Remote hiring 101: your complete guide to building a distributed team

We know today that the future of work is global and flexible. Businesses are engaging in global talent acquisition & management techniques to optimize their employment prospects, enhance remote hiring procedures, and speed up things so that they can find, evaluate, and hire people efficiently and effectively. The important question is, how?

Any global recruitment team must adopt a common recruiting process checklist. A to-do list keeps everyone on the team focused, moves the remote hiring process along, and enables decision-makers to identify inefficiencies in each stage of the remote hiring process.

Here’s a checklist for your international recruiting needs.

International recruitment checklist

Setting up a distributed team is no mean feat. Whenever it concerns rules, regulations, and best practices for recruiting, each location is distinct, and every nation presents entirely new risks and obstacles. 

Let’s begin with critical factors to consider when remote hiring teams. By using this checklist, you can hire workers internationally and overcome expansion-related difficulties. 

Identify your remote hiring needs

If you’re preparing to hire a global team, the first step is to understand your motivation for remote hiring . Hiring a remote team means you’ll be entering foreign markets and getting access to highly skilled talent for the role you desire.

Make a detailed list of everything you want in a prospective employee, and break that down into technical skills and soft skills. This way, there’s less room for approximations and guesstimates. Making a definitive list of needs will help you make sure you don’t need to take risks with employees.

Build a recruitment plan

Most countries have their statutory requirements, taxation laws, salary policies, and so on. Compliance is a must, so researching how everything is conducted is a good starting point.

Calculating the total cost of acquisition for each role will help you build the right estimates. When preparing to grow, it is important to take into account the following, sometimes unanticipated costs:

  • The salary range
  • Statutory benefits 
  • Attractive benefits 
  • Onboarding/upskilling costs (time/tools/staff)
  • Equipment costs (hardware/software/licenses/company car)
  • Mandated tax and contributions

 Taking all these factors into consideration will help you build a foolproof plan of how you want to go about recruiting new employees. This can include everything from location to role, to salary, and more.

Write a concise and compelling job description

According to research, if your application procedure is excessively drawn-out, antiquated, or burdensome, many job searchers may just quit and look elsewhere.

Be succinct and specific. When recruiting across multiple geographies, it is a good idea to provide all relevant information. For instance, if a visa has to be taken into consideration, you should mention it in the job description.

Employers are trying a range of strategies to speed up the remote hiring process while improving the applicant experience, including doing away with cover letters, switching long applications for a series of fast online inquiries, improving their online application, and utilizing chatbots.

Advertise across the right channels

Advertising your global recruitment on your website is not enough. You can use remote-friendly job boards like Angellist, Flexjobs & WeWorkRemotely. To find local candidates, social media has evolved into a crucial instrument. As a result, you may utilize it to the benefit of your remote hiring experience. Here are a few methods you may use to do that:

  • Target specifics – For instance, some nations favor Facebook as their primary social media platform, while others choose Instagram, Twitter, or WeChat. It is advisable to take analytics into account when choosing your target demographics. 
  • Develop your employer brand – Make sure you are seen by both domestic and foreign applicants as a desired employer. You could do this by expanding social media outreach and regularly working on a blog for your company, where you share details about company culture, perks, benefits, etc.

Review & screen applications

The key to assuring candidate/company fit, tenure durability, higher productivity, and hiring success is comprehensive screening and science-led evaluation. To choose the most suitable members for your global team, try to strike a balance between speed and accuracy. Remember, your competitors are proactive in their pursuit of the top candidates.

To make sure you are choosing the best applicants, it is essential to establish a well-defined interview process that ideally includes objective and comprehensive candidate analysis. To hire the best foreign workers, you must, however, act quickly. Make sure this procedure is in line with the principles of your employment brand and that it is benchmarked against your best employees.

Conduct an efficient remote interview

An interview is an opportunity to create the perfect first impression – not just for the candidate, but also for the employer. However, in absence of non verbal cues like body language, remote interviewers must work harder to extract the complete potential of a virtual interview. Start by reviewing your current interview process and making it remote-friendly, ensuring you have access to all the necessary tools. Brush up your video-call etiquette, and ensure that this interview is a two-way conversation where you introduce the candidate to your company’s culture.

