
Remote Work: Hiring, recruiting, and essential tools - garry
https://blog.garrytan.com/masterclass-on-remote-work-hiring-recruiting-and-essential-tools-part-1-of-2
======
remmargorp64
I just want to share my favorite remote work pair programming tool for MacOS:
Tuple

[https://tuple.app/](https://tuple.app/)

It has much better screen sharing than any of the other commonly used tools
(Zoom/Slack/Skype/VNC, etc) with higher resolution, very low latency, and no
distracting overlaying UI components (I can't emphasize how important this
particular issue is to me).

It's essentially a reborn and upgraded version of ScreenHero (from back before
Slack bought them out and then utterly destroyed what was so great about it).

I am not affiliated with Tuple in any way, but I want their product to succeed
because I love it so much, so I evangelize it whenever I can!

~~~
aantix
How does it compare to the newly launched product 'Screen' (from the
Screenhero founders)?

[https://screen.so/](https://screen.so/)

~~~
remmargorp64
I think it's awesome to see the Screenhero folks back in the game, but when I
tried Screen.so out, it still suffered from two of my biggest complaints:

1\. Unnecessary UI elements floating over the screen. Screen opts to have a
floating box with buttons and stuff that you can drag around, but it's always
floating over your screen. You can minimize it, but then you lose
functionality. Tuple, on the other hand, hides their functionality in the
system tray menu, and in the application's title bar. With Tuple, you can go
into full screen mode and Tuple is completely invisible and the experience is
seamless.

2\. Screen.so places an annoying green border around the screen when
recording/sharing (they did this with Slack, too, and I hated it). The green
border often obscures application scroll bars and other window elements, and
is completely unnecessary.

------
jefflombardjr
> One thing that we're really big on is, wherever we can, we'll engage in a
> paid trial, or a paid test of some kind. For engineers, this is rather
> straightforward. We'll basically just ask what their desired hourly or day
> rate is, and we'll put them on a modular project for them to work on. That
> kind of doesn't require being highly integrated with the rest of the team.

This is great for the company. But for the candidate, I'm not convinced.

If I'm a W2 employee, I don't have any interest in complicating my tax return
for a couple of days trial contract. Realistically, how much more are you
going to learn about me in that time frame over a 1-2 hour technical
interview.

Some plan on a longer trial contract - I see alot of 3-6 month contract-to-
hire situations. This still isn't good enough because in startups the
candidate will miss out on stock vesting. In large companies the candidate
will be 'other'... there is a clear divide between FTE's and contractors at
most large corps/there is a risk that the project might change/role
availability will change.

If a company is serious about hiring employees. I'm convinced w2 from the
start is the best.

It sends the message - we trust you, you belong, you're a part of our team.
There can definitely be a probationary period, and there should be a more
stringent hiring process. To me this is about signaling. If a company isn't
willing to hire full time I think one of the following: 1. You don't have
enough funding to do this right. 2. You don't know how to properly interview
people. or 3. You think this is being generous but in reality don't fully
understand the implications.

Remote work is about trust. If you don't trust someone - you don't have any
business hiring them. Even in the current covid situation I'm seeing people
hesitant to hire remotely. It's crazy. It's so much easier to slack off in an
office than in a properly setup remote team.

Contractors are great for remote as well. But set clear expectations -
straddling between contractor and employee is counter productive.

~~~
wink
Also probably tailored to US law?

Here in Germany you're usually not allowed to do any paid work without
notifying your current employer, or at all.

Also not even sure how it would work for currently-not-employed people, you
can't just write a bill for 2 days of work without a company.

And this is just additional to any tax problems.

That said, I think I like the idea a lot more than sitting through interviews.
But it's simply not feasible (here) unless you're a freelancer already and
just do this as a short paid gig before starting there. (Because then you
should be prepared for such a gig, anyway).

------
Finbarr
Had a lot of fun doing this. Thanks to Garry and Katelin for the opportunity.
Happy to answer any questions. AMA.

~~~
Endlessly
As YC alumni and founder with experience working remotely — and given it
appears likely, per YC, that the YC S20 summer batch will be 100% remote —
would it be possible provide any suggestions for working remotely with YC as
part of a YC batch?

(Already created a related “Ask HN” [1] - but please feel to reply (if you do)
wherever makes sense to you.)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22750941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22750941)

~~~
Finbarr
Yes I’d say:

\- make use of the office hours that YC provides. You can schedule these once
you’ve been accepted. They’ve already been doing office hours by video.

\- ask YC alumni for introductions to investors. The community has really
pulled together to support the W20 batch that just graduated. They’re the
first to do demo day remotely. I know some of the companies had no trouble
raising substantial rounds fully remotely.

\- one aspect of YC that works really well is meeting other founders
serendipitously. I anticipate that YC will probably figure something out to
enable this, but don’t be afraid to reach out to relevant alums asking to
connect.

~~~
Endlessly
Thanks for sharing — all good advice regardless of if YC ends up doing the
next batch 100% remote or not.

------
joelrunyon
One of the things that people are running into is Zoom link overload. My days
are back to back

One thing I don't think they included is scheduling meetings - beyond just a
calendly availability.

I've been using [https://Woven.com](https://Woven.com) to coordinate work
availability for the past year and it's really helped me get a handle on my
time.

I think time & calendars are going to be the next tools people are really
going to need as they have to do a lot more self-directed remote owkr.

~~~
jedieaston
I think 99% of people are just using Outlook for this (or Google Calendar, if
that's how you roll). It knows everyone's availability, will notify you if
someone can't make the meeting you are creating, and can automatically
generate the Zoom info and add it to the invite. Then, if you want, you can
link your Exchange calendar to Zoom so it just pops up a join button in a
notification five minutes before (or, of course, just open the calendar event
and click the link). It's very similar for Teams and webex too, if you use
those ones (just need the webex plugin), and Google Calendar auto generates
Hangouts Meet links if you are a GSuite group.

It's much easier to use the calendar everyone already has than to find yet
another SaaS to manage. And, by default, Outlook doesn't show what you are
doing if there is a conflict, just "busy", so it does allow you to add blocked
periods for lunch or focused work.

------
steve76
For the reverse, working remotely, I found:

\- Define a product instead of taking orders.

\- Don't be afraid to cut bait.

\- Work the job while quoting.

\- Clients are not equipped to provide technical direction.

Maxing out the ratings on Upwork only finds people who work towards that
rating, sometimes even complete offshore teams.

