Millions of workers and thousands of companies have already discovered the joys and benefits of working remotely. In companies of all sizes, representing virtually every industry, remote work has seen steady growth year after year.
By following this advice, you’ll have the best possible chance of hiring passionate and talented remote workers, who’ll make a positive impact on your business.
The first thing you may ask yourself is should I hire a full-time or part-time remote worker?
One thing that you should consider before posting a job on Pros Marketplace or looking for workers on a profile search is whether to hire them full-time or part-time. The difference in cost might not be as big as you think, especially given the cost savings already in hand by hiring workers from Latin America, but the benefits are significant.
Full-time is the way to go.
With a full-time remote worker, you’ll not only get an employee dedicated solely to your business working 40+ hrs. a week, but you’ll get someone who is emotionally and financially invested in the success of your business. As it’s their only job, they’re relying on it for security, so expect them to go the extra mile and become valuable members of your team.
So, how do you find great remote workers?
On Pros Marketplace you have two ways to find remote workers:
You can post a job and wait for applicants to come to you
or
You can search through the many profiles on our site and interview them one by one.
The first rule of attracting good candidates to your job post is to create a detailed job description.
But be specific and concise. Specify the job description and expectations but don’t go too much into detail. There’s room for more specifications later in the interview process.
Try to keep your job post short, easy to understand, and straight to the point.
Start by listing hard and soft skill requirements.
Hard skills are specific technical skills like WordPress, Java, Photoshop, or other specific skills.
Soft skills relate to desirable personality or character traits, such as the ability to take directions, the ability to work under pressure, the attention to detail and so on.
List both hard and soft skills required as bullet points and be concise.
Here’s one mistake some businesses make. They list far too many skills in their job posts. This simply confuses jobseekers and puts some good prospects off from applying. Too many skills mean you’re looking for the “perfect employee” who simply does not exist. It’s pretty much impossible to find a virtual assistant who is great at sales and customer support, who is also good at SEO, designs awesome-looking websites, and creates inspiring code. This person simply does not exist in Latin America or anywhere else in the world. Instead, focus on a couple of skills. By doing so you’ll get much more accurate applications from real experts in their respective fields.
If you are still not sure how to write a well constructive and informative job post you can have a look at some examples at the end of this article.
If you’re contacting workers one by one on a profile search, send them an identical initial message. In your initial approach, you should let them know that you’ve read their resume and that you want to know more about them and their background. You should also describe the specific tasks you want to outsource.
Questions, questions, and more questions…
Once you have posted your job on Pros Marketplace you’ll have to wait for candidates to apply. You’ll probably get a ton of applicants within the first 24 hrs. so sift through the jobseekers that have applied to your job and get down to a shortlist of 10 to 15 candidates who appear to best fit your needs. You don’t want to interview them at this stage, rather open up communication with them via our platform. The purpose here is to get an early feel for them, so send them a message asking some exploratory questions.
Their answers should reflect the claims on their application and profiles.
Think of interviewing a remote worker as if you were to interview a normal in-house employee. In fact, at first glance, you should ask pretty much the same range of questions you’d ask anyone applying for a normal office job. You want to explore their ambitions, hopes, experience, and skills, as well as understand their personalities, whether they’ll be able to embrace your company culture, and ultimately if they’d be a great fit for your business.
Remember, you’re looking for compelling reasons to narrow your list down to just a few for final interviewing.
Here are some first-stage questions you might want to ask your candidates but don’t limit yourself to just these examples. The more questions you can think of and ask, the better:
- How long have you been working as a virtual assistant/web developer/web designer…?
- Have you worked remotely before?
- Have you worked for a foreign employer before?
- Send me 3 examples of your best work.
- How many hours can you work per week?
- How fast and reliable is your internet connection?
- How much money are you looking to earn each month?
- What is your preferred payment method?
- How would you complete the following task?
- Write a paragraph on why I should hire you. Don’t send a list of your skills. Be creative in answering.
- Are you available to work from 8 am to 6 pm (EST Time), Monday through Friday?
- When would you be available to start work?
These are good questions to start off with but because hiring a remote staff is a little different from your normal recruitment process, your line of questioning for candidates over time will have to change too.
Here are some additional questions to help you evaluate and understand more about your candidates:
- How do you stay focused? Can your new recruit remain motivated and concentrate on their work when you’re not there with them?
- Have you ever worked to tight deadlines? You want to know how your potential recruit respects and copes with the pressure of deadlines. Ask them for an example of this.
