
Lessons from Hiring a Remote Team - Lexandrit
https://cvcompiler.com/blog/7-rules-of-hiring-a-remote-team-for-your-project/
======
lhorie
> Put some ‘traps’ in the job description

Careful with that, it implies you have an issue with trust or micromanagement.
As a candidate, I'd roll my eyes and move on.

> Talk about life with your candidates

Careful with this one too. It's illegal to discriminate candidates based on
non-work aspects (e.g. candidate has kids). If you're a small company C-suit
doing the hiring, this is especially problematic as it can come across to a
candidate as being overly nosy and raise flags.

~~~
T-hawk
> It's illegal to discriminate candidates based on non-work aspects (e.g.
> candidate has kids).

This is true only when a specific law creates a specific protected class.
Discrimination is legal by default. An employer can freely choose who it
associates with. It only becomes illegal when a specific law makes it so.

Protected classes in most US jurisdictions include characteristics like
gender, race, religion, some medical conditions. Age is a protected class only
over age 40; discriminating against a worker of age 39 for being too old, or
favoring workers over 40, is entirely legal. I don't know offhand if family
status of kids is a protected class.

But protected classes don't include a lot of things that people commonly think
they do. Some example non-work factors that are perfectly legal to
discriminate on because there is no US law protecting the class: smoking,
obesity, height, car you drive, method of commuting, sports team favoritism.

~~~
astura
If you're asking invasive personal questions like "what are your life plans?"
during a job interview it can look like you're trying to discriminate against
a protected class.

I'm a childless woman at the age where most conversations about vague future
life plans are actually inquiries about childbearing.

It's risky and there's just no good reason to do it.

------
ravenstine
> Talk about life with your candidates

> I have one simple rule: I don’t want to work with people whom I wouldn’t
> invite for coffee. When hiring a remote team member, I always talk to them
> about their life plans or favorite books. This small talk shows me whether a
> person will be a good fit for our team.

This is _fine_ , so long as you recognize your own biases and don't expect to
be mirroring yourself on to other people. Humans looking to make an honest
living are not your personal canvas. If you look for people who can get along
with you without necessarily expecting them to be your "bro", then being
chummy with candidates should be acceptable. Be sure to accept people with
different interests and personalities.

~~~
MuffinFlavored
What if I don't read books? Am I instantly not allowed to be on the team? :(

~~~
cik
All joking aside that's one of my filters for any hiring, and whether or not
I'll work with someone. Someone who doesn't read, or hasn't read recently
(tech, econ, whatever), I find is then missing all sorts of other things that
make it a bad experience.

~~~
imsofuture
As an insatiable reader: yikes!

There has got to be such a poor correlation between reading and being a good
hire, I'm shocked you'd admit to seriously using such an awful filter for
hiring. Hiring people that are most like you in appearance, philosophy,
mannerisms, hobbies is a TERRIBLE way to hire.

~~~
kareemm
I find there to be decent overlap between readers and intellectually curious
people. It's hard to be intellectually curious if you don't read.

~~~
watwut
Many if not owerwhelming majority of people who read do read same story or
kind of book over and over. It is called preference.

------
astura
>I have one simple rule: I don’t want to work with people whom I wouldn’t
invite for coffee. When hiring a remote team member, I always talk to them
about their life plans or favorite books. This small talk shows me whether a
person will be a good fit for our team.

Hrm.... I was under the impression that people hiring were looking for
employees/teammembers/coworkers, not buddies??

I don't personally care if I would enjoy coffee/beer with a coworker as long
as they are a good teammate, employee, and coworker. I don't find an team full
of people that have the same hobbies and enjoy the same literature
particularly beneficial in any way.

I just don't think "enjoys the same books as me" is a good test for "makes a
good teammate."

In the past I have had some absolutely fantastic coworkers that I had
absolutely nothing in common with outside of work and would never want to hang
out with (stuff like young earth creationists, has a mail order bride younger
than his daughter, incredibly sheltered people, and just weird people). OTOH,
some people I've become friends with outside of work make for horrible
coworkers (stuff like poor work ethic, poor code quality, horrible attitude
towards work, primadonnas in a work setting, control freaks at work). I also
worked with a guy who just wouldn't talk about anything personal at work with
coworkers (boss obviously different) because he believed in a separation
between personal life and work life. No problem, he still made a fine
coworker.

I'd very, VERY strongly discourage asking interviewees about their "life
plans," like, seriously, this is a BAD idea. Asking about "life plans" can
come across as looking to discriminate against people with families, people
who plan to start a family soon, or even people who have certain religious
beliefs, which is illegal in many parts of the world, including the US. It
might seem like a harmless question if a young male is asking another young
male "what are your life plans?" in an interview, but it seems a _lot_ less
harmless when the interviewee is a female of childbearing age. If an
interviewer asked me "what are your life plans?" I'd assume the subtext was
"are you planning on going on maturity leave soon?"

Also, what the hell sort of answer to this question would be a "good" answer
and what would be a "bad" answer? Are you just looking to hire people with the
same life plans as you???

