How to Manage the Recruiting Process Remotely  

Many companies have been thrown into a remote working environment unprepared and recruiters must adapt their recruiting process immediately. For many, even after the virus subsides, it’s likely that most companies will continue to operate either entirely or partially remotely. In fact, before the virus hit, there was a 159 percent increase in remote work since 2005 and that number is expected to increase dramatically with the impact of Covid19. Therefore, creating a solid remote recruiting process is worth the time. 

Finding Qualified Candidates

The number one way that a person discovers a new job is through a referral. Unfortunately, those referrals usually happen at in-person events like conferences and meetings with friends, though this is no longer a reliable option given the current quarantine guidelines. 

So where can you find high-quality leadership candidates remotely?

Start by writing great job descriptions on job boards like ExecuNet, Glassdoor, or Indeed, depending on your needs. Once you’ve done that, leverage social media to both promote these listings and reach out to colleagues that might know of an ideal fit. 

In addition, do some outbound searching. You can also leverage Linkedin to search for people by job titles that have a mutual contact. Reach out to the mutual connection and ask for an intro. 

If all else fails, you can try using a recruiting tool like BambooHR which helps automate the recruiting process.

Conducting Interviews Remotely

Once you have a few candidates that seem like good fits, it’s time to conduct a remote interview. At TD Madison we typically conduct in-depth panel interviews with both the candidate and multiple members of the hiring organization.

Try to have other key team members on the call as well and make it a video call to pick up on body language cues. You can use tools like Zoom or Google Hangouts to perform the calls. Make sure that you test your microphone before the interview, and Zoom even allows you to do a test call. 

While you’re on the call, be ready for any lag in the wifi and wait for a second or two after they finish talking to start talking. Make every effort to have a stable wifi connection and encourage your team members to do the same.

Your interview questions will likely be the same as your in-person interview, though if you plan to keep your team remote, you should ask them how they feel about a remote setting.

Perform a Trial Assignment

Once the candidates have passed the interview, you should have them perform an assignment. It’s easy to be blindsided by someone’s resume, particularly with a virtual interview, and quite understandable as each corporate job offer receives about 250 resumes. 

However, it’s important to make sure that they are technically sound at their job. You can also get a sense of how needy they are and how much you have to hold their hand. You may want to bring them onto your Slack team and introduce them to some of your online processes to see how they respond to remote work.

If you’re hiring an executive during these times of crisis, introduce them to the main team members and make sure that the rest of your team gets along with them. 

Building The Leadership Team of Your Dreams

Building a great leadership team is one of the most important things a business can do, and with the added challenge of a pandemic, it’s no easy task. While this article examined the challenges of hiring remotely for non-leadership positions, the same challenges hold true for hiring senior company leadership. 

These challenges are further compounded by the general difficulty of finding a quality executive even in the best of times, combined with the smaller pool of available talent for senior positions.

If you need help finding and recruiting senior leadership candidates, reach out to the experts here.