Calculate compensation

When calculating compensation, it’s imperative to ensure a fair wage is being given while keeping everything within your pre-calculated budget. Managing both can sometimes be tricky, but compensation can be calculated in some easy steps. Here’s how:

  • Make an offer that includes the position’s pay, start date, and other details. Working with personnel regarding salary, benefits, and employment policy may be necessary for this.
  • The final offer should be signed by the candidate.

Make sure to also factor in the cost of the following subheads – include the following:

  • Various statutory inclusions like health and accidental insurance
  • Home-office setup 
  • Misc. benefits
  • Pension and gratuity schemes

Extend the job offer

If everything is in order – extend the offer. Think about using the period between the acceptance of the offer and the start date to assist your new employee in starting smoothly (and avoid having them drown in paperwork on their first day). NDA, tax withholding, benefit election, wire transfer details, business card, and other required papers should be provided. Reserve office supplies for your new remote hire as well.

Onboard

Congratulations! You’ve completed the remote hiring process successfully and now have a new global team member. Employee onboarding, a distinct but equally significant procedure to engage and develop your new employee, is now in orderYou can send your new employee a welcome kit and assign them a remote buddy so that they can feel comfortable and ready to start their new day. It also helps to make all documents and guidelines, especially your remote work policy, available to the new employee. This reduces the risk of confusion on both ends.

Check in regularly with them to see how everything is going, and you’re set!

Global hiring best practices

International recruitment is now simpler than ever. That is if you know where to look for, pick out, and employ competent overseas talent. You’ve thus made the decision to begin remote hiring. But where do you look for all those outstanding people from abroad?

Equip your team with the right tools and technology

Thankfully, modern technology makes it simpler than ever to communicate with individuals throughout the world. Collaboration among the interview crew is made possible despite being spread out around the globe, thanks to efficient ATS solutions. 

Additionally, the right technology enables you to plan interviews with applicants while successfully communicating with them and taking into account their time zones. Utilize video conferencing software like Zoom or Google Meet to conduct virtual interviews. Ensure that your remote team has access to all the different tools and technology that they will require during their workday, may it be in the form of an additional monitor or a paid subscription.

Overall, investment in the necessary technology will pay off with a smoother, more open recruiting process for applicants and structured, efficient hiring of new employees for your business.

Embrace cultural differences

You may need to modify your diversity sourcing tactics to account for the fact that demographics vary considerably from area to region. Be mindful of the terms used, as you might need to refrain from using certain turns of phrase or slang terms that are common in your home country., but inappropriate in other regions. Be mindful that you may have to make allowances for accents, grammar, and fluency if you are used to recruiting in a nation where English is not the primary language. 

In any remote team, different people with different backgrounds are going to collaborate on projects. This isn’t a downside, but it helps to understand how different people work and react to certain things. Embracing these differences and enabling people to be who they are while they work is best.

Prioritize data security 

The most crucial guideline when it relates to privacy laws is to always comply, regardless of the nation. Each country will have its own set of laws regarding the collection, storage, and dissimilation of personal data. For example, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a set of stringent rules for the acquisition and handling of personal data from people who live in the EU, must be kept in mind if you are remote hiring within the European Union (EU).

Put an emphasis on culture

Diversity may be a strength and a drawback for virtual teams, particularly those that are international. How teams handle diversity is key. A diverse working environment is essential for fostering innovation, decision-making, and problem-solving.

Teams with greater diversity generate better caliber, and their ideas are more original and creative. Teams with higher levels of diversity also fare better in terms of work quality.

As a result, although it is important to anticipate and handle any possible problems brought on by personal variety, contextual diversity is more likely to have positive effects.

Conclusion

Today, globally distributed teams are enabling business leaders to significantly recruit highly skilled talent without being constrained by geographical boundaries. Thanks to technology, employers now have access to a wide range of information, abilities, and distinctive personalities that the world has to offer. Using this information, we can create a revamped remote hiring process.

Whether you’re new to remote hiring or have multiple teams working remotely, it can get tricky to navigate global teams. At Talent500, we have been building global teams for Fortune500 companies. We have AI-powered tools and the top talent from all corners of the map to help you build globally distributed teams faster. Let’s discuss your requirement, set up a consultation today.

 

7 techniques to conduct efficient remote interviews

The remote workforce is a constant in the way we operate, and will work moving forward. The pandemic gave both employers and employees a taste of just how remote work works. 

Organizations are now aware that having a remote team is not only feasible but also advantageous. Disconnecting work from location widens the talent pool available to businesses wishing to tap into global talent.

