Contact us anytime to know more — Abhishek P., Founder & CFO CISIN
The hiring procedure is never simple, particularly when you're taking on remote personnel, but becoming a good sleuth and following hints (where legally permissible to do so) will save lots of headaches down the road.
Through time, I have hired a variety of distant workers for my different companies with varying levels of success and discovered a thing or two in the procedure.
First of all, considering remote workers is a good idea. Employees working from home are discovered to be generally happier and more productive.
It's no surprise that enabling employees to work in the home may save you money on costly office space.
But, there is only one catch: human character. If you are a company owner then "distant worker" triggers a second concern: that you're paying someone your hard-earned money to sit to watch Game of Thrones.
Interviewing prospective virtual employees is catchy. Here are some questions I have found that help to get a better read on a prospective work-from-home employee:
1. Have you been clear about the expectations for this particular position?
If your job description is something vague such as "improve our sales performance" or "foster better communications across the business," then it is easier for individuals to dismiss all day because the ranking lacks clear, ascertainable criteria for functionality.
But if it is "cold phone 100 prospects a day, log them at the business instrument, and create at least 20 solid leads per week," then you'll know in a week or so if your new employee is performing his job.
I've found being highly certain about what's required can place both parties up for success. It is OK to convey to your interviewee that till hope is earned it has to be measured.
2. What inspires you?
You're on the lookout for a self-starter, as people who are looking to be informed what to do won't succeed in a work-from-home situation.
Given the many temptations of a home office, a high level of motivation is imperative. That is really where figuring out how the individual believes is essential. I like to have what makes someone tick and have experienced good success with great hires the more I do this.
Hunt for clues which are keys to analyzing the level of motivation the person has, like if the person has begun anything by themselves, even if it's a local cleanup committee.
Is the individual motivated to do things and also make advancement in life? What is driving your prospective employee?
Is he encouraging a costly hobby? Does she want to learn the ropes so she could open her own business someday? Locating the origin of motivation ought to be your principal goal for your meeting.
3. Have you ever done this before?
Your interviewee either has or has not. If not, then the individual would be trying out this on your dime, so some scrutiny is demanded.
If the person has, then you want to know what occurred. If the earlier work-from-home situation fell apart for reasons outside your interviewee's controller, check the story out with the previous employer.
The key here is figuring out whether the offender knows how to work remotely and has done so successfully in the past, and also to find this story corroborated by others.
If not, proceed with caution.
4. Do you have a quiet area to do the job?
Children, dogs, and noisy neighbors can be significant distractions when an individual is working from their residence.
If your prospective employer does not own a home office, then Starbucks might be an OK option -- unless he or she has to make phone calls since nothing screams "amateur" like the sound of a coffee grinding machine in the background while somebody is hoping to close a bargain.
Here you may want to fulfill the interviewee halfway by offering to foot the bill for a shared office space in an area such as WeWork or even Grind.
5. Are you really comfortable with time alone?
There's one major drawback to working from home: societal isolation. Studies have revealed that the secret to joy is interacting with different people.
Someone embarking on their first work-from-home experience might soon find that the structure is making them unhappy.
Since you need a happy worker and a person who'll remain around for some time, it's crucial for their sake and yours they have a strong social support network and options like WeWork near them where they could go to alleviate their loneliness.
Ideally, you will receive someone who has confronted this problem before and includes a strategy to manage this.
This draws from my earlier approach to knowing what makes someone tick; the longer you know about them, the better you can assess whether they're a great fit for a distant work prospect.
6. Are you an optimist?
Obviously, don't ask this question, as you won't receive a straight answer. The ideal method to get at how an individual believes would be to pose a hypothetical situation to observe the way your interviewee responds.
By way of example, "You are going through a sales slump and no one's calling you back again. What do you really do?" What you're looking for here is a clue to the way the prospect has managed adversity before.
Why? Optimism is important to motivation. You cannot be encouraged if you believe you don't have any prospect of succeeding or have no notion that you will.
Pessimists are dead weight if you're establishing a remote workforce, therefore sniff out the pessimism at the interview.
In my experience, most people have a decent work ethic and so are encouraged to create their remote situation work nicely for them and their employer.
There is, though, a huge proportion of the population who need to maintain the workplace, requiring regular motivation and leadership.
Ideally, you'll have a mixture of both, but the main issue is that your employees are happy. In the best-case situation, both you and your self-motivated, optimistic, emotionally good employee will be thrilled about a remote employment scenario.
Sizing up a remote employee is one area where you don't want to dial it in, as it's to your advantage to channel your inner Nancy Drew and select up on the clues through thoughtful interview plans.
