RWL029 Transform Your Remote Hiring Process with Pro Tips on Finding Top Talent

Finding and Hiring Remote Workers

Speaker 1

0:00

Hello, it's Alex here from Remote Work Life. I hope you are doing well. It's a beautiful sunny Sunday morning here in London, england, and it's been a bit of a stormy last couple of days Lots of wind during the night, lots of rain but today it's peaceful and quiet. You would never have thought that there'd been a storm the previous night. It's it's a beautiful day, it's a nice, it's a bit chilly, but it's nice and it's, uh, nice and bright and there are signs that spring is in the air. And it hasn't been that way for the last few weeks. In fact, we've had quite a lot of um, a lot of stormy weather across the UK, especially up north. Well, I've heard stories from up north where people have been flooded and really terrible situation and I really feel for those people. So if you are up north and that has affected you, I really hope everything is okay. I hope you're doing well and, yeah, well in fact, wherever you may be in the world, if you have been hit by any kind of inclement weather, I really hope that it's not too bad. It just puts things into perspective. I complain about my builders next door. I was complaining last week about my builders and the well, I say my builders, the builders next door, making noises and preventing me and prohibiting me from recording podcasts, preventing me and prohibiting me from recording podcasts. There are so much more, well, so much more things in the world that are worthy of complaint, and that's certainly not one of them, although I must say I had to cancel a podcast last week because there was so much noise I couldn't record it. But I hope to bring you that podcast soon and I, just as I said, hope you are well.

Speaker 1

1:46

In today's show I just want to really talk about something that is is it's quite common at the moment. Well, it's a common discussion point at the moment and it's in not just at the moment, in fact it's. It's about recruiting people and hiring people and, obviously, as with the remote work life podcast, I want to talk just just very briefly on my experiences of hiring and recruiting and the ways in which that um, or at least the, the mediums I used to use to to find people, to find people who I thought might be suitable for my various clients that I used to use to to find people, to find people who I thought might be suitable for my various clients that I used to cater to because I used to in my, in my world. Well, I still hire now. Of course, I still use the skills that I have from my recruitment days to hire people and to advise on hiring, but my, my time as a recruitment consultant really helped me to understand those processes and really helped me to understand what to do, what not to do, some of the pitfalls, the do's and don'ts, etc. So, um, I this is not going to be too much of a uh, a 101 of hiring, as much as it is just a a few bits of advice and few tips on where to find people and some of the potential pitfalls that you might face if you are hiring, especially remote workers, because lots and lots of people are interested in remote work and, um, a question online. Well, in fact, yeah, lots of people are interested in remote work, but, having said that, there's lots of people online, just generally, who ask about work and helping them to find a job and helping them to change careers, etc. Lots and lots of people like I. Mean, I couldn't give you a figure, but when I used to hire people and put out adverts, I would get lots and lots of responses from the various platforms that I used to advertise those jobs and from the people I've spoken to, from some of the CEOs I've spoken to, from the various remote businesses, the various distributed teams they also put out adverts as well and they've talked about some of them getting like 600 or 900 even responses per post, per vacancy. And these are often quite small teams and some don't even have a specialist hiring team small teams and some don't even have a specialist hiring team. So if you can imagine having to manage those, that number of roles, that number of applications sorry, not number of roles, number of applications.

Speaker 1

4:37

So, and at the same time you obviously want to get the best person and one of the things that I would do in my time as a recruiter, I wouldn't just rely upon one source of, or to post my jobs. You can't do that, unfortunately. You can't just rely upon one particular source, because that person who you're looking for may not be on that particular source, if you see what I mean. So the various sources I used to use, I would use, for example, I would use quite a lot of job boards, but I'd be very selective as to the job boards that I would use, very niche job boards. So rather than using a generalist job board. I would use a job board that, for example, focused on marketing or focused on research, to really pin down the people who were interested in those jobs.