With an increasing number of organizations delving into virtual workspaces, the competition for a better, streamlined, and smooth interview process becomes mainstream.

Best practices for conducting remote interviews

There are a tonne of advice articles on the internet for job seekers looking to distinguish themselves from the pack, as businesses struggle to fill a historic high of remote job positions. This, coupled with the need for bias-free and objective interview practices means remote interviewing techniques are getting more complex and inclusive.

The employers at the opposite of the line, though, what about them? 

Poor recruiting choices deplete morale and cost money. Employers must come up with new methods for determining whether an applicant is a good match without the information obtained in person, like body language, soft skills, and other non-verbal cues associated with an offline interview.

As the pandemic and its repercussions continue to change the contemporary workplace, remote interviewing is here to stay. Follow these best practices for conducting remote interviews and get the perfect hire!

Review your current remote interview process

As the first step, take an objective look at the different parts of your interview process to adapt it to remote recruitment. Familiarize yourself with the qualities of a good remote worker, and tweak your job descriptions accordingly.

You could also try to make your remote assessment more objective, direct, and remote-friendly. When you post openings on job boards, make sure you list out all things you need and require. Over-communication is important in this regard. 

Get the right tools and tech

You’ll require a varied set of tools depending on the sort of remote interview you’re doing. Zoom or Google Hangouts should work for the majority of interviews. But occasionally, specialist technologies are required to accurately simulate the in-person experience.

A platform for collaborative coding that both the interviewer and the applicant may utilize at the same time is ideal for hiring engineers. A whiteboard application for front-end developers and/or UX/UI artists, so the applicant can sketch out ideas is also a good idea.

From conferencing software to interactive whiteboards, ensure that both you and the applicant are aware of what is being used, and more importantly, how to use it.

Share all necessary details beforehand

Many job candidates have never conducted a remote interview before, so you can make them feel more at ease by explaining how the process will work: how many sets of interviews you will have; the technologies that will be utilized; and how they will be assessed in each discussion or skills test.

Send updates at each level of the review process to make sure that the applicant experience is not negatively impacted. Regardless of the hiring outcome, this will provide them a sense of worth and appreciation and guarantee that they have a positive view of your employer brand.

Practice your video etiquette

Remember, you’re interviewing too! These days, the best prospects are likely to get many offers. The manner you, the recruiter, present yourself—including your appearance, what is visible in your backdrop, as well as your overall cadence, attitude, and selection of interview questions—will affect how potential workers see your business. 

Therefore, even though advice on how to ace an interview today may be directed at the high number of applicants, those techniques are becoming more and more important for those making the offers.

Make it a two-way conversation

Today’s job seekers aren’t only interested in increasing their pay. Additionally, they are looking for workplace cultures that reflect their personal beliefs and sensitivities, as well as flexibility and well-being. These kinds of questions can help both parties learn critical insight about whether a potential employee would feel satisfied and motivated at a given company.

Ensure that you offer the candidate your full attention. Give them details that are pertinent to their role and responsibilities, and invite them to ask you any questions they might have. 

Take time to introduce the company culture

Company culture is an integral part of the employee lifecycle, one that has a direct impact on retention. This remote interview is a great opportunity for you to introduce the candidate to what life at your company looks like, and why joining would be a good idea. 

Remember to share information about the various aspects of your company’s employee value proposition – perks and benefits, core values, and the different aspects of being an employee. 

Have a backup plan

Even today, connections aren’t stable. The candidate, or even you, can lose connection quickly. Whether it’s because of an unstable internet connection, electricity, or device-related issues, having a backup plan in case something goes wrong is always a good contingency.

Make sure you let the candidate know what to do in case a situation like this arises. You could reschedule the interview, connect on call or ask the candidate what they’d like to do. This way you can rest assured that all contingencies are covered.

Conclusion

74% of businesses anticipate a lasting shift toward remote employment to some extent. According to McKinsey data, between 20 and 25 percent of the workforce in industrialized nations may work remotely three to five days each week. 

It might be scary to hire your first remote workers, especially those who reside outside of your nation. Costs, taxes, and legal compliance are all challenging issues that can seem daunting. Having a structured and thorough remote interview process can help alleviate the pressure.

At Talent500, we understand that the transition to location-independent working is a multi-layered process involving numerous stakeholders and factors. Our team of experts and network of highly skilled professionals are here to help you build your global team in over 50 countries. Ready to take the first step? Set up a consultation with our team here.