In recent times, remote developers have been an important part of the IT team. A major number of startups & well-established organizations are providing “work from home” opportunities. This flexibility has turned employees into digital nomads who use Internet connections to work from anywhere. However, onboarding remote developers can still be a challenging task.
In this guide, we will discuss 10 tips for hiring remote developers to make your hiring process simpler & effective.
Before jumping into the process let’s quickly understand What is A Remote Team.
A group of professionals who work from various locations across countries or continents is known as the Remote Team. The concept of a remote team is not a new term but it became famous after technological advancements emerged.
Nowadays, a significant part of the global workforce consists of remote teams. This is majorly true in a sector like IT.
Giants like Shopify & Twitter are prominent leaders in remote work development.
Remote teams offer several benefits to both enterprises & employees. However, if your organization is still in its infant stage you need to tackle a few challenges. An individual who is working remotely is known as a Remote Developer.
Read How To Manage Remote Teams to learn how you can manage your remote team members effectively.
Now, let's understand the different types of Remote Teams
This type of developer is hired on a project basis & isn't a part of the team. Moreover, these developers are self-employed & work either from their home or a co-working space. Generally, they use their tools & techniques to work on the project.
The biggest benefit of working with freelancers is that it enables you to get access to a larger pool of talent. This method also enables you to hire more remote employees whenever needed.
An outsourced team or software outsourcing company is an offshore remote team. Software development outsourcing company usually use their tools, processes, & communication protocols.
One benefit of working with a software outsourcing company is it will give access to a larger talent pool. Additionally, they will work in different time zones to use the maximum hours to achieve a successful project deliverable. Lastly, it allows you to scale your team up or down as per your requirements.
IT staff augmentation is a modern way of hiring remote developers cost-effectively. Like outsourcing software development services, this method allows you to hire remote employees for a short period. Moreover, you can easily integrate a remote team with your in-house team for a smoother workflow.
By using this method you can ensure scaling your team up or down based on your long-term goals. Another benefit of this method is it allows short-term hiring, hence you need not to hire developers for long-term commitments.
Now, let’s identify some questions you need to ask before hiring remote developers.
There are several questions you need to ask before hiring remote developers. We have mentioned the five important ones below:
Before hiring a remote developer, checking their experience with similar projects will help in decision making. Identifying their skill set will help in making a thorough evaluation of whether they are the right fit or not.
Asking this question will help you gather an idea about the working process of the remote developer. Moreover, this will also help you identify how they will respond to any upcoming emergency.
Having a reference while hiring a remote developer is inevitable. Work credibility & responsibility are crucial in project management. Moreover, getting constructive feedback about the candidate's expertise will help in making the right decision.
It is essential to evaluate the capacity of the organization before outsourcing your project. Delegating the project without understanding their expertise will result in a loss of money.
While working on the development project it is necessary to understand the time that needs to be invested in the project.
Now, let’s understand a complete checklist to hire remote developers to meet your software development needs.
The organization should possess a clear understanding of the hiring process before intending to hire remote developers. There are various stages involved in the hiring process, let’s uncover the complete checklist.
This is the first point in the checklist. Pre-onboarding is the time after the candidate accepts the job offer but is the time before their joining. This step may at times include both a hiring process & internal preparations to streamline the onboarding phase.
Since we are discussing remote workers, companies do not need to set up office spaces, purchase hardware & software, etc. thus, simplifying the hiring process.
Below are some tips to help you get the most out of your time between accepting a job & your employee’s first working day.
Create a detailed contract about the roles & responsibilities of the remote developer. Moreover, you should also mention the programming languages, frameworks & tools to be used. It is necessary to ensure that the candidate reads, understands & agrees to the terms listed in advance.
Further, create the required accounts for new entrants & send the login details. Also, invite them to team groups and chats, using a custom invitation for a personalized touch. Additionally, provide them with all the tools required for the development process.
Sending them a welcome email with a summary of key contacts & a work plan is very essential.
Create a company-rich tutorial that includes all the information about the company like goals, key technical procedures, etc. However, be careful you do not over-burden the developer with a lot of information on the very first day.
Additionally, the developers will feel cherished and rejoiced when they see you taking all essential measures to make their first day worthwhile.
Regardless of the experience of new team members, adapting to a new culture & environment will be challenging, especially when working remotely. To streamline the onboarding process, hire an onboarding partner.
As an owner of the organization, you need to ensure that your team members have the right people to rely on in your absence. However, choosing a companion among the team members will be more effective from a communication point of view.
Some responsibilities that onboarding companions cater to are as follows:
Answers to the questions related to company development as well as testing standards.
Explaining the vital details of the project in progress.
Ensuring that the new team member has access to all training materials & policies.
Introducing new developers to other colleagues.
Delegating the tasks & providing constructive feedback
The most important task of the remote companion is to ensure that new remote developers are comfortable at work.
Company culture is the individuality persona of the company. It is a combination of your shared values, goals & practices. While onboarding remote developers it is essential to introduce them to your company culture.
To make them informed about the company culture, sharing the below details is vital:
A digital employee handbook
A presentation about your company’s values, mission & vision.
These documents are helpful when any new developer attends a one-on-one meeting with a top-level executive.
During the process, the organization needs to ensure they introduce the new team members with all the necessary tools. Moreover, they should provide a comprehensive list of tools & software that will be used during the development work.
While hiring remote developers, it is essential to provide them with all the information circling the software development project. This step sounds the longest but believe us this is the most important step of the process.
Does your company possess a remote work policy? If not, then you surely should have one in place.
Use the below checklist to build an effective remote work policy
Availability: Mention when the employees need to be online & what should be their expected response time.
Tools & Technology: What are the tools used by the company & what confidentiality measures the new members should follow?
Expectations & goals: How the success of the employees would be evaluated.
Procedures & policies: What are the company’s processes & policies? What are the meetings & sessions the employees need to attend, etc. should be mentioned.
Once this is done, setting clear expectations from the beginning becomes very important.
After building the communication flow & stating all the company policies, the next step is to set clear expectations.
The organization should talk to the new developers about:
Are they responsible for working during rigid business hours or is a flexible option available?
How will their performance be measured? A discussion about the productivity tools should be made.
During this step, it is necessary to ensure your onboarding buddy provides all the information about the work & responsibilities. Furthermore, he should also delegate some small non-critical tasks to get the team members started.
This is another step in the onboarding process. The company is responsible for conducting regular meetings to ensure the progress of the work. Staying up-to-date about the tasks will ensure employees are synced well with the process of the work.
Taking constructive feedback about the onboarding process is vital. It is important to analyze what the software developers are willing to say about the onboarding process.
The onboarding process might be good, but not a complete WOW. However, asking for constructive feedback will help in achieving improvisation.
Acquaint Softtech is a software development company that specializes in IT Staff Augmentation & Custom Software Development. We are a seasoned company having an expertise of 15+ years.
We can help you onboard remote developers that meet your requirements. Our agile approach makes the recruitment process smooth.
Setting up a remote team is very difficult yet crucial to meet the software development requirements. But, knowing the right steps to be followed during the hiring process becomes essential.
In this guide, we learned everything about integrating remote developers in your existing in-house development team.
The first step in the onboarding process is to run a pre-onboarding process by giving all essential information about the company.
Ensuring they receive all the vital information about tools & software is very important.
Organize virtual meets or team meetings to encourage informal interactions & team bonding.
I love to make a difference. Thus, I started Acquaint Softtech with the vision of making developers easily accessible and affordable to all. Me and my beloved team have been fulfilling this vision for over 15 years now and will continue to get even bigger and better.
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