Hiring remote employees have so many benefits associated with it that it’s sometimes hard to not put it out there for recruiters and hiring managers. Pandemic or no pandemic, remote working has been evolving for ages. It has just received a massive push due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Of course, remote work existed before this; it just wasn’t talked about. Now that there are no two ways around it, recruiters will have to make sure they’re doing everything in their power to make this process more fluid— from investing in a well-featured Applicant Tracking System, CRM (Candidate Relationship Management) software, assessment tools, interview scheduling software and the list is endless.
Find out here in this article the detailed stages involved in hiring remote employees, ways to manage a remote candidate pool and how to retain the same effectively.
Inventive Ways To Attract & Hire Remote Employees
As per LinkedIn’s survey, 58% of Talent Acquisition professionals said that a significant impact of the pandemic was how in-person interviews would be transformed into virtual ones. Slowly and steadily, this came true for an entire organisation— the shift from working in-office to remotely. Hiring remote employees need not be a hectic task if you have your checklist in order. You need to understand that not everyone is cut sleekly for this. Thus, it’s imperative to keep the following in mind.
1. Attract Candidates With Your Employer Brand
The first step towards building a proper candidate pipeline would be to create a strong employer brand. If your employer brand is close to being non-existent, it’s going to be a significant roadblock when attracting candidates, especially the ones who want to work remotely. Remote employees will have to strongly rely on your online presence to learn more about the company culture. It’s thereby essential to be trustworthy and inclusive of showcasing what your client’s company stands for. Apart from building a solid social media presence, the next best step would be your careers site. Ensure that the following are covered on this page:
- The way your company works.
- The level of flexibility that the company provides its remote employees.
- Include honest feedback from present employees. If this were an in-office interview, a large part of it would have been more accessible since you’re meeting your candidate in person.
- Ask present employees to make creative videos to showcase how much they love working for the company. However, it’s essential not to pressurise them.
- Publish a list of values that define who you are as an organisation.
2. Your Remote Job Ads Must Be Advertised In The Best Places
One of the significant mistakes that recruiters often make is not realising that you’ve been posting remote job ads in the wrong places. Though conventional job boards can be helpful for the company, several unconventional sites that’ll help you drive results, such as— Working Nomads, We Work Remotely, FlexJobs, RemoteOK, Digital Nomad Jobs on Facebook, Workfrom and so on. Generic job boards like Indeed, LinkedIn and Monster can also be helpful only if you don’t forget to mention that you’re hiring for a remote role. As long as you have the right job ad with the correct job description, you’re in for diverse candidate applications.
3. You Should Know What To Expect In Terms Of An Ideal Remote Candidate
As mentioned earlier, not everybody is cut out for 100% remote work. These are some of the qualities that every recruiter must look out for when hiring for remote positions:
- Ability to multitask and prioritise work
- Predisposition towards action
- Trustworthy
- Ability to be flexible
- Has strong written communication skills
- Can easily adapt
Always remember that a candidate’s CV can never be a universal piece of document. Every job that they are applying for needs to be perfectly cut out for that role.
4. Use The Right Assessment Tools For Remote Candidates
This is one of the essential aspects when it comes to hiring remote employees. The primary modes of communication are via a phone or a video call. It’s necessary to look out for communication channels that are smooth and glitch-free so that you can provide a positive candidate experience. It’s often hard to work with traditional assessment methods when working remotely. Thus, recruiters can proactively use Sparkhire, Jobma, HireVue etc., for conducting online interviews or Saberr and ThriveMap to conclude how culturally fit a candidate is.
5. Provide A Cohesive Candidate Experience By Using Proper Recruiting Tools
What most remote candidates nowadays dig for is complete transparency and proper communication. With the usage of appropriate recruiting tools, headhunters would easily be able to provide the same. Communication is asynchronous when it comes to working remotely. Therefore both you and your candidate should be on the same page. Use a suitable Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that’ll help you manage your hiring stages effectively—right from scheduling interviews with candidates, hotlisting ideal remote employees from the candidate pool, interview scorecards, resume parser, providing you real-time data and impressive integrations.
Look out for an ATS that provides an in-built CRM (Candidate Relationship Management) feature in it, helping your recruitment agency save money and providing insane benefits to your candidates.
6. Provide Meaningful Benefits And Compensation Packages
The last but most important point to consider would be to provide top employee benefits and salary packages. Those days of game rooms and free snacks are gone. If you’ll have to woo candidates, you got to pull it up a notch. Remote employees will be more drawn towards a high-paying compensation package (nobody likes being exploited at work, right?), provide meaningful professional courses (something that they can add on to their CV), life and health insurance, a proper vacation and leave policy (you wouldn’t want your remote employees burning out).
To attract, hire and retain remote employees, recruiters will need to keep in mind the latest recruiting trends that are doing rounds, such as— diversity and inclusion, digital transformation, recruitment marketing etc. Sell a workplace culture that you, as an employee, would love working at, and you’ll have the majority of top-notch remote candidates by your side.
