For many employers, their employees working from home has become a viable option especially due to the situation of the global pandemic. For many of the world’s giant conglomerates, they have introduced the option of working from home. Amazon has allowed some of their staff work from home till mid-2021.
Companies like Twitter had already been on path of having their staff work remotely but with the COVID-19 situation, there was a bigger push towards adopting remotely working permanently for some of their staff.
Working remotely has its benefits and its disadvantages. One of the prominent benefits is the reduction in overhead costs. For Twitter, having less employees at the office allowed them sublease three floors in their property in San Francisco. One of the disadvantages is that innovations are borne most times out of these clusters of people with various ideas, which will ultimately reduce as most employers adopt remote working.
What’s the Process Behind Remote Hiring?
After 2020, it is projected that many employees will make a move for jobs that allow them work remotely. However, for every establishment that tries to hire remotely, the process may be different.
If you are interested in working remotely, the steps to take are to:
Search for Remote Jobs: the most common kind of remote jobs right now are freelancing jobs, contract jobs and part-time jobs. Extend the scope of your job search, look everywhere online, follow potential employers on social media, check out online job listings boards, etc.
Be informed that most companies now will likely hire remote workers on short term capacity. Also, use keywords like “remote” or “work from home” when you search on online job listings.
Interview: If you’re selected for an interview, it means your application passed the application review stage. If you’re applying for a remote job then your interview is most likely to remote and if remote, you have the responsibility of proving your hard and soft skills over the platform you’re communicating with.
Considering the fact that you may not receive the training afforded to a new staff, you will have to be up and doing from the first day. During the interview, try to emphasize on your capabilities with regards to the job.
Prepare for Video Interviews: Hiring remotely mean very slight chances of physical meetings hence, part of the process involves a lot of video calls involving different personalities like the interview team, the HR personnel, your supervisor, etc. all depending on the company.
It is best to familiarize yourself with the various videoconferencing platforms like Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, Cisco WebEx, and Microsoft Teams. It is advisable to have an account on every of these platforms and know how to use them.
As with physical interviews, ensure to dress appropriately for the interview, and if possible set up a workspace for the interview. Sometimes, your boss may not start right off with video calls, they may start with phone calls. Whichever it is, ensure to prepare yourself for video interviews.
Prepare to Answer Questions with Regards to your Location: Beyond answering the regular interview questions such as your skills, your qualifications, your experiences, etc. Since the home or wherever your workspace is, your employer may want to find out the condition of your environment to determine if your location can impede your productivity. They may want to find out the expenses that stem from you working at your location.
Prepare to Take on A Sample Project: It is commonplace for employers to conduct pre-employment assessment tests for their potential employees, this is in a bid to ascertain your level of preparedness for the job. For remote hiring, it is even more important because the company has to be ultra-confident in your abilities before they hire you.
Follow Up After the Interview: As with physical interviews, do the same with remote interviews. Follow up the interview process with a thank you note, this time via an email. It shows your commitment in getting the job.
A Letter Should Follow: You should ideally be contacted after the interview with either an offer letter or a rejection letter. It will not be strange if the company doesn’t get back to you, there are companies like that though professional courtesy is that they should get back to you.
After the Job Offer
Before you accept the offer, you need to put somethings in perspective like the benefits accrued to you as an employee (sick leave, severance packages especially if it’s a short-term job). You should also consider the work culture of the company, maybe there are some perks for working for such a company that may affect your work-life balance (for some companies, they keep their remote workers on call for the whole day).
If you’re working remotely for a company in a different time zone, then you should be ready to adjust your schedule based on their time zone.
Orientation
When you receive the job, you are expected to participate in the orientation program for new staff, this would hold online too. You are also expected to participate in the onboarding process where you would familiarize yourself with other members of staff of the company. The onboarding process is expected to include online interactive sessions between members of staff of the company, especially via video conferencing platforms.
