10 Tips to Nail Your Remote Interview Process

Questions such as these will allow you to learn a great deal about a candidate. Even though you can’t meet your potential hires in person, utilizing platforms like Skype and Zoom are just as effective in determining a person’s strengths and suitability for the job on offer. As opposed to a traditional, in-person interview, it’s normal for certain things to become lost in translation during a remote interview. Some of the things you could mention are work hours, company benefits, policies around leave, etc. Just because an interview is being conducted remotely, it should still maintain the same professionalism as an in-office interview. Regardless of the position that you’re hiring for, you must dress professionally, even if the interview is being conducted from your home. By adopting remote hiring strategies, businesses can reduce costs, whilst streamlining their recruitment and accessing a wider pool of talent.

Since we love leaning into transparency, after each hire, the recruiter compiles a hiring summary that gets shared with the entire company. If both candidates are excellent, sometimes we see if there’s a possibility to hire both! And if not, we keep the other candidate warm in case there’s an opportunity down the road. There’s a lot of debate these days about whether references matter, since they’re often people who are picked by the candidate to say nice things about them. We approach the reference call more as a way to get coaching on how to help the new hire be successful at Help Scout. As we move candidates to the final interview, we also ask them for three references, and we ask that two be previous managers.

Familiarize yourself with remote interviewing etiquette

We advertise job offers on StackOverflow Careers, Github Jobs and a few other prominent job boards, clearly highlighting that it is a 100% remote job. People apply through a form in our website that creates a Trello card in a big board that we use to track candidates during the whole application process. Don’t be surprised if part of your remote hiring process includes questions specifically about the pandemic and how you’re handling it.

Want to learn more about how to make remote work successful at your company? When you want to evaluate candidates, beyond written assessments, you can use virtual whiteboards that facilitate interaction, such as FreeHand and Zoom Whiteboard. Keep your pipeline moving with Video Interviews, a premium one-way screening tool from Workable. Melissa Bruno, VP Head of People at Stack Overflow, reminds us that if the company is not tech-savvy, you will have to start from the basics. The people on the hiring committee should represent the people you are looking for whenever possible. If you can’t accomplish this, it’s likely a sign that you should redouble your efforts to bring in a wider applicant pool. We want to ensure all individuals have equal opportunities and feel a sense of belonging within our organization.

Publish and promote the job

If you’re looking for tech employees, the way they use the video technology could be part of the evaluation. Likewise, if you’re hiring for customer-facing roles, you’re probably measuring for ease of speech and good self-presentation. A candidate is always welcome to ask for a time more suitable to their time zone. Work internally to see who in your team has the closest availability if you have no overlap with the candidate’s time zone. Don’t encourage the candidate to schedule in the middle of their night; this won’t be a good experience for them or you. Plus, doing so could create an unfair advantage for others interviewing for the same role at normal hours. Talk about the role internally, in public channels, and ping people who might be interested in contributing in some way to the hiring process.

• This also alleviates scheduling conflicts when interviewing candidates who are already employed full-time and therefore unavailable for interviews during normal business hours.
• Everyone at Remote is responsible for striving to deliver on this mission, which must manifest in proactive tactics and strategies that scale with us as we increase the speed of our hiring plans.
• Even with these instructions, candidates may be a minute or two late as they try to navigate the new programs.
• Be sure to leave enough time in the interview to answer any questions candidates may have.

The rise of remote work made many companies consider hiring outside of their local markets and employ people across the globe. But, with an interest in hiring global candidates, comes the need to develop a successful remote interviewing process.

How To Handle a Job Offer

For example, if your performance is lagging, is it because you’re having a bad day, or is it because you’re not a good fit for the role? Pre-employment tests can help the employer remote interview process objectively determine if you’re going to not only succeed at the job, but be happy in it, too. If you’ve worked for a remote company before, make sure you spotlight it.

We think it’s possible to design an interview process that provides a clear assessment of a candidate’s skills, aptitude, and potential for culture fit. Our four pillars can be used as a framework for those who wish to do so. Instead, we might look to include the newest, least experienced members of our team, regardless of age, to help the candidate feel more comfortable and less intimidated by experienced employees. Once you’ve completed the interview and asked for any final questions or thoughts, close the interview by letting the candidate know the next steps. Thank them for their time and explain how your interview process works.