Even if your company has no immediate plans to hire anyone, if you move to remote work, you’ll want to plan on building a hiring funnel ASAP. Here’s why:
It takes time to set up, so you might as well start now. It takes time to build a new hiring funnel. You’re going to develop a new way of sourcing candidates, now that you’re able to hire anyone in the world, and you’re going to need to build a new vetting process that’s fully remote. You can’t rely on interviewing candidates in an office setting. Expect at least 2 to 3 months of iteration when you’re starting out.
Some of your team members might not make the transition to remote work. Making a shift to remote is a big deal. Not everyone on your team may find themselves successfully making the transition. Companies often use these transition periods to make cuts in their staff. Sometimes, remote work isn’t a fit for a specific person, and their productivity drops once they are no longer in the office. You don’t want to assume everyone will adjust to remote work. It could be as simple as living in an area with an unreliable internet connection, or as nuanced as a drop in their productivity. Regardless, it’s a good idea to know your options when it comes to hiring, in case you do lose some people. Moving forward, you want to hire individuals who thrive working remotely.
You can now hire more qualified people at a lower cost. The reality of hiring remote is that you’ve now opened up your hiring pool to the entire world. Because you have more options, you can find better candidates at a lower cost then if you just hired from candidates in your zip code. There can be some red tape involved in hiring someone overseas, but it’s becoming easier to do so. We’ll discuss this in more detail below.
The lowest-hanging-fruit method of hiring remote employees is to set up an inbound funnel and sort through the candidates that apply for your job.
Start by collecting all of the relevant places to post your job ad. You can do this really easily with Magic. For example, you can send Magic the following message:
Once you’ve collected a comprehensive list of places to submit your job ad, it’s time to write the ad. Keep it short and to the point. We recommend linking to a recruiting page on your website to explain in detail what each position you’re hiring for will entail.
Send Magic a link to your job ad, and Magic will do the manual work of submitting it to all the job sites and communities.
Don’t just post once. Post as often as you’re allowed to post. Many job sites and communities allow you to repost, so check to see how often you can post. Again, this is easy to do with Magic:
Track your results and adjust your funnel. You’ll save time and money by cutting out sources that are bringing in the wrong candidates and expanding what’s working. Having proper tracking and attribution takes time to set up, but it will quickly save you time.
You’ve heard the phrase “all the good ones are taken.” Many of the people you’ll want to hire most aren’t on job websites or talking to recruiters. They’re currently employed. You’re going to want to reach out to these people too. Now, because you’re fully remote, you need a fully remote strategy of “running into them” that doesn’t rely on in person meetings.
Start by building a list of people who meet your criteria. At Magic, we primarily use Linkedin, Zoom Info, and Sales Navigator for sourcing. To have Magic find leads, just message us and specify what you’re looking for:
Be specific about the information you’re looking for.
Once you have a list that matches your specifications, you’ll want to decide on a strategy for outbounding. For example, do you send a Linkedin message? A cold email? How do you personalize the message?
The most effective message is highly personalized, directly from the CEO. If the CEO doesn’t have the time to do this, you can have someone email from the CEO’s address. The less formulaic the message, the better.
Even better, if you have the time, reach out just to have virtual “coffee” and get to know the person before going into details about recruiting. You can ask a question about their work and share information you’ve learned at your company.
Scheduling the Zoom call equivalent of meeting for coffee multiple times a week will eventually lead to a great candidate interested in working at your company. Yes, this is a time-consuming and highly personalized process that will take up your entire work schedule unless you have significant help from a team. (We recommend getting help from Magic if you don’t have a team helping you.)
The results, however, are worth it, especially if you’re looking to hire a high level role at your company.
Maybe the biggest advantage to switching to a fully remote work environment is the seamlessness of hiring internationally. Since everyone is always remote, you’re able to hire anyone from around the world and have them fit in just like they were a local.
It’s become easier than ever to hire someone internationally, as there are now services that can help. We recommend Deel for payroll. Each country has their own best job sites, so you’ll want to expand outside of the job sites popular in the United States (Monster, Indeed, etc.).
Don’t overpay. Look into standard market rates for the country you’re hiring in. Just because you’re hiring remote does not mean you need to offer the same salary. It’s optimal to make the offer based on the standard market rate in the country the employee lives in. Do your research! You could accidently pay double or triple what your employee considers a good wage.
Be mindful of time zone differences. If you want your team to all be online at the same time, it may involve people working early in the morning or late at night. You’ll want to figure out early on which team is going to compromise and how exactly that will work. Avoid shifting schedules – they cause a huge drop in happiness and productivity. Pick a schedule and stick with it.
Test for internet speed. If you’re unfamiliar with a location, especially if it’s remote, make sure your hire has high speed internet. If your Zoom call keeps disconnecting when you interview them, it’s probably a bad sign.
