Many of the challenges are the same as building an in-office team.
One, we are focusing heavily as of late on talent sourcing. Many recruiting managers overlook the importance of sourcing. They think it’s a numbers game.
I think the more effort you put into this stage, the more fruitful the rest of the recruiting process will be. If in the sourcing stage you are putting low-quality candidates into the flow, the interviews themselves aren’t going to do much to make them better candidates.
A lot of recruiting companies and hiring teams place low-level team members on the sourcing side. That makes no sense to me.
What good does a great recruiter and closer do down the line if in the very beginning of the process low-level team members with no technical expertise are putting candidates who are clearly not the right fit into the process?
If I had to focus on some remote-specific challenges when it comes to building a remote team, it could be the hiring manager’s reference network.
If I hire someone locally, I might have a better feel for the reputation and weight of the candidate’s references or past employers. If the job is open to remote candidates and I want to interview a candidate who is based in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a hiring manager in the U.S. could have a harder time placing weights on the reputation of the candidate’s past employers, references, etc.
This also applies for hiring managers who might be in Los Angeles, and they are interviewing a candidate that lives in Miami, Florida. Perhaps the hiring manager doesn’t share many past connections with the candidate, and it’s harder for the hiring manager to get more meaningful references.