WLP276: Hiring New Remote Team Members
In today’s episode Pilar interviews Mark Kilby, remote work and distributed agile guide, about recruiting for the remote environment, (This conversation was recorded in March 2021.) Adapting, not replicating, hiring in the new context is what is required… and new contexts create new opportunities.
Mark has a course in the Lucid Meetings platform, How to Discover, Interview, and Hire Amazing Remote People, to help organisations adapt their hiring processes to the remote environment – so that has of course been in high demand in recent months.
Remote opens up hiring to a potentially global catchment – but there are regulatory constraints, that might make things more complicated, or require the use of third-party employment specialists. Once you have decided on geographical scope you need to go to where you will find the right people online, depending on your industry – make connections, get to know communities, because this raises the profile of your company and makes it interesting to prospective candidates.
Mark Kilby
From LinkedIn to specialist job boards, it’s important to be very clear about exactly HOW remote the position is… so neither party wastes time proceeding on a mismatch of expectation. Making it clear in the ad exactly what is expected and offered (for example equipment, co-working budget, etc), will encourage good fit.
One upside to the remote environment is that it’s easy to include the team that a new hire will be working with, as well as typical HR and management people – this supports good cultural fit and ultimately successful onboarding. And it’s also easier to organize a multi-stage process, to ensure that aptitudes and skills and motivations are successfully explored, and a good decision made. Managing this process is important, giving candidates clear signals and understanding of the process and a point of contact throughout.
In technical roles, skills tests are important, and seeing how people solve problems in real time can be very useful for any job – you can set up role-play and audition scenarios, to see how they handle specific situations. But async strengths like their ability to communicate in writing, can be tested during the process around the face-to-face meetings. You can also learn a lot from how they prepare for and handle themselves in setting up for an online meeting.
A recent change for the better is that most people now have at least some experience in working remotely, which can be probed extensively at interview, through behavioural questions. At this stage, the rhythm of team communications and expectations can be shared and discussed, because there could be a mismatch of experience here - given the diversity of pandemic-induced situations and how well this was (or was not) managed.
Team hiring processes bring the existing team together, and create opportunities to improve all sorts of things, not just your hiring process – discussing candidates and the procedure surfaces potential changes, any mismatches of values and thought processes, and anywhere you need to learn together as a group. Continual improvement is always available and worth exploring.
After the selection is made, excellent communication around onboarding and integration is also essential – structuring a process and making expectations clear, from admin to learning to introductions. A Trello board can work well to manage this, and again it should be reviewed and developed every time it is used, asking the candidate for feedback which will help the next new hire. Pilar had a great suggestion, to include welcome and orientation videos from each team member on this board, and Mark suggests a specific meeting for this purpose – to supplement reference written documentation and instruction.
Pilar and Mark also discussed terminology, and the implications of terms like remote – which may have negative connotations due to implying distance (remote from what exactly, anyway?) Words stick, and language evolves, and this remains a moving target. Virtual distance is real, and we need to acknowledge how it impacts on every person, wherever they work. “This is a location-independent /untethered / free-range role!”
We will need to revisit this terminology, as the near-future of work unfolds. But the main thing is that remote should NOT mean you are disadvantaged in your team or organization.
Learn more about Mark at MarkKilby.com, and check out his former appearances in this podcast, especially episode 219 –this one has more on the onboarding/integration process, and we’ll be bringing you more on this in an upcoming episode with Nadia Vatalidis, Director of People at the company Remote.
Remember, we love your feedback - please contact us, or you can tweet Virtual Not Distant, or Pilar and Maya directly, with your thoughts and ideas, and do let us know if you try out any of the ideas that were discussed in this week’s episode.
If you like the podcast, you'll love our monthly round-up of inspirational content and ideas:
(AND right now you’ll get our brilliant new guide to leading through visible teamwork when you subscribe!)