Should You Take a Risk on Hiring Remotely Right Now? Here’s What the Experts Say
We are at an inflection point for distributed teams. Social distancing has accelerated what many experts believed to be an inevitable trend: the end of offices and the rise of remote work. In other words, the “future of work” is happening now. The only question is whether your company is ready to take that first leap into the unknown.
Adjusting to the new less-physical, more-digital reality can be jarring. This is especially true for people whose ability to “read the room” has been integral to their success. In-person meetings are no longer occurring, and we don’t know when they will resume. So how can you move your business forward while adopting a new hiring and onboarding process in order to succeed in and out of quarantine? Are you prepared to make an offer to a candidate you have not met in person? If not, why not?
Everyone’s circumstances are unique, and your answer to those questions will depend on a lot of factors that are beyond the scope of this article. Still, it can be helpful to get an expert opinion — or preferably multiple opinions; larger sample sizes are generally a good thing — to help you identify what assumptions and unconscious biases you might be bringing to the (remote) conference table.
Job van der Voort, the CEO of Remote and former VP of Product at Gitlab, was one of the first people I asked about this dilemma. I was hoping to get his thoughts on making an offer to a candidate you never met face-to-face. Instead, he posed this question back to me: “Well, what is the advantage of meeting someone in person?
Job van der Voort’s answer to his own question was “nothing, except how a candidate smells”. He wasn’t the only person to advocate that physical meetings are overrated. As Juan Pablo Buritca, co-author of The Holloway Guide to Remote Work, puts it, “The only new thing you can learn is their height”.
However, not everyone thinks we should be so quick to dismiss the importance of meeting “in real life.” Vetting for qualities like chemistry and body language can be tough to do over a Zoom call. According to Yvette Pasqua, VP of Engineering at Haven, meeting in person can also help you gauge a candidate’s “ability to command a room when presenting ideas.”
While some companies have already made the leap into the remote working future, hiring managers at companies that are still new to remote hiring are debating whether to slow-roll their process to intersect with the moment we can all be free again. That seems like the safe choice, but what if making a hiring decision and offer while in quarantine could secure a candidate who might be off the market later?
When it comes to making hiring decisions virtually, it’s a lot easier to do for companies that have already built a fully remote culture. If your business is naturally inclined toward distributed teams, then social distancing isn’t quite as disruptive.
According to experts, this is likely to become the new normal (at least for the foreseeable future). When I asked a number of investors, engineering, and product leaders for their thoughts, 90 percent of them said they would move forward to make an offer without ever having met the candidate in person. People will adjust to the circumstances, like they always have. “The business needs to move forward,” as Jim Chou, CTO at Splice Music explains.
It will take extra work to figure out new ways to pick up on signals via remote interviews, but the risks of waiting to make an n person offer outweigh the benefits of making a hiring decision now based on virtual interviews. Those doing the extra work, embracing a more progressive mindset, and evolving their processes quickly will make great hires In the coming months. This also opens up the possibilities for building remote-first, distributed teams for the future of work.
As Daniel Doubrovkine of Amazon Web Services puts it, “Right now is the best time to make offers, especially to those who were just laid off. Those are the candidates you’ve always wanted and couldn’t get.” For those willing to take a risk, the rewards can be great.
Next week, I’ll be sharing some practical tips from experts that can make you more comfortable when hiring someone you’ve never met. Stay tuned!
