As companies search for specialist skilled workers and technology improves, more and more businesses are likely to start recruiting people that they’ve never met face to face. There can be a lot of advantages to hiring remote workers, from finding people with specific skills to cutting down on office expenses. However, many companies are understandably nervous about hiring people they’ve never met.
Here’s some things you should do when you hire people remotely, and some pitfalls to avoid.
1. Get background checks done early in the process
There’s no point going through the recruitment process if something gets flagged up that’ll preclude them from the job. Once you’ve narrowed down resumes and found some candidates. You should consider using employment screening services to carry out background and employment checks before you make any decisions.
Unfortunately, when it comes to hiring remote workers, you will always have people who commit fraud, perhaps because they think it’s easier to get away with. You therefore need to be just as vigilant as when you hire on-site staff.
2. Check ID
While you may not be able to see ID documents in person, you should make sure you check ID using an online service and get it verified. Some forms of ID you could use to verify their identity could include:
- A passport
- Social security card
- Birth certificate
- Employment authorization documents for non-US citizens
This will ensure that the person you’re dealing with is who they say they are. Also, that they have a right to work in the country where they will be employed.
3. Search for employees using job sites
If you don’t mind where your employees are based, then you will probably get a good response from your job advert, as you aren’t just searching for people in your immediate area. Job sites are useful as you can set your location to ‘remote’ or ‘national’, so wherever people search they will find you.
Be sure to write an attention-grabbing post to get the best results.
4. Use social media too
Social media can also be a good way to recruit, as it casts a wider net, and you could even run adverts that reach a global audience. If you are looking for someone with a very specific skill, such as a certain degree or language. You can target ads just at people who have what you want, so you get better candidates to choose from.
5. Hold a video interview
Just because you can’t meet in the same room, doesn’t mean that you can’t chat face to face. Skype interviews are becoming more common, which can be a good way to judge whether a candidate is genuine and to find out more about their personality. You can also ensure that they have a professional nature when you speak to them and can narrow down your candidates list.
6. Be very clear on the terms of the job
Not all remote jobs are flexible, and remote workers can vary from employees to freelancers. Don’t let people who apply make any assumptions. You should firstly check your local labor laws to see whether people will be classed as employed, so you can treat them accordingly and budget for things like employee benefits.
When you write your job advert, you should clearly spell out what you need in terms of hours and the role. Can you offer flexibility, or will they need to be logged in at certain hours? It’s no use hiring remote workers who can’t be there when you need them.
7. Test people’s skills
It’s important to test whether people will be able to do the job before you make hiring decisions. In addition to checking that they have the relevant experience, you should also consider creating a technical skills test in order to check that work can be done to a high standard and in the allotted time.
It can be harder to assess the skills of remote workers, as you can’t just give them a test in the office, so consider putting one online for them to complete.
Conclusion
Hiring remote workers can present a wide range of challenges to employees. When you can’t meet people face to face, it can be harder to check their identity, skills and whether they have the right personality fit. That’s why it’s important to be vigilant when hiring. By checking people’s background and getting copies of their ID documents, it makes it less likely that you’ll have problems down the line.