~~~
mrmonkeyman
I hate to say it, but I agree. My most annoying collegue is the most
dependable, knowledgable person I know. Once you navigate his fuckedupness he
is quite a joy to work with, but god forbid I ever socialize with him, it is a
nightmare.

~~~
gwbas1c
Coffee with a co-worker isn't socializing. In many cases it's just an
extension of work.

~~~
astura
Why would someone say "I have one simple rule: I don’t want to work with
people whom I wouldn’t [work with]?" That's a meaningless tautology. You also
don't need to know someone's life plans and literature preferences if you're
just working with them.

------
vorpalhex
Aside from "paying well" this is like a laundry list of what to not do.

1\. Unless you're paying me, I'm not doing homework.

2\. This isn't a dating ad, it's an employment offer. You're not hiring PIs.

4\. Be careful about building a social club instead of a company

5\. I don't work with people who don't understand the separation between work
and my personal life. My political views, social views, and what I do with my
free time are none of your business as long as I don't make them your
business. Frankly, I don't want to be your friend.

7\. A book is garbage onboarding. Your onboarding needs to be task oriented
and fast. Give them a quick checklist on how to get access, pull down a
project, and build it and run tests. Don't expect them to study a godforsaken
manual.

~~~
astura
What does "PIs" stand for in this context?

~~~
vorpalhex
Private Investigators.

------
wolco
Lessons #1. Tricking candidates is a fake filter. It doesn't get you better
candidates. Why not take every 2nd application and toss it out for no reason.
Or only call back names that start with a vowel? Same effect.

Lesson #2. Would we make a good coffee date? Why not base it on if they would
make a great bowling buddy or dance contest partner? Are they single? Do they
have good looking friends that they could set me up with?

Lesson #3 References are a degree more useless for remote candidates. Easier
to make up and fake. It worked well 100 years ago when everyone knew everyone
less so now.

Lesson #4 Having someone do a test closely mirroring your process is great for
temp contractor not so good if you are looking at someone to take your
codebase to the next level.

------
hunglee2
"traps" comment is attracting a lot of flak in comments here - easy to
understand why, it gives the sense of being set up for failure.

I'd love to see OP expand on this point as I feel the wording distracts from
the main point, which is a subtle test of someone's attention to detail and /
or facility with written communication, both of which are important for remote
work, where 'over-the-desk' clarifications are not available

~~~
malvosenior
This will happen naturally during the negotation and interview process and it
will look a lot more like "real work" than any trap, trick or quiz. Are they
effectively writing emails as you have your back and forth? Do they ask good
clarifying questions? What do they do with their contract once it's sent to
them?

Actually getting someone in the door requires a lot of work on both sides of
the table. It's a perfect and natural way to vet what it's like to work with
someone.

~~~
hunglee2
You're right. Nothing beats actually working with someone to learn whether you
want to work with someone. However there are inefficiencies in doing this,
which is why assessments (which are all proxies for the work) are used.

I don't think it's unreasonable to use subtle testing like this. We likely do
it anyway (i.e we make judgement calls when reviewing someone's online
profile, portfolio etc) - all equally sub-optimal but we use it because we
need a short cut

------
aantix
I don't consider a "50-page PDF" as on-boarding. It feels more like a cover-
your-ass document. I would fear that when the candidate becomes confused about
something, the book gives the team a free pass to give the look of "did you
even RTFM?"

Proper on-boarding is pairing, it's a walkthrough, answering questions
contextually as they arise.

Not a brain dump of everything you think they should know.

------
shikoba
> Talk about life with your candidates

That's the best way to not hire introvert competent people.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
I'm an introvert and I don't mind talking about life. Just don't expect the
things I talk about to be bent towards social endeavors.

~~~
JAlexoid
I'm an introvert and on the spectrum - when someone asks me about "life", I
immediately find the question to be like an inquisition into my