Author: Angela Kane

Finding and hiring top talents has become one of the biggest challenges for employers in today’s economic environment. It is difficult to find the right people for your open positions and keep them on the job for a long-term. The highly skilled candidates are headhunted by many other employers and hiring agencies, each of them coming with tempting offers to convince them to accept the job. 

On the other hand, employees are looking for more freedom and flexibility when it comes to the projects they are involved in and their working schedule. This tendency has increased the popularity of remote working among multinational companies. Hiring a freelancer is now easier than ever. So, if you want to discover which are the best practices for hiring remote workers for your small business, then you should keep reading this article.

Search for remote workers in the right places

When you run a small business, it is absolutely normal to not have a generous recruiting budget. Therefore, hiring a remote worker can be more cost-effective than opening a permanent position, located in the office. There are many financial advantages that come in the same package with this recruitment option. However, before you manage to create your team of freelancers, you should first know where to find the gifted remote workers who can deliver great results. 

There are various online platforms specialized in offering freelancers the opportunity to work on diverse projects. Freelancers create their profiles on these websites. You will also open an account as an employer and post your open jobs on these platforms. Once you find the perfect match for your job requirements, you can offer your candidate a payment and benefits package and you are ready to start collaborating. 

Understand their biggest motivation

If you want to hire the right person to work with you remotely, you should start by understanding what are their biggest behavioral issues. Running a small business is not easy. You have a lot of ideas going on in your mind. But, to put them in practice, you will need a talented team to help you consolidate your position on the market. 

On the other hand, you cannot afford to take too many risks with your remote workers. Thus, you will need to know them very well so that you can count on them in any circumstance. So, during the interview, you should start by understanding why they chose to work remotely and discover which are their biggest motivators. 

Furthermore, you should also ask them how they organize their days for working and what is their schedule. It is very important to understand your employees’ working behavior if you want to achieve the success of your small business. In addition, understanding exactly how they approach each project will help you assign them specific tasks which stimulate their potential to the maximum.

Organize several interviews

Even though the candidate seems to be the right fit after the first interview, it is always better to try several methods. Conducting a virtual interview has the disadvantage that you don’t get to meet the potential employee in person. So, you are not able to analyze his body language in detail. Thanks to technology, now it is easier to overcome the distance barrier and see each other during the interview.

For example, you can use skype, phone, or email. If you want to know your future collaborator from different perspectives, it would be better to try all three and put your candidate in different scenarios. The video interview conducted via Skype will help you see the remoter worker during the discussion. If you want to test his ability to respond to your questions in a timely manner, then using the email is the best method you can use. In addition, you can also test his verbal skills by talking with him on the phone and asking him a set of questions. Academic writing companies, for example, use all three methods before they start collaborating with a remote worker.

Wrapping Up

The process of hiring remote employees shouldn’t be different than hiring on-site colleagues. It is very important that once you finished the interview, you will remain under the impression that you can trust that person. The interviewee should demonstrate you that he can work with minimum supervision and he can organize his working schedule in such a way that he can deliver your tasks. Even though you run a small business, this doesn’t mean that you cannot hire one of the top remote workers. Use several interview methods and put your candidates in different situations to get to know them better.