How to hire someone you've never met in person

The majority of HR specialists prefer to make the final recruiting choice only after spending sufficient time with potential candidates, preferably in person. What could be more vital to your organization than hiring and nurturing the best talent. At the end of the day, we rely on people, not on business strategies or gut feeling in hiring.

As for many business leaders, the face-to-face interview phase is the most desired portion of the recruiting process which was the preferred method than remote hiring. Before you reach there, you've already screened the candidate's résumé, learnt about their job history, and most likely interacted with them over a call. But the matter lies in recognizing if that's "the one."

What precisely are you searching for when you're interviewing candidates for a position? Perhaps it's someone with a positive attitude or someone who appears to be enthusiastic, focused, and sociable. Arriving at the principal point, what if you're hybrid recruiting? Or the position you're hiring for is remote, and the candidates who made it to the final round of interviews are located all over the world? Here's how to hire someone you've never met!

‍

Also Read: Top 10 recruitment thought leaders to follow in 2022

‍

How to hire someone you've never met?

‍

‍

1. Conduct interviews on different platforms

Remote hiring doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to a video calling platform. You may want to explore and hold interviews over the other means on the internet, via audio or even a chat. The founder of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, used to conduct a few of his firm’s interviews rounds via an online chat with the job seekers.

While having no idea on the gender or origin of the candidates, he pinned his hopes solely on the words in front of his screen. Mullenweg highlighted how this technique was near to a double-blind experiment, something that prevents hiring biases when evaluating a candidate. In this context, the two things he was looking for in a candidate were passion and cultural compatibility.

‍

2. Look beyond a cold reference check

While references are a great hiring tool for remote hiring, there’s no harm in looking up the candidate on social media platforms, such as LinkedIn. Before you hire them, this is your chance to look for red flags. One such emerging concept is social recruitment, the process of recruiting applicants through social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, and other means like online forums, text recruiting and job boards.

Some of the best sources of hires come from an automated referral management system. The power of Al and automation allows the algorithms to understand, analyze, and parse any resume format. This saves both time and effort required to parse what could be an enormous heap of resumes and applications.

‍

Also Read: Choosing a Recruitment Management System

‍

3. Involve your team members in the process

The new employee will have a significant impact on the short as well as the long-term performance of their overall team. Thus, it's worth incorporating members of their future team, as many as you can feasibly fit, into the recruitment funnel.

Parabol, a fully distributed firm, goes a level ahead with this while making sure to include at least one person from each of their departments throughout the "cultural fit" assessment of their interview process. Allowing certain teammates to do a one-on-one interview with the possible hire is one example. Alternatively, you may establish a panel of a few members of your staff and conduct a single informational interview for remote hiring.

‍

4. Assign a sample work

To gain a sense of candidates' personalities and aptitudes, many firms use tests, work samples, or similar assessment tools (See The ROI of ATS). Such an assignment help provide a chance to reflect, interact and collaborate with an applicant.

This is an area where Blinkist, a Germany-based company, excels. The nonfiction book summary service offers candidates an outline of what to expect before each value assessment or interview, including the names of persons they'll meet and some resources to help them prepare.

‍

5. Challenge your company’s cultural biases

We often prioritize the concept of “cultural fit” to find our ideal candidate. While it’s just as important a parameter as the others in the recruitment funnel, it should be noted- "Fit" connotes similarity; it implies that you're looking for someone who acts and thinks the same way you do.

Seeking cultural additions at your company with candidates who can potentially introduce new, complementary viewpoints to the table is a good way to look at this. This kind of adjustment is crucial in a virtual hiring context when small talk and rapport-building are less natural.

‍

Also Read: Top recruiting challenges and how to overcome them

‍

6. Create a standard onboarding process

You may want to define, restructure and establish a systematic onboarding process when it comes to remote hiring. When you can't roll your chair to the new employee’s workstation or peer over their shoulder, training and onboarding a new employee needs a little more planning. You'll still need to identify yourself and your organization, perhaps refer a recruitment process guide, as well as describe how you go about your onboarding.

‍

Conclusion

We are done with the way on how to hire someone you've never met. Companies must redefine their solutions from remote-friendly to remote-first, with 59 per cent of individuals choosing to work remotely as much as possible, even when offices resume. This includes re-designing hiring processes to ensure that you don't miss out on remote hiring talent that can help your company thrive by bringing different perspectives and top recruiting resources to the table.

A full-fledged applicant tracking system (ATS), like that of a one-view integrated recruitment automation solution- peopleHum, allows you to track all of your applications, immediately dismiss individuals who don't fulfil your requirements and make informed decisions about who advances further.

‍

Also Read: The Truth About Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS)

‍

The platform further leverages the power of Al to automate sourcing, candidate screening, scheduling interviews and follow-through cycles. On our recruitment system, you may get the most up-to-date one-view recruitment metrics to track the whole talent acquisition cycle. This way, your analytics imbibe the power to measure the effectiveness of your funnel, reduce time to hire, and make any necessary improvements for a phenomenal remote hiring experience.