Speaker 1

5:32

But, of course, when you're using a job board, when you're actually posting stuff on a job board, what you're going to get is you're going to get people who are proactively looking for a role and they're not always the best people for that particular role and what you'll find there is. You'll obviously have to go through this process of doing it, but you'll find that you have to combine your efforts with something like I don't looking on social media sites, for example. So sites, for example, like Facebook, and especially I mean I know for certain that Facebook there's lots and lots and lots of people looking on Facebook for roles that are remote roles, a variety of roles, but you also get people who will talk about what they do and aren't necessarily looking for roles. So you can look for the people who are proactive, but you can also look for the people who are passive via the various social media platforms. So facebook being one of those, linkedin being another. I used to use linkedin quite a lot. Linkedin was probably my go-to source and I think you could find, or you could, you can assume that uh, lots and lots of recruiters are using LinkedIn to not only find the, the um active candidates who you know that kind of were talking about, or the candidates who, on their, on their profile, indicate to recruiters that they're looking, but you can also use, again linkedin to to source people who are passive, who are passive job seekers, and again, passive job seekers, I think, constitute, if I remember rightly, constitute about anywhere between 70 and 80 percent of the sort of people that you want to approach. So, with that in mind, that's why it's so important to combine not just the, as I said before, the, the proactive sources like the job boards and the social media platforms, but also um have have that uh means or that mechanism to find and track down the people who are passive job seekers as well, and to do that you can use, obviously, networking is one of the things that you can do.

Speaker 1

7:54

I use a lot of network. For example, I might, when I used to do headhunting, I would probably approach anywhere in the region of 100 and 200 people just for parole, and again, I'd use LinkedIn to do that. I would use LinkedIn to find the names of those people and of that 200 people, maybe only two or even three, if I was lucky, would made it through or at least, when I spoke to them, suggested or told me that they were interested in sending their CV. So it is very much a numbers game. And now you begin to see where recruitment becomes. So such a labor intensive activity and what's an activity? That you're having to balance different plates. You're having to balance not not just your day-to-day work if you don't have a dedicated recruitment team, you're having to balance your day-to-day work with that activity. It's a role in itself. So it's not something to be attempted lightly. It's something that you need to have a plan in place to do.

Speaker 1

9:03

So that networking involved, as I said, direct approaches to what I suppose what you could say is cold job candidates who perhaps might not have heard of the business, or they may have heard of the business that may be geared towards remote work. Um, and perhaps not. We're perhaps not thinking about moving, but they just just want to, sorry, they just talk about remote work passionately and I suppose more often than not you want to look at people who already have remote work experience, because you can be sure, or you can at least be, I suppose, 95% sure that they are going to adapt to working in remote work, probably more so than those who have never done remote work before. So, yeah, you can approach people directly and you can be very picky about the people that you approach, and that's the great thing about networking and direct approaches and I suppose what you could call headhunting. Then there's networking, which involves referrals, so somebody who you know probably knows somebody else who's looking at that particular time, and that's again another good source of candidates and a good way to really create a long list of people who might be suitable. So, speaking to people within, for example, within your team, maybe you could speak to people within your team who know other people who either, again, work remotely or who don't, for that matter, have got the skills that you're looking for. So that's another great source of candidates, another great way to get a real good long list of candidates.

Speaker 1

10:50

And, as you can see now it's growing, isn't it? These sources? There are so many of them that they're growing and especially, as I said, when you put out an advert, you can be certain that you're going to get responses and within all of this, you have to have a mechanism as well to, of course, filter out the candidates who are not appropriate in as little time as possible, because what can happen now is you're into the realm of receiving possibly thousands of different applicants from all these different sources. You've got to have a mechanism in place to to filter out those people and then to take those people through who you feel are good, without making the time stretch out and lag, because when you finally get people to your shortlist who you feel are appropriate, you want to take them through that process as quickly as possible. Because you can be sure that, especially with the, the passive candidates who, who may look to be really, really good, you can be sure that probably they're getting approaches from other people, from other sources. They'll probably now by this time think themselves actually, why, why don't I start looking at other jobs? Because I hadn't thought about looking before? But this, this person, this recruiter or this hiring manager who's approached me is kind of like reminding me that the grass is a bit greener on the other side. So I'm going to start looking.

Speaker 1

12:15

So that is the risk. That's why you have to get this process done, not just as quickly as possible, but in a way that really is considerate of the candidate and I see this far too often that it's quite easy, when you're in the midst of all this administrative recruitment and dealing with things coming left, right and centre, as well as dealing with your day job, you kind of lose. Well, I've seen people who've lost sight of the actual candidate. You should never lose sight of the candidate in this process. You need to treat them like a customer. You treat them like somebody who's coming into your house. You're welcoming them into this actual process and steering them along the process, managing their expectations, making sure that you're not wasting their time, keeping them up to date, what's going on, letting them know in advance what the process is as well, to make sure that they're fully aware of what's going on and they will appreciate that. I can be sure of that. You can be sure of that because, as I said, I've been through this process myself myself.

