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Conduct Remote Interviews for Teams

How to conduct a positive remote interview experience for your team and candidates.
Sharon Lo
|
BJ
Brey Jones

5 Tips for Creating a Great Experience

In the world of remote hiring, engagement and creating a stellar candidate experience is a key step in bringing in great hires for your team. Whether it’s fast response times, flexibility with scheduling, or providing important information for your virtual on-sites, every touch point counts. Below, we’ve listed out tips that will hopefully spark some ideas on how to find your rhythm with conducting remote interviews!
Feel free to make a copy of this doc, and update it with your personal and/or company's information.

1. 💻 The right tools for a smooth experience.

Choose a video conferencing platform that's functional and reliable, like
Zoom
⁠
or
Google Hangouts
⁠
.
Think through the logistics of making this system work well for your team. For example, you might want one meeting ID for the full interview loop vs. unique meeting IDs for each one.
Send important information to candidates in advance, such as calendar invites with instructions and necessary links.
Include instructions in your candidate’s confirmation email to install and test any required software prior interview.
Ex: Remind candidates with presentations that they will have to grant browser permission to record in order to screen share.
Create a private
Slack
⁠
channel for your hiring team to communicate on the day of interview.
Have interviewers ping the channel when they are running over, finished, or hopping on, to ensure a seamless transition between interview sessions.

2. ⏰ Practice punctuality!

We've all been on Zoom by ourselves wondering what's going on - it's a little awkward! Make sure to remind interviewers to dial in on time.
For presentations, if you’re on the video call and waiting for more team members to hop on, engage with the candidate - it especially helps if they’re feeling nervous!
Coda Pro Tip: You can connect Coda with your team's interviewing calendar and set up automated Slack messages to remind interviewers before their interview!

3. 😁 Keep it engaging, fun, and appropriate for all candidates.

There are things you can do to help candidates feel positive about your company without being able to visit the office.
Schedule time for informal chats with team members to share more about the unique and fun parts of your company culture that is typically experienced during an in-person interview.
Share something you love about your company. We encourage employees to share their favorite Coda docs.
Share additional content about the company, like a Coda doc with information on what it's like working on different teams, office culture, employee benefits, and fun traditions!
At Coda, we have candidates do brief presentations that are open for anyone in the company to join.
Communicate the Dos and Don'ts of interviewing.
If you are interviewing or joining in on a presentation, have your video display on. This helps create a space for more engagement, a friendly smile or head nod can go a long way!
Stay away from inappropriate questions, even if they seem harmless. For example, don't ask candidates about where they're from, marital status, sexual orientation, etc.
Remain sensitive regarding COVID-19, and empathetic to people's individual situations. They may have lost a loved one or have been laid off from their job.
With video interviews, it can be hard to gauge the room as one normally can in person. It is best to avoid inappropriate jokes. People's humor might not always be obviously offensive or outrageous, but it's better to be cautious here.

4. 📆 Take advantage of modified schedules

Remote interviewing ends up being much more flexible to schedule, so you'll be able to schedule candidates in faster.
Adapt to your team's work from home schedule, or any restrictions the candidate might have, such as taking care of kids who are out of school.
You may find it's less cumbersome to break a longer panel in to multiple days. For example, we offer our engineer candidates the option of conducting their interviews over two days.

5. 🧐 Share a "What If..." guide with your team

You can predict some of the scenarios that might occur during a remote interview. Share a reference guide for your team to be prepared on how to handle these.
Check out Coda's
What If...
⁠
guide.
⁠

Next up, check out our ‘What If...’ guide

⁠
What If...
A guide to help with situations that may arise during remote interviews. Make a copy and update the content with what works best for your team!
⁠
⁠
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