Hiring the best candidate for an open position is already hard enough. These challenges are amplified when hiring remote employees for tech startups. Because there is little to no physical contact, you might hire someone you may never see, or only see a few times a year. Although there is some overlap in the way you would hire an in-office employee to the way you would hire a remote one, the latter is a lot more complicated and there are special considerations to be made. To increase the odds of hiring the best candidate for your tech startup, here are some tips to help you out.
Make Sure Your Business Is Ready
Although the focus should be on finding the best candidate, there is also a need to ensure your business is ready for remote work. How prepared your business is for remote work will not only attract the best candidates but also ensure they stay when they are hired.
Some of the areas you should focus on include setting clear guidelines and expectations about evaluations and performance, using job descriptions that show you are ready for remote hires, and ensuring the job description is in line with your remote work policy. In this regard, you should clearly outline the hours the new employee should be available, the equipment they need and job performance requirements. This way, candidates who apply already know what to expect.
Assess their Skills
Every tech startup looking to hire remote employees should test two types of skills; remote work skills and technical skills. When testing technical skills, you should be looking at whether the candidate has good time management skills, can communicate clearly, can work alone, has excellent organizational skills and is not afraid to ask for help when they get stuck.
As for the technical skills, you need to find out if the candidate can work with the technology stack you use. Flexibility can be a good thing here because there is a lot of overlap in a lot of tech stacks and you might miss out on a great candidate if you are fixated on a specific tech stack or framework.
A good way of gauging their technical skills is by asking them to solve a problem. This can be a paid trial where the candidate works on a real application or some part of it. Technical interviews and pair programming are great options too.
Hiring Overseas? Use a PEO
A professional employer organization (PEO) is an excellent option for businesses that are expanding globally and that want to hire candidates in those locations. If for any reason the business owner or hiring manager cannot conduct interviews in these countries, the PEO will conduct interviews, hire the best candidate and help onboard the candidates so they have an easier time integrating into the team.
The best PEO service will offer other services such as handling the incorporation of your business in the new country or region, payroll for the hires and teams they are responsible for, benefits and a lot more. These are considered to be the best services offered by the PEOs that are ranked and compared on GlobalizationPedia. GlobalizationPedia is a platform that tells you everything you need to know about PEOs including which PEOs are the best in various regions and countries around the world. They also help companies find the best EOR for their recruitment needs and connect these companies with the PEOs that would be a great fit for them.
Watch for Red Flags
As with hiring an in-office employee, you need to keep an eye out for red flags when hiring remote workers. For example, if they cannot log into the virtual interview software you use, they may not have the tech skills to work for you. Also, check to see if they keep time when you schedule a remote interview. This will show their organizational skills and that they respect your time.
Vary Your Interview Formats
Communication is a huge part of working remotely, so candidates should be able to communicate through various means, be it through email, asynchronous communication means or using online meeting software. You can try to use different communication methods throughout the interview to see how they handle them.
You can also use the software you use at the company to do the interview. For example, interviewing through Zoom, with and without video, will show you how well the candidate can handle any tech problems that come up, which happens more often than not.
Use a Pre-Employment Assessment
A pre-employment assessment is an important tool in finding out if the candidate would be a great fit for the company. Studies have shown that candidates who are hired after undergoing a pre-employment test last longer at the companies that hire them.
Hiring remote employees can be a long and complicated process, but it is worth it considering remote work has its set of challenges. Hiring the best candidate ensures you minimize the chances of problems cropping up later on. Do not forget to tweak your hiring practices as you go along, to either streamline the process or improve the quality of candidates you attract and hire.
