One aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic is the increase in demand for remote jobs by developers. Thus, the need for companies to adapt to the working style that allows developers to work outside of a traditional office setting. Startups and businesses now have no other choice than to adopt a remote-friendly team structure to stay ahead of the competition and attract the best hands. However, effectively hiring remote developers for your company can sometimes be difficult and overwhelming.
Are you interested in hiring a remote developer but don’t know how to do it? Then, this article is best for you. In this article, we will talk about everything there is to know about how to hire remote developers. Now, let us find out how to hire remote developers for your company and manage them.
Building a workspace of the future: how to hire remote developers for your company and manage them
Perhaps you are looking for remote developers to build a workspace of the future for your company. But, then, you must know that hiring dedicated remote developers is something you should never do headfirst to avoid remote work pitfalls. What happens when you make the right hiring decision? You will assemble a dedicated team of developers that can solve many of the challenges caused by the global epidemic in terms of profitability and efficiency.
Furthermore, it can sometimes be frightening to manage and ensure that your remote developers are productive, engaged and thriving. However, it becomes easier to manage them when you rightfully find remote developers. Follow the steps below for hiring and managing remote developers, and you will see how your team turns out to be the best in no time.
How to hire remote developers
The first step to hiring a remote development team is optimizing your company’s recruitment process. You can achieve this by following the steps below.
- Decide if you want to restrict your search for developers to a particular location or if you will be open to hiring developers outside your company’s jurisdiction. You must also know that it is easier to hire a remote programmer within your company’s jurisdiction.
- Decide the compensation you will offer successful developers who make it to your team. While making your decision, you must decide based on role type, level of expertise, years of experience, and location.
- Create a captivating and tailored advertisement which contains enough information about your company and the job description and requirements.
- Adopt the right advertising platform or hire the services of a reputable remote work recruiter.
- Design a remote interview process that does not necessarily need to follow a traditional office setting interview. Virtual interviews are the best in this case.
Interviewing candidates for developer roles
Interviewing the right developer for your team takes time, but it is worth your time and effort. Even so, hiring the best developer can be trickier and more difficult if it is remote. However, you don’t need to worry because we will guide you through an interview process to help you find a remote developer for your company.
- Conduct an initial screening for all candidates to sieve out candidates who are not truly interested in working remotely. For example, it may surprise you that some developers who sent in their applications prefer on-site to remote work.
- You can also consider giving the developers role-specific tasks to assess their technical skills. Please note that these tasks are not to be given during the interview. It would be best if they were allowed to do it at their convenience but within a timeframe. However, you can ask them to show you samples of codes they are proud of if you don’t want to give them role-specific tasks.
- Conduct a virtual interview and ensure that it is done with best practices for a virtual interview. Furthermore, ensure you look out for the qualities you want in your remote developer because not all developers can thrive in a remote setting. Therefore, it will be in the best interest of your company if you focus on qualities such as punctuality, self-motivation, effective communication, adaptability, strong time management, collaboration, independence, and experience using technology and digital tools.
How to manage your remote developers
What is next after hiring a remote developers team? First, you need to manage the team and manage it well. Managing remote developers can prove more difficult because of the inability to monitor and hold them accountable. However, you need not worry. Listed below are tips to help you manage your remote developers’ team.
- The first tip is to understand the common challenges anyone on the team can face while remotely managing your developers. These challenges include video fatigue, lack of face time with team members, distractions from the surrounding, and communication breakdowns and bottlenecks. Thus, you will be required to exercise patience when any challenges arise.
- Set and provide expectations and remote work standards early enough. However, there will be questions, so you need to be available and accessible to provide clarity on goals, objectives, priorities, and milestones.
- Provide your team with all the right and necessary tools for work just like you would for on-site developers.
- Try as much as possible to be flexible with working hours from your developers. The goal should remain to get the work done within a specific timeframe. However, never impose particular working hours on your team.
- Ensure that you follow up with your remote developers regularly. Following up on your team members and keeping a close relationship with them keeps them engaged and motivated.
- Last on the list and most importantly, be a listener. Always listen to your remote developers, communicate trust and respect, and inquire about workload and progress without micromanaging.
Wrap up: Hiring and managing remote developers
This article has walked you through how to hire remote developers. It is worth noting that we are in a new era, and work conditions require new approaches and solutions. Remote work could be the best for your company going forward. However, it would be best if you exercised due diligence when hiring remote developers. Likewise, managing your team.