- How do you overcome problems on your own? Because you’re not there to watch over them, how well can this person solve problems using their own initiative?
- How comfortable are you with raising work-related concerns? You’ll want a remote worker who’ll be proactive and happy to raise concerns or ask questions to get an issue or misunderstanding sorted out before it becomes a big problem. This shows initiative which is a good trait in an employee.
- How do you keep up with industry news? This is a good way of finding out how passionate your potential hire is about your business. For example, if you’re looking to hire a remote web designer who doesn’t read up on the latest design trends or awards, then don’t expect them to produce exceptional work!
- What hours do you work? Does your interviewee prefer working early or late, and will they be flexible and available when you need them?
- Are you comfortable using time-tracking software? Using software to keep an eye on what your remote worker is doing is a common practice. Products like Hubstaff are great ways to track hours worked and monitor remote workers to prove and increase efficiency. If your worker doesn’t want to use it, you should ask yourself why.
Additionally, you should evaluate how good their English is. For example, if you wanted to find a virtual assistant, and you listed good written English as a required skill in the job description, then you’d expect the applicant to respond in clear and concise English, with particular attention to detail. Pay close attention to their grammar when they reply to your messages. Sloppy language or bad grammar should instantly raise a red flag. Great English is essential for jobs like admin, customer service, and copywriting. Jobs like programming and graphic design don’t require perfect English. However, all of your workers should speak well enough to communicate with you.
You should also evaluate how prompt they are in replying to you. It’s quite fair to assume that if they take a long time to reply to your initial communication, they’ll take a long time doing just about everything.
Check for inconsistencies in their messages and their resumes. Pay attention to what applicants write in their messages and compare them to what is written in their profiles. Commonly, some workers will apply to your job without having the required skills listed in the job description. This shouldn’t be a concern to you. Sometimes these inconsistencies are only a problem of confusion, misunderstanding, or a simple mistake. But this could also be a sign that the applicant has not been completely honest.
These steps should allow you to make some informed decisions toward narrowing down your candidates. If answers do not appear to back up claims made on their application or their profile, then you’ve quickly and painlessly saved yourself a headache down the line.
How to Interview Remote Workers?
You’ve now been able to narrow down the list of candidates having judged their responses to your initial questions. One or two might have been eliminated on pure gut instinct, and it’s normally a good rule to follow: if something doesn’t seem right, it probably isn’t.
At this point, it’s not essential to carry out your interview with a video call, but some roles might make this a sensible option. For example, if you’re going to work with a virtual assistant, then he or she should feel comfortable being interviewed on Skype.
Consider using social media as part of your interview process. One of the questions to ask in an interview is for their Facebook profile so that you can get to know the candidate a bit better. You can look through photos, information, and interests. In a remote-based interview, this can save you a fair amount of questions.
One technique that you can use as part of the interview process is to give candidates a trial task to complete. If you are confident enough that they have the skills or they exhibit the right behaviors, give them a basic task to do and test out their skill sets. This task shouldn’t be easy but also shouldn’t be impossible to complete and it should reflect the nature of the job you’re hiring for. Examples might be writing a 500-word article (good for writer jobs), creating a small PowerPoint presentation (for Virtual Assistants), or developing a simple WordPress plugin that would help your website (cool for web developers).
Again, a great asset you want to look for is communication, so use “trial work” as a basis for understanding how well this potential team member will communicate with you. We are not talking only about language or grammar now, but rather about frequency of reporting, sending emails, and being available on instant chat messenger
Please note that for trial tasks, it’s fair to compensate people for their time. Do not expect individuals to work for free just because you are offering a potential full-time position. If you are hesitant to pay someone because you doubt their ability to do the job, you might need to interview a different candidate—someone whose experience clearly demonstrates their ability to complete the required tasks.
If you’ve interviewed several candidates and can’t choose between them, the results of their “Trial Task” might be the answer to your doubts.
It does take more time than a single interview in some cases. This is not only because interviewing over the Internet can be slower but also because it may take some time for you to establish a relationship with the person where you are confident enough that you want them to join your team.
Good Luck with your Recruitment and Happy Hirings!
EXAMPLES OF JOB POSTS
Full-Time WordPress Developer – Immediate Start
I am seeking to add a new team member to our remote team. We develop WordPress-based sites for our clients and looking to add developers to the team. There are no requirements for design work, only the ability to slice from PSD once provided by one of our graphic designers.
