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How to Conduct a Remote Interview: 12 Proven Best Practices

Also, videoconferencing usually fails to capture things such as a candidate’s charisma, which can equally distort the overall impression. It’s hard to say how long it might take to receive word about the job. Some organizations are quite prompt, while others leave workers hanging. Occasionally, you may even run into a company that “ghosts” prospective employees, leaving them dangling without a definite yes or no. Get comfortable with the most common technologies and use them to do practice interviews with friends who can critique your performance. Be sure to dress appropriately and set up a professional workspace before interviewing so that you’re ready to go.

Is remote interview same as personal interview?

You Can't Beat Face to Face:

While many would argue that it is possible to build up rapport and a connection via virtual interviews, meeting a candidate in person offers the best opportunity for genuine engagement. It is important to consider each role when deciding between face-to-face or virtual.

Particularly in a remote setting, values serve as the north star, guiding every business decision by people you cannot physically see and shaping how colleagues treat one another. Not only does this create a more competitive hiring process by reaching a more diverse set of candidates, but it also allows your organization to hire great people not limited by the basis of salary. We need to verify that they have the necessary technology to enable them to work for us. We will then conduct a series of recorded interviews, assessments, and usually a live interview as well to help us evaluate candidates and make hiring decisions. We have lost a few people during this trial period – some our decision, and some the candidates. Ultimately, this allows us way more insight than a traditional interview process would into how good of a fit someone is for our team (and how good of a fit we are for the candidate).

Remote Job interview process

If you’ve got a healthy inbound flow of candidates, you’ll have more applications than even your globally-distributed remote company has calendar time. Culture is an assurance that each employee respects, admires, and feels invested in a company’s values, and that leadership works to ensure values are not violated. As GitLab, an operating principle within our Diversity, Inclusion & Belonging value is “culture fit is a bad excuse.” To answer this question, you first need to unlearn a bit, and change your frame of mind. A heavy emphasis is placed on whether working remotely will be a good fit for a candidate. People tend to either love or hate working remotely and it is important that we make sure each candidate understands the benefits and challenges of our remote work environment before joining the company.

  • And it can help you assess how much of a self-starter someone is, while also learning about their work ethic and their approach to time management.
  • One way you can inform them of your company culture and values you can include a brief synopsis of your company in the job description.
  • So hiring managers will want some assurance that you’ve got a grasp on how to push through the inherent distractions and distance of remote work.
  • For just about every role at Help Scout, we ask candidates to complete a short project in order to better assess skills and collaboration style.
  • Traits like tenacity and being proactive are extremely valuable when you have team members working remotely.
  • So, during these days, it’s the perfect opportunity to set up meetings with them, explain how things work in the company, set up your expectations, and try to keep things as clear as possible.

Ensure that the background the candidate will see during the remote interview is free of any noticeable distractions. To combat this, many video conferencing applications provide you with the option of setting a blank background. Also, be mindful to remain engaged in the conversation with the interviewee; so remove yourself from potential distractions and find a quiet space to conduct the interview. Traits like tenacity and being proactive are extremely valuable when you have team members working remotely.

Candidate-first hiring

We strongly filter for candidates who are extremely self-motivated, thrive when working individually and are clear communicators via digital channels (Slack, Email, Phone, etc). The process to become a full-time [A]gent has multiple stages and takes a long time. Our process weeds out people who are looking to quickly switch jobs, or who are not looking to get to know the company little-by-little. We believe no matter how good the interviews and tests are, you really don’t know somebody until you work with them.

Some companies use video chats to help new co-workers connect socially during the onboarding process. Let your professional network know that you’re looking, search for online job listings, and follow your dream employers on social media. At DistantJob, we care about the details of the CVs we share with our clients, so we will analyze each profile and double-check key information with candidates.

Value the Process and Focus on Results

It’s also not so far from the job employers need to do when hiring remotely. Somehow we’ve got to transform a person we’ve never met working from their couch to an employee we trust with the company credit card, social media account, or keys to our servers. This list of questions is directed at other peers working within a remote organization. In this video on the GitLab Unfiltered YouTube channel, Sid asks the below questions to InVision Chief People Office Mark Frein. We hire remote workers in much the same way as we would an on-site employee. The only additional steps that we take for remote employees is verifying that their software capabilities are at the level required to be able to perform the work from home.

Find a platform that fits your needs, plan what you’ll do if that program breaks down, and take some time to review remote interview etiquette. You may also want to check your current interview process and always spend as much time listening as you do talking. When https://remotemode.net/blog/how-remote-interview-process-looks-like/ conducting a remote interview, hiring managers should ideally ask candidates the same questions they would during a face-to-face interview. However, since most hires will be for remote work positions, a further set of ‘remote specific’ questions should be added.

Establishing a sustainable and supporting global team

Most of our team has approached us directly to ask if we’ve been hiring. That’s one of the advantages of being a relatively well-known remote team. The ‘remote’ aspect of what we do is very appealing and attracts great people to us. Our top priority is culture fit and we usually introduce the new hire to the wider team as early as possible, if we feel they’ll be a good fit. We also rarely hire directly–we use contract-to-hire methods usually, and look to find a project where we can have a trial-run, before actually committing to hire a full-time employee.

remote interview process

As with every interview ever, it’s essential to show up well-prepared. But when it comes to interviews for remote roles, it’s even more important, as people who work from home need to be especially proactive, organized, and communicative. When you’re part of a distributed team, you’re pretty likely to run into situations where you don’t feel 100% clear about what you’ve been tasked with. And while that’s normal and totally understandable, it’ll be important for you to demonstrate that you know how to navigate these gray areas. “Managers want to be confident that you will be able to find the right people and information to engage with for a deliverable without having them right in front of you,” Jones says. Whether it’s a remote or face-to-face interview, some things are constant and always relevant.

Tips to Conduct Successful Remote Interviews and Hire Top Remote Candidates

That means remote interviews usually last somewhere between 30 and 60 minutes. Since you’re already making use of technology to conduct the interview, consider using technology to schedule it as well. By using a calendar scheduling app, you can circumvent the back and forth by letting the candidate choose their own time slot.

Requesting samples and original work assignments are very common practices with remote and in-person employers. It helps them get a fuller idea of not only how you work but how you work remotely. To run live video interviews with candidates, you can use popular tools such as Zoom, Google Hangouts and Skype. Candidates will be able to join the interview easily by following a link, so make sure to send them an invitation in advance. Ryan Malone, founder and CEO at SmartBug Media, says that reluctance to use some of those tools is often a matter of confidence.

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