When it comes to hiring remote workers, looking only at knowledge, skills, and experience is simply not enough.
Regular hires will be in the office alongside you, day after day, giving you the opportunity to get to know them, supervise them, and directly communicate with them. When it comes to an employee working remotely, there will be a bit of a natural disconnect. Due to this, personality traits are just as important (if not more important) than basic qualifications as your company is deciding who to hire.
The following is a list of personality traits to lookout for while sifting through applicants:
Working remotely requires a great deal of self-discipline. You want to be sure that the worker you hire is independent and able to complete tasks in an organized, timely manner, without you having to constantly check up on them. In order to find the applicants who possess this trait, look for prospects who have worked remotely in the past. Be sure to check their references and look at work samples.
Remote workers follow through.
Make sure that potential hires are able to both start and finish projects in an efficient and professional manner. A good way to test this is by giving potential candidates a trial assignment or small project. This will allow you to gauge everything from their work ethic to skill level.
Your remote workers are organized.
Organization is key for a remote worker to be successful in their position and keep themselves on task, outside of an office setting. It’s a bit more difficult to really see who excels at organization and who doesn’t, but trial assignments, reference checks, and a Skype interview may give you a decent idea.
Your remote workers are able to communicate effectively.
Remote workers are able to communicate properly
You need a remote worker who can communicate with you as effectively as possible. This can be a difficult task from miles and miles away, but communication is necessary to the success of the employee. Pay close attention to their communication skills during the interview process. Be sure that their messages are well-written and to the point, that you speak (and understand) the same language, and that they’re open to speaking over the phone or video chat throughout the day, as necessary.
They have the ability to handle criticism.
There may come a time where you may need to correct your remote worker. If they don’t handle criticisms with grace, then that could potentially cause serious problems over the course of their employment. Find someone who is positive and excited to learn and grow. To find these applicants in the stack, give some constructive criticism to the candidate during their trial assignment. How they react to it (check facial expressions, word choice, etc.), will tell you all you need to know.
Remote workers are the future of industry. While hiring someone to work outside of the office may seem like a strange and problematic concept, problems with remote employees can easily be avoided if you hire the right people.
If possible, try to hire through a website like Turing. Turing focuses on finding job placements for remote software engineers and only takes the top 1% of applicants. This means that every remote worker we match with a company, is guaranteed to be the best in terms of quality and performance.
Tell us the skills you need and we'll find the best developer for you in days, not weeks.
