Remote working was already on the rise before last month when COVID-19 suddenly shifted many employees into a virtual workforce. To cope with this ongoing public health emergency and to put their organizations in a stronger response position in the future, TA teams are now considering recruiting solutions that could gauge a candidates’ ability to work remotely. Here are the top five qualities they’re looking to identify in skilled remote workers by using pre-employment screening services and HR software to provide an accurate assessment of the candidate.
#1. Strong communicator. No surprise here that communication skills top this list, but what are recruiters looking for specifically and how are they using pre-employment testing to narrow down the field? In addition to strong verbal and written skills, remote workers must be able to summarize information quickly and make their points concisely. Excellent listening skills and the ability to build on the ideas and information colleagues are bringing to the conversation are essential. To evaluate these qualities, use a phone screen interview or video interview to make an informed determination. An on-demand interview is highly configurable to give recruiters the flexibility to evaluate crucial communication skills through job-specific questions, timed responses, and by asking for responses via text, audio, and video. Candidate experiences become more personal when the interview, which is one of many essential modern assessment tools, is highly tailored to the remote position, too.
#2. Ability to manage priorities. Managing priorities is part of every employee’s job, but working remotely can add a layer of complexity. A virtual interview ranks among the most effective assessment tools currently available. This process will evaluate essential drivers of job performance, including the ability to manage priorities and make timely decisions. In a Virtual Job Tryout, which is a form of pre-employment testing, candidates complete a range of simulated job tasks and respond to a series of job-relevant exercises. This type of realistic, multimedia job simulator engages candidates and educates them about the opportunity. At the same time, recruiters leverage a multi-method evaluation that enables them to identify high-potential candidates for remote positions quickly.
#3. Relationship-building aptitude. With today’s highly collaborative work environment, a talent for relationship-building is a must, especially for virtual workers. If you’ve been working from home the past few weeks, you’ve probably noticed yourself listening more attentively and working harder to pick up on social cues in phone and video calls. It takes some skill and experience to build effective working relationships that are entirely virtual. A live video interview is a type of HR tech that enable recruiters and hiring managers to assess candidates’ skills and experience in this area from any location at any time. The interviewing technology in Modern Hire’s all-in-one hiring platform lets you:
- Get all interviewers up to speed, which delivers a better candidate experience, especially when the interview is a few steps into your hiring process
- Keep hiring moving forward. Even if key managers or other hiring stakeholders aren’t available for the live virtual interview, they can review the recorded conversation and participate in decisions.
#4. Proactive problem-solver. Technology helps remote workers stay connected, but they still have to be proactive, especially in problem-solving, to be effective. These are traits that an assessment test, as part of a predictive analytics program, would reveal. Depending on the job and the problem, remote workers need to be good at thinking independently, planning for contingencies, and gathering people and resources to drive a solution. Modern Hire’s Virtual Job Tryouts are an assessment test than can gauge candidates on problem solving and situational judgment to predict on-the-job success specific to remote roles.
#5. Service mindset. High-performing remote workers recognize that extra effort on their part can make their virtual working relationships not just frictionless, but exceptionally strong. Having a service mindset helps them build trust with managers and colleagues that is the basis for stable relationships. It also helps reduce anxiety their leaders may have about managing an employee virtually. Recruiters are leveraging recruiting solutions that range from integrated interviewing to cognitive assessment technologies that are part of Modern Hire’s all-in-one enterprise hiring platform to evaluate remote candidates’ service mindset.
As many organizations and human resource management experts have discovered in the past few weeks, the success of remote working depends on employees recognizing their shared responsibility to make it work. In the weeks and months ahead, it’s likely this mindset of effectively using assessment tools will become more widely ingrained in the culture of many organizations, and a more significant focus of candidate fit during hiring.