Speaker 1

13:28

So again, it's not a process to be undertaken lightly. It's a process that needs planning. It needs the right people in place to deal with the different steps along the way. So you've got your job boards done. You've got your um social media sites. You've used those as well. Uh, you're networking both directly you're approaching people too and this networking.

Speaker 1

13:52

I actually another point about networking and another point about um, about hiring people is that it shouldn't be something that's done as a knee-jerk reaction. Let me say that again, it shouldn't be done as a knee-jerk reaction because, again it's, if you do it as a knee-jerk reaction then, um, it can filter through into the process and into the minds of the candidates that you are trying to approach for a job. It it can almost seem as though you're in a rush and trying to get things done as quickly as possible. There's probably a bit of panic as well. There's probably a little bit of disorganisation in what you're doing. So it never should be a sort of like. It shouldn't feel as though it's an impromptu thing.

Speaker 1

14:41

In fact, I mean I'm of the belief that you should always be recruiting and always hiring, and by that I mean mean you should always have your eyes looking out for potential candidates, whether you're hiring right now or in a year's time or, you know, a six month time, whatever it may be, you should keep those candidates on your radar in. In some cases, you may even join conversations with those candidates or connect with those candidates to keep up to date what they're doing. You don't necessarily have to connect with them directly. You can follow certain people online. Now. You don't have to write to them, you can just see what they're doing, what their work is. Some of them may have their own blogs. Some of them may have their own online portfolios. You can see what they're doing to understand if that particular person is going to be a fit, either from a skills standpoint or from a cultural standpoint.

Speaker 1

15:33

So, when it comes to the time that you start to recruit, you've already built up maybe a list of, say, 20 people probably even more than that who you've been following for the past few months and you understand a bit more about them, and then you can begin to, before even your recruitment process begins, you can begin to interact with them or just be a bit more, I suppose a bit more direct in your interactions with them to understand what they're doing. So that's what I mean by always be like recruiting, because it's something that could save you time, it could save you effort. It could save you effort, uh, in the, in the. In the long run, it could probably even save you money down the line as well, especially if you you find somebody who is you feel is really ideal for a particular role. So okay, and then another thing.

Effective Recruitment Strategy Tips

Speaker 1

16:21

So we've talked about job boards, social media networking, referrals, that kind of thing, and this, this next one, kind of referrals, that kind of thing. And this, this next one kind of is linked to what I've said about always be recruiting, is you should have on your website, somewhere where you set up which is quite obvious, which allows people to um to connect with you, maybe just something as simple as an email sign up page, which it which says example if you can't see the role that you're looking for at the moment, please by all means get in touch with us or leave your email, leave your name and we'll keep you informed. So you're building an email list all the time. You're building a candidate pool, a pool of a talent pool that you can then refer to down the line, these as people who are potentially a good fit and certainly people who are interested in your business. And you can segment that pool according to the types of different roles. So you may have a, you may segment it into marketing, you may segment it into tech, so that you can just you can provide along the way, you can sort of filter through or drip through content to them over a period of time just to keep them in touch, keep them in contact with what's going on within your business. You may have had I don't know away days. You might have activities that these people would be interested in understanding, because that will help them to to really figure out if this is the kind of business for them.

Speaker 1

17:53

So email lists is just a simple way of of creating a talent pool and and keeping that talent pool up to date with what's going on. So, yeah, those are the, those are some sources for you there, but what you obviously you need to, before you even get any of this kicked off, you need to understand how to do this in a way that is as efficient as possible. You need a strategy. You can't just dive into something like this. You have to really, I suppose, think about what it is, understand what you're all about, understand what the business is all about, because that's one of the going to be one of the big pull factors for people who, uh, are a good match for your business.

Speaker 1

18:32

And, in fact, I was speaking to um, one of the leading ceo I guess you could say derry anderson from startup grind. He was talking about the effect of adding the his values or his company's values to the website and the effect it had. It had, I suppose, a magnetic effect in the sense that it pulled people towards Derek's business, although the values himself he said many of them were aspirational, he didn't necessarily have them as his core values, he had them as aspirational values, some of them he was able to articulate his business business, wide business, wide values, and that had a great effect in terms of pulling people towards, towards the business, and those people could potentially be hires in the future or people that he works with in the future. So knowing, understanding what you're all about is important and, of course, understanding the skills that you want. Far, far often I see job descriptions that ask for 10 people in one. So somebody who does seo as well as email marketing and understands facebook and social media posting as well. Far too often you see those kinds of job descriptions, those kinds of job adverts. So having clarity on what you're looking for in that particular person from a skills point of view is going to be really important. It's part of your strategy as well.

