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Tips on Recruiting Remote Candidates

• July 16, 2020

Hiring a remote candidate is slightly different from hiring someone to work in-office or on-premises and is now a more common practice than ever. Remote workers have certain attributes that make them apt at working independently.

It is often soft skills that can demonstrate whether a candidate is a good choice for a remote position. Usually, the duties and skills to perform the actual job are the same as its non-remote equivalent.

So, what should you look for in a remote worker’s CV?

Commitment

Remote workers must want to work. Ultimately, a remote worker has to be committed and dedicated to getting their job done. If you can find the right level of commitment, you can be sure that despite the possible distractions of working from home and with the trust of working unsupervised, they will get the job done.

Enthusiasm and passion

A remote worker doesn’t need to just be committed to their job and self-disciplined, they also need to be self-motivated, with little or no supervision. Their willingness to complete tasks and to do well takes the form of enthusiasm and passion for what they do and who they do it for. If a remote worker doesn’t enjoy what they do, they won’t do it well.

Organisation and time management

A remote worker’s CV should either visibly demonstrate or infer that the candidate is organized. If a remote worker loses focus or gets behind in their task, the impact for a business may be greater as it might not be noticed immediately.

Communication skills

A remote worker needs to be able to convey, perhaps even in an email or by telephone, if they are having problems or need a task carried out by a colleague. Although they might not need to communicate, or even report in all the time, it is expected that when they do that communication is accurate and concise.

Positions of trust

If you can see a remote working candidate has held a position of trust, this illustrates they were relied upon by another business to get their job done, effectively. A supervisory or management role indicates a candidate had less supervision and was expected to be self-disciplined.

Aptitude for technology

Technology is empowering remote working; employees can work as seamlessly remotely as they could in the same building with colleagues and on-premise technology, and surprising number of people find it difficult to navigate communication systems such as Zoom or MS Teams.

Remote working experience

Of course, the ideal thing to look for in a CV for a remote candidate is previous remote work experience. With the number of remote working jobs growing daily, the pool of available and experienced remote workers is falling. As such, it’s the soft skills and attributes above, that will indicate if a candidate has what it takes to be a high-performing remote worker.

If you are looking to hire your next remote worker, or looking for a remote working position, please get in touch on 0207 043 4629 or at recruitment@thegraduateproject.co.uk and The Graduate Project will be happy to help.

By Anirudh Nair