The 16 Best Interview Questions For Remote Workers

Written communication is a big deal in a remote company – after all, this is how we communicate with each other for the majority of the work we do. We also look specifically for people who are highly self-motivated, with a natural inclination toward working closely with a team. Remote work is ideal for people who prefer isolation over collaboration, but our company’s structure is very team-oriented, so we look for people who are interested in that sense of connection.

• Optimize the experience to match your employees’ needs and personalities — Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, consider adjusting the experience for different personality types.
• Even if there’s nobody to monitor your work process, your results will always be checked.
• That’s the beauty of remote work – people can choose to work in a way that makes the most sense for their lives.
• Beyond that, we look for a good cultural fit and a passion for what we are doing.
• Having experience with social media platforms could be enough for a lot of companies and if your personal account itself fares well on social media platforms, that becomes your portfolio and track record.
• Having employees understand the basics of cybersecurity is essential.

Disagreements and misunderstandings are inevitable when working remotely, so knowing how to defuse a situation is an incredibly important skill for any remote worker. If you see people in person, there tends to be natural moments to resolve conflict, while those who work from home need to be more proactive. An interviewer can learn a lot about your environment from what they can see via video. Make sure you have a professional background that is free from clutter and try to have good lighting, whether that is from natural lighting or via a ring/key light is up to you. Hiring managers want to know that the environment that you’ll be working from is comfortable, allows you to be productive, and is reasonably free from distraction. Use our zoom interview tips to learn how to come across well in virtual interviews.

How To Create A Great Remote Worker Employee Experience

Of course, there is also an added distraction of doing chores at home. You need to make sure you know when it’s time to do personal work and when it’s time to do company work. As an extrovert, the biggest challenge for me is definitely socializing and not feeling lonely. Working remotely, you have the liberty of choosing where to work, but you need to be responsible and realize it’s probably difficult to work sitting at a table with all your friends. When it comes to socializing, The Remote Company does an awesome job with their different Slack channels that motivate people to strike up a conversation with each other . However, there’s nothing like being able to see someone’s facial reaction while they look at what you sent. The standup meeting routine directly addresses the greatest danger for remote workers — the weakening of team social cohesion.

Having accounts on both platforms wouldn’t hurt in case one fails. Companies have switched to a fully distributed team for the time being but not everyone in a team is prepared for the sudden switch. And while the savings in infrastructure might sound appealing to founders, when done out of nowhere, the switch to telecommuting fails to live up to the hype.

Improved technology, the need to cut costs and/or keep overhead low, and the pandemic have encouraged businesses of all sizes and in a variety of fields to create more work-from-home opportunities. As the number of Americans who are vaccinated increases, infection rates drop and the economy reopens, companies are evaluating their plans for COVID-19-related remote work. Some want everyone back, but many are looking at hybrid or remote-by-choice options. Others, particularly tech companies, are allowing employees to work remotely indefinitely, if they choose. Not everyone has a designated home office, but it’s critical to have a private, quiet space for your work. If you can, separate your work area from your personal spaces and use it just for work, not for other activities. Executives continue to worry about what might be missed by giving up the office.

This is one of those work-from-home interview questions that you will probably get asked. If your favorite job included group outings and frequent team lunches, or your least favorite one was when you felt stuck behind a desk, an interviewer may not see you as a great fit for a remote role. Mention what technology you’re skilled with that will help you in remote positions. Maybe you’re well-versed in Google Docs for sharing and editing documents, Trello for project management, and Slack for collaboration. Or, perhaps you worked in the office, but you worked with remote clients. It’s also a great opportunity to learn about the company culture so you can determine whether there is mutual fit. This is a situational or behavioral interview question, which should signal to you that the hiring managers wants you to share a story based on your previous experience.

Know What Companies Want From Their Remote Employees And Develop Yourself Towards That Direction

Where possible, employees were asked to work from home for over a year. But if we had asked the same question back in 2019, your answer would have probably been different. A handful of people might have had remote jobs, and some may have negotiated a couple of days working from home a week. It may also help to separate your remote work from your location-dependent work. Otherwise, the jobs you did remotely may get lost among the ones that required you to be in a single physical location. An employer may struggle to see the full extent of your remote work experience, especially if you’re simply listing your previous jobs chronologically.