What we do:
- We develop WordPress-based websites for small to medium-sized businesses.
- Team members work autonomously but have the support of other team members if required.
- We generally try to have 1 designer and 1 developer work on a project, rather than everyone working together.
Job Expectations:
- Working days are Monday to Friday.
- Start time is between 8 am-10 am EST time.
- 8 hours working each day + breaks. (for example, if you start at 8.30 am and take 1/2 hour for lunch, your work day would finish at 5 pm) .
- We use BaseCamp and DropBox for task management.
- Each day you will be emailed a list of priority tasks, and at completion of your shift, you will send a daily report.
- We use Skype during working times.
The Experience and Skills you need:
- Ability to create a WordPress theme from a PSD and not just customize an existing theme.
- Comfortable with building custom post types, and plugins for WordPress.
- Ability to work independently or as a team.
- Strong communication skills.
Salary & Benefits:
- You are entitled to all national Latin American public holidays.
- Sick leave entitlements are paid after the first 3 months.
- 4 weeks accrued annual leave each year, fully paid.
- I pay weekly via PayPal and include additional to cover the fees deducted.
What to do if you are interested:
- Apply through Pros Marketplace.
- Provide me 3 examples of your BEST WordPress work.
- Advise your salary expectation.
- Availability to start work.
Include the words “I am a WordPress Developer” at the top of your application. I will then arrange an informal interview with you via chat.
If we feel the working arrangement would be beneficial, the first step will be to complete a paid trial project.
Full-Time Graphic Designer (Web & Print)
I am looking for a full-time graphic designer to join our team. This person needs to be a highly experienced graphic designer, particularly in web design and logo development.
Job Expectations:
- Working days are Monday to Friday.
- Start time is between 8 am-10 am EST time.
- 8 hours working each day + breaks. (for example, if you start at 8.30 am and take 1/2 hour for lunch, your work day would finish at 5 pm)
- We use BaseCamp and DropBox for task management.
- Each day you will be emailed a list of priority tasks, and at completion of your shift, you will send a daily report.
- We use Skype during working times.
The Experience and Skills you need:
- Proficiency and experience using Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.
- Ability to work independently or as a team.
- Strong communication skills.
Salary & Benefits:
- You are entitled to all national Latin American public holidays
- Sick leave entitlements are paid after the first 3 months
- 4 weeks accrued annual leave each year, fully paid.
- I pay weekly via PayPal and include additional to cover the fees deducted.
What to do if you are interested:
- Apply through Pros Marketplace.
- Provide me 6 examples of your BEST work – 3x logos and 3x websites.
- Advise your salary expectation.
- Availability to start work.
Include the words “I am a graphic designer” at the top of your application.
I will then arrange an informal interview with you via chat. If we feel the working arrangement would be beneficial, the first step will be to complete a paid trial project.
Full-Time VA – Transcription, Web, Blog, and Social Media Management
I am looking for a general virtual assistant to join my existing team. You will be able to work from home, and I require you to work during EST business hours. (9 am – 5 pm, Monday through Friday). This person will need strong English skills (Written and verbal), as well as strong computer skills.
Below is a list of the general tasks I require for this position:
Transcription
Transcribing recorded audio into an article. I record blog posts as audio and upload them to DropBox. You would then listen to that audio and transcribe it to an edited, and formatted article.
Server Management
Someone who is familiar with WHM and cPanel and can perform basic tasks. High levels of experience are NOT required as training is provided. However, someone who is familiar with, or had at least limited experience with these systems.
Calendar Management
Using shared calendars on Google Drive.
Blog Posting and update
Familiar with using WordPress to post articles and manage comments. Ability to edit and upload photos, format blog posts, and publish accordingly.
Social Media
Comfortable with managing major social media, including posting, user management, reporting, etc.
Salary & Benefits:
- You are entitled to all national Latin American public holidays.
- Sick leave entitlements are paid after the first 3 months.
- 4 weeks accrued annual leave each year, fully paid.
- I pay weekly via PayPal and include additional to cover the fees deducted.
What to do if you are interested:
- Apply through Pros Marketplace.
- Provide examples of relevant work.
- Advise your salary expectation.
- Availability to start work.
You must be a highly motivated individual with both strong written and spoken English skills. You must possess great communication skills and be able to work independently or as a team.
Include the words “I am a professional VA” at the top of your application.
I will then arrange an informal interview with you via chat. If we feel the working arrangement would be beneficial, the first step will be to complete a paid trial project.