Speaker 1

20:10

Um, what else do we have? I mean, in terms of how are you going to actually manage this particular process? Who's going to manage the process for you? Has that person had experience of doing this before? Because it's not one of those things you can just jump into and do it. Well, you, I'd recommend having somebody who's had that experience of doing it. Even people who've had experience of doing it may not have had enough experience of doing it, for example, so you may need to outsource some of that work. It may be that you outsource aspects of that work, so it might be that you outsource I don't know the interviewing stage or the advertising of jobs stage, or even the response management phase or the onboarding phase. So it's always good, because what you want what you don't want is to uh is to really create an experience for the candidate that is uncomfortable and that kind of doesn't show you your best side as it works.

Speaker 1

21:15

As I said to you before, I talked about you essentially welcoming people into your house to see what's going on. That's just a bit of a metaphor, for what you're doing is you're showing people how your business is, how you are as people, the culture, the setup, and if you do it in a way that's disorganized and is is not effective, then that's going to leave probably a bit of a bad taste in the mouth of the people who who have applied for that particular role, and nothing spreads faster, more quickly, more quickly than, um, bad feedback. And people are very uh, I suppose, uh proactive these days and going online and talk and leaving, leaving ratings and uh, leaving comments about their experiences, not just with products but with uh, with with businesses. So you don't really want to, you, you want to avoid making um, silly, silly mistakes there. So, yeah, making sure that you're going to manage that process and you want to think about the process from the start to the end. So the end might be the onboarding side of things, because just because you hire somebody doesn't mean that's the end of it. You have to then understand how to make sure that that process, make sure that they are given the opportunity to thrive, and that means helping them to understand what's expected of them, supporting them through the first few months of their time with you. So that requires a certain amount of care as well, a certain amount of attention on your part to understand what you need to do in that process, and maybe on another episode I will cover these points in a bit more detail, but from my point of view, that's really it from me for now.

Speaker 1

23:11

This podcast was really just to talk about the various sources and just to caution you on when you use those sources. To use them in the right way and have people managing the process who are experienced in doing that, so that you don't succumb to feedback online about you and about your business. And I think, as I, as I highlighted, I think one of the most important processes, or the parts of the actual process, is actually managing all those applications. You may get hundreds, you may get up to a thousand or probably even thousands of applications, so you don't last thing you want is to get caught in a deluge of cvs and resumes. So be prepared for that and, um, have countermeasures in place for those sorts of eventualities.

Speaker 1

24:03

One of those might be you may even use just forms online. You might, you might, you might even use bots. I mean, there are bots that you can use, chat bots that are dedicated to hr and recruitment that can although, okay, it's not ideal to have a bot as part of your process. Obviously, you want somebody actually talking to each one of those applicants, because you really should be talking to every single applicant that comes your way. But where that is is not possible, you can at some stage, you bot as a chat bot, as a intervention and a way of just softening things and siphoning out people, for want of a bit, for want of a better expression, filtering out people who are not part of your process. So there's lots to think about there, lots of things to think about, and I think some of those things that I've just touched on maybe I'll go into those in a bit more detail in a later show, in a later podcast, but for now, just get back to me and tell me how do you go about your hiring, what sources do you use for your candidates and how has that gone for you?

Speaker 1

25:16

Have you ever experienced a time when you've just been overwhelmed with the recruitment process or just have had no success at all and it's just taken too long? If you have, then get in touch. Maybe I can help you out with certain aspects of that process, having done it myself. Or maybe I can put you in touch with people who can help, because I know recruitment is, is um, it's something that uh, it's. It's not an easy, an easy, uh thing to do. Another thing I want you to do as well is is get in touch uh, connect with me on linkedin, even if you just want to say hello.

Speaker 1

25:54

The podcast is growing, the numbers are growing and people are starting to sort of talk a bit more about the Remote Worker Life podcast online, which is really good to see. If you have any questions or any things that you want to see featured in a future podcast, then, as I said, by all means get in touch with me. I leave my LinkedIn details all the time in the show notes. As well as that, I want you to subscribe to the podcast so that you don't miss an episode, and you can subscribe via the Google Podcasts app. If you're on Android or Google Play. You can subscribe via iTunes. You can also subscribe on Spotify and Stitcher as well, and various other platforms, whichever is your preference. So look out for those as well, and look out for me in another episode of the Remote Work Life Podcast, and have a wonderful week ahead.