Set a reminder on your calendar every day to check-in with your remote employees, whether it’s a video call or a quick message on Slack. By posing the questions suggested in this article, you can gauge any professional’s potential for success within your distributed team. As more companies embrace hybrid work models or a remote-first workplace, your capacity to assess workers along these lines will give you an essential edge when searching for top talent.

Companies That Let You Work Remotely

Success in a remote position is one of our priorities, as we understand that as attractive as it is to work from home, it is not for everyone. We also look for those who have an extreme focus on customer care and attention and are organized and disciplined. The discipline trait is obviously critical since there is no day-to-day monitoring of their activities. We have to trust that they are doing their job and that distractions are minimized during working hours—and that takes discipline. One thing we’ve found is that the more entrepreneurial-spirited candidates tended to have a harder time focusing on the tasks at hand when working remotely. I think the nature of remote work gives a sense of freedom, as it should.

I would recommend trying co-working spaces, cafes, the library and a home desk to see what works best for you. The biggest challenge depends on the place I decide to work that day. I describe your experience working remotely can concentrate basically anywhere, but loads of noise is definitely an issue. So if I decide to work from a cafe, sometimes it just gets too busy and even calm music does not help.

Do you often get the “influential” tag among your friends and family? If that’s a yes, then becoming a sales professional could not only be a great option for you as a remote worker with no experience but also a great path to quick growth. You can go for an online social media management course and start developing those social media skills. If you can keep things organized and are able to follow instructions, then this could be the perfect remote job for you.

There are multiple factors that can contribute to this increased productivity. Stanford professor Nicholas Bloom conducted a study that revealed that work-from-home employees work a true full day rather than being late to the office or leaving early multiple times a week. The study also found working remotely to be less distracting, with employees finding it much easier to concentrate at home. In addition, employees can work when they are most productive, even if that means late at night or https://remotemode.net/ early in the morning, and they tend to work extra hours per week. Finally, employees don’t have to deal with long commutes—in cities such as New York or San Francisco, commuting can add 6-15 hours onto the work week. Because remote jobs require a special set of skills, you’ll want your resume to reflect that — especially if you already have experience working remotely. Consider the skills you’ll need to succeed, identify which of them you possess, and highlight them within your resume.

How To Qualify For The Home Office Tax Deduction

In 2018, 40% more companies offered remote work than in 2013. However, it was COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 that catapulted location independence into the mainstream. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself to say the “right” thing, however.

• When your remote employees can feel connected to the organization’s growth, it will instill pride in the organization.
• Try to create an UpWork profile that is rich in skills to reduce the chances of rejection.
• Naturally, we had more time to prepare, learn about its challenges, and, consequently, not think that remote work is horrible.
• Indeed, a growing number of them have been spending part of their time working from a remote location while doing the rest of their duties in the office.
• Being able to set my own hours allows me to work when I am most alert.
• It’s important because it determines how you’ll fit into the team.

This is great to show employees what their progress is and what they should work on first. Even when working remotely or with limited communication possibilities. Automatic time tracking tools record everything you’re doing on your computer. This includes any files, apps, browser tabs, and even idle time.

How Do You Handle Your Calendar And Schedule? What Apps

Sure, this is a common question most every recruiter asks when prescreening a potential hire, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ask it. You want someone who believes in your company’s products or services, its mission, and who will be a good fit into the company culture. When you are having a bad day at work in an office, you come home in your safe haven and still have a sensation of accomplishment. When working from a typical office you know when your workday ends, and your colleagues have already left the building.

• I was worried I’d accidentally erase all the progress I’d made on the task that day.
• Also, the temptation to put-off the unpleasant until the last minute is huge.
• Get your Internal Comms leaders active on these platforms, as this is where most of the fun is happening.

No matter how much planning you do in advance, or how organized your files are, or even how precisely the team followed the project plan, sometimes things go wrong. Do time checks with 15 minutes to go before the end of the meeting to stay on track and then 5 minutes to go to define next steps. Marie says to classify your to-do list with “I” and “U” for important or urgent tasks and do the important ones first. You always finish urgent things on time anyway because they’re urgent! So, make the most of your brain power and use your energy on the important things. If Sally can’t operate without all of the facts, but Shana gets majorly overwhelmed when you give her more than she needs to know to complete a task, it can quickly send the whole team into shambles.

The job will require you to do online research, scheduling, admin tasks, etc. A lot of companies look for people with attention to detail and a good pace to manage large amounts of data. Pick this, if you’re very new to the work world altogether and would like to have some experience about how data is curated and used in businesses. If you like to collect and compute data then this is great as a remote job for someone with no experience.

Except for the ones who are hired by companies for temporary projects and were asked to join the rest of the team on-site. According to this FlexJobs report, their remote job ads solely had a whopping 51% increase from 2014 to 2017. Remote work is any full-time, part-time, or project-based job that one person is doing from outside the company’s office. Having a set start and end date for work will help you better manage your tasks and keep your work-life balance in check too.

Digital nomads are location-independent people who use technology to perform their jobs. But added responsibilities come with freedom, not to mention planning, foresight, self-discipline, and focus—and, yes, hours of uninterrupted hard work. As many home-based employees will tell you, it’s not easier to work from home; it’s just a different location. Without a daily commute, mandatory lunches and the cost of office-appropriate attire, it may seem that working from home will peel some costs off your budget.

What Techniques Will You Use To Stay Motivated And Focused While Working Remotely?

Take your work-from-home life a step further and get out of the house. Coffee shops, libraries, public lounges, and similar Wi-Fi-enabled spaces can help you simulate the energy of an office so you can stay productive even when you don’t sit in an official workplace. Structuring your day as you would in the office also saves you from work creep. With this structure in place, working from home will not cause your work to invade your personal life. Believe it or not, one way to work from home productively is to dive into your to-do list as soon as you wake up.

And many companies are moving to a model where all meeting participants join on their own computer, even those in the same room together. This ensures a level playing field, and makes it much easier for remote participants to participate. If you already live in a high-pay, high-cost-of-living area like San Francisco or New York City, working remotely can grant you the freedom to move wherever you’d like. While not everyone can uproot their family and move, it’s still better to have the option than not. Remote-friendly companies don’t always pay Bay Area salaries, but in my experience, they tend to pay quite a bit better than local ones. For example, Buffer pays based on San Francisco rates, and deducts up to 25% for cost-of-living.

Businesses need proofreaders to check their website content, social media copy, brochures and various other brand related copy. Every business wants their website, logo, and social media posts to be presented in the best possible way. This makes a remote graphic designer position one of the best stay at home jobs with no experience. Are you someone who loves to use various social platforms and also takes an interest in how their algorithms work? If you answered yes, imagine being a remote social media manager for a brand! Then this is definitely one remote role that you can land with no experience.

What Is Time

If you’re a remote worker and want something truly helpful for yourself, then there are time reports. These visual work summaries show you how you’re spending time, money, and other resources. So if you’re like me and hate seeing dozens of tasks all piled up in a single column, then maybe Kanban is just what you needed.

“Sometimes people get tripped up when they are asked a question about a situation they’ve never been in—and remote work is new to a lot of folks,” Jones says. “If this happens, communicate what you would do if you encountered XYZ situation in a remote role; sometimes the thought process is more valuable than the actual answer.” If you have aremote job interview, you should expect to be asked why you want to be a remote worker. Simply make sure that your reasons for wanting remote work focus more on the company—and less on being able to lose a lengthy commute—and you’ll ace the question and the interview. Some employees need more guidance than others, but remote employees need to work independently from their managers and team.

Discover The Latest In Hr, Payroll And Global Workforce Trends

If you focus on drinks and conversation, a video call can fall flat. Instead, you need to plan more structured icebreakers, games, and activities. Let’s make you smile because you actually can land remote jobs with no experience! It was not as popular as it is now because the pandemic forced everyone to work from home.