question “How to hire a top-notch remote employee?”. Sorting out hundreds or even thousands of applicants can be time-consuming, but it is where the real challenge starts. Besides, choosing the best candidate out of a great talent pool can be overwhelming. To help you with this, here are the things you need to take into consideration.

Things to take into consideration

1. Test the limits of the applicants

You might want to have a value-add to your application process for the sake of getting the best among the pool of talents. Some companies do not require the candidates to pass their resumes or CVs anymore. Instead, they are replacing them with additional tasks.

For instance, when hiring for a content writer position, you may include application questions to know more about the applicants and provide them some insights into their roles. You may ask the following questions:

• How long have you been writing? What do you love most about writing?
  

• What is the most challenging part of being a writer?
• How many articles can you write per week?

In addition, rather than asking them for a letter of intent, you may ask them to write a sample article or show their previous write-ups.

It is important to note that those who are willing to complete the additional tasks and requirements are the ones who are determined to work in your company. On the other hand, those who would skip are not interested at all.

2. Conduct a phone or video call interview

This idea is not new to everybody. It has been used for years as part of the recruitment and hiring process. It would be best to select the top candidates in the early stages to get rid of spending longer hours conducting the phone or video call interview. As a recruiter or employer, you must know the criteria or rubrics to evaluate the candidates.

For instance, when hiring a virtual assistant, you need to evaluate the candidates according to their ability to multi-task, communicate effectively, attention to detail, and more.

Conducting a phone or video call interview is also a great opportunity for you to determine whether a candidate is reasonably fit for the remote environment. Also, it would be much easier for you to compare the candidates from each other.‍

3. Ask the candidates to collaborate and work on a project.

As mentioned earlier, having the ability to communicate with the team is important, considering the limited face-to-face meetings and interactions. Another way for you to know how well the candidates perform in a team setting, you may ask them to work on a project with the other applicants.

For instance, when hiring a marketing team, you may ask them to write blogs and promotional content together. Also, it will be a great help to evaluate their leadership skills since someone has to lead the team.

4. Use online hiring tools.

Hiring tools are designed for business owners and CEOs of small companies who still do not have a human resource department or lack staffing. With an online hiring tool, your recruiting experience will be smoother and more manageable than not using it.

Rivermate provides human resource tools to help you manage your company and employees efficiently.

Conclusion

Finding and hiring top-notch remote employees are not easy jobs. It requires tremendous time and effort. By simply knowing the qualities you are looking for and having an idea where and how to find them are the advantages you should never let slip away.