3 qualities to seek for in WFH candidates

Covid-19 rapidly changed the way things happen, allowing us to work from home and also managed to prove manager that WFH is actually possible. Based on the increased employee productivity to better retention rates, it gradually made every organization realize that it's time to agree with the new normal.

Remote work isn't for everyone -- some prefer to collaborate and brainstorm in-person, or find it challenging to work with household distractions.

Therefore, recruiting, hiring, and onboarding processes must transform to keep up. As many companies start to rely on virtual interviewing, business leaders need to upgrade the thoughts on how they should change the whole interviewing process and the questions that they ask for. They will have to make sure that they obtain the right person for the right job from the pool of applied candidates, and that's not it. They will also have to make sure that the chosen candidate fits the whole WFH change too.

The best way to do this is through restructuring the questions you ask in a job interview. Here are some things to consider:

1. Self-Motivation

The ability to self-motivate is a crucial skill - this trait will help a lot when the candidate is for a remote position with no supervision.

When it's about working from home, there are so many distractions which will affect managing remote work settings. A daily drive to continue to produce good quality work needs to be found in order to manage and balance workload with other priorities.

Employers should develop and ask questions which will help to understand a candidate's self-management skills and how they successfully balance the myriad of challenges faced when WFH.

Some questions to ask:

• Can you share an example of when you went above and beyond to complete a task?
• How do you stay organized and prioritize your workload to meet deadlines?

2. Solo or Team Player

Team-oriented candidates are the successful ones but the candidates that are team-oriented and can also work independently are the game changers. In remote settings, the ability to work independently can be a crucial skill.

Go beyond asking about preferred working styles and home in on how a candidate would handle situations that can be harder to overcome when not in an office setting, this way we can identify their potentials.

Include questions and prompts such as:

• How would you go about communicating a problem you're encountering on the job?
• Tell me about a time you were able to make a decision independently.

These experience-based questions give interviewers a sense of whether or not candidates have the independence and self-drive to succeed while working remotely.

3. Adaptability

The third most important trait to measure in interviews is a candidate's ability to adapt to working in any setting. We need to make sure that nothing will change or deviate when the employee has to either come back to work or if the work setting changes.

Sometimes this requires the flexibility to work adjusted hours beyond the typical 9-to-5. Consider asking behavioral questions such as:

• How would you complete a task with a team member working in a different time zone?
• How do you balance work and life?

On the other hand, one of the greatest benefits of remote work is having more time to spend on hobbies and with loved ones. Also lots of coffee and you get to work in your pajamas too!

Identify candidates who can find ways to adapt and shuffle tasks around when team members need to go to a doctor's appointment or care for another family member during the day.

When offices reopen for good, we may not see a full return to work as we once knew it. As remote work steadily becomes more of the norm, organizations will have to hire candidates virtually, when these traits are searched for in job interviews, it will make success more likely for both candidates and employers.