3 Ways You Can Hire Someone Remotely
Every business comes to this point eventually – when they hire their first employee who is not a founder or owner of the company. Hiring is often the most neglected issue when it comes to running your business. However, I would argue that it is by far one of the most critical parts of your business. Many companies just straight-up outsource the hiring process, which I can relate to if they have large teams, the retention level is low, or it is harder to find people with the necessary skills. However, for small- and medium-sized businesses or startups, hiring shouldn’t be outsourced, and it always has to be done at the managerial level. Your people are vital to your success.
Now when it comes to remote hiring, it’s not that much of a difference compared to hiring someone locally and in person. There are some subtle and minor tweaks you should do though. When you decide to hire remotely, you need to consider three factors:
How much time you can spare on the hiring process?
How much time do you need from the new employee to work for you?
How urgent is it to fill the position?
First, you need to check your calendar. How much time can you dedicate to the hiring process? You need to make a decision, on average, a daily 1 hour is required to find the best candidate, and you need that hour for a couple of weeks. Second, do you need someone to jump on a project and then leave, or do you need someone for the long term? Do you need him to do only one thing, a couple of hours of work per day and that’s it, or do you need someone full-time? Last, how urgently do you need someone? These are the questions you need to ask yourself before jumping right into the hiring process.
Option 0: Bet on locals first
The first move you should consider is to hire locally. I know it sounds weird, as I’m advocating remote business here, but trust me, hire locally first. Hire in the usual way but this time offer the work-from-home option. Who knows, you might find someone not far away from you who wants to work with your company but doesn’t want to relocate or go to your office. Work from home option is a good call here. Run through your peers, friends, co-workers, their friends, and local networks. Anyone who comes with a strong personal recommendation is better than anyone straight out from the internet. Go to local meetups and hire from there. If you already have a user base, hire from there. They are a comfortable cultural fit as they know your business in and out, and if not the best applicant, they can recommend someone. If you couldn’t find anyone locally because of the scarcity of talent, then you can go online and hire remotely.
Option 1: Remote freelance sites
Most entrepreneurs would argue that they need someone right now and they don’t have too much time for the hiring process. So let’s see that option first. If you don’t have time to hire someone, but you need someone pretty much now, you have two options: remote freelance sites and remote recruitment companies. If you need this person for a short term to solve one specific problem, go to remote freelance sites. If you need this person for the long-term to work with you on several projects, contact a remote recruitment company.
Remote freelance sites are sites like UpWork, PeoplePerHour, Fiverr, Freelancer, and countless copycats. Most of them have the same features: they list freelancers and their services, pretty much their skills based on a public profile. Everyone who hires them can leave a public review. All payments and paperwork are done through the freelance site from which they chunk out a small percentage. Most of these sites are charging employees with these fees, but some, like UpWork, are charging employers also.
What’s great about these sites is that you can get someone onboard in a matter of hours, plus you have all their references listed publicly on their profile.
The bad news though is most of those who are featured on these sites are cheap low billed soldiers of fortunes, with mediocre skills. If you need someone for not-so-complicated work, that is fine, but if you are looking for a senior-level type of work with high added value, you should look elsewhere.
Of course, there are some gems in here too, there are some talented people on these sites, but you have to fight your way through hundreds of mediocre applicants to get to those few shiny ones.
Option 2: Remote recruitment services
Remote recruitment services might be your best bet for long-term employees with high-end skills. Companies like Toptal, FlexJobs, StackOverflow, Coworks, and many others offer sort-of-like traditional recruitment services. They pre-screen applicants for you and deliver only the best for your job post. Some of them work like outsourcing agencies where you can “borrow” contractors for short- or mid-term projects. Not all of them but they tend to manage the paperwork for you as well during the employment so no worries on contracts and payments, you pay only the recruiter as an umbrella company for freelancers. These solutions are great because you can have instant access to a pre-screened high-end workforce, but I wouldn’t recommend them to those who are planning for the long term. First, these companies are a bit pricey, which is understandable, considering they do a lot of legwork for you. Second, most of them “borrow” or “transfer” employees for you, but the employee will stay within their umbrella. To me, that only works, if the project needs immediate attention, but it’s not for the long term. Loyalty is crucial when it comes to employment, anyone who’s “lent” through a network cannot be loyal to a business. If you need someone for a short period, but do a tremendous high-value job, fine though.
Option 3: Remote job boards
As you can see, these solutions are closely related to the term outsourcing. You need someone for one task, you need it fast, and you look for external, offshore sources. However, if you want to build a genuinely successful distributed business, you need someone not just to do one task or job, but also to bring new insights and culture to the table. You need someone full-time, and you need to make sure they are a good fit for your free current team and your future dreams. For that, you don’t just need someone “borrowed” or “jumped in” – you need someone with dedication, loyalty, excitement and plans to work with you. Well, that needs to be worked on by you too. You have to dedicate time to hiring someone online. You have to put up a job specification for your site and some of the most relevant remote job boards and wait for a catch. Job boards like JobEspresso, Dribble, AuthenticJobs, RemoteOK.io, WeWorkRemotely, Remotive, or startup sites’ job sections like Angel.co/jobs are an excellent way to start. However, in the end, you need to market your post to get the best candidates.
The first action you need to do is to write an excellent job post and use it as your outreach platform.
