Hiring a Remote Team: Interviewing and Making an Offer

As Coronavirus reshapes the business landscape, many companies are contemplating the role of making some or all positions fully remote.

It’s a decision that can make a large impact on you business and consists of several steps.

We have created a multi-part series to the key components of remote hiring including how to:

• Know if a position can or should be make remote
• Conduct a search for a new remote employee
• Ensure that you have the right policies for remote workers
• Interview and make an offer

In this edition, we’ll look at interviewing and making an offer.

How Does Remote Hiring Change the Interview & Negotiation Process

At ACCUR Recruiting Services, much of the recruiting work we do is handled via phone calls and teleconference, so the idea of conducting remote interviews and negotiation is second nature.

For some organizations, it requires a shift in thinking. And with that shift comes certain advantages, including:

• The ability to create a more systematized process for interviews that will be more efficient in singling out appropriate candidates
• The ability to source candidates in lower-cost-of living areas
• The ability to use location flexibility in the negotiation process

Decide on a format for the interview

Some well-known fully remote companies (like WordPress) conduct preliminary interviews via instant message. It’s an unusual format but it can deliver interesting insights free of visual cues.

Many companies will want to use a videoconferencing platform like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Skype to conduct interviews via video.

Decide on a framework for the interview

After years of interviewing scores of candidates, we’ve settled on a framework that we like to come back to in our interviews. Why? It helps us cut through “canned” answers and over-prepared speeches.

How do we do that? Over time we’ve decided that focusing on four areas help us get a full picture of the candidate:

• Get the candidate talking in an open-ended way
• Ask questions that invite revealing answers
• Suss out the candidate’s understanding of big picture issues at their company
• Zero in on project work and the candidate’s role

You can see more on our framework here and use it to spin off a strategy of your own. Returning to a set of objectives will ensure you are getting a candidate who can grow with your organization.

Making an offer

Deciding to make a position fully remote will have an impact on the offer and negotiation process in several ways. For one thing, it can influence where you look for talent.

We have further found in our surveys of candidates that workers really prize flexibility in an offer. Choosing to make a position fully remote, and putting the parameters of that position in writing, can be a major advantage in crafting a compelling offer to an executive hire.

Compensation will always be far and away the most important factor, but taking these considerations into account will help you make the best and more attractive offer to the candidate you want.

Contact us for more help

With an international network of recruiters and deep experience in placing candidates in fully remote positions, ACCUR can be your partner in conducting a search for a candidate who will be a great fit in a rapidly changing business environment. Contact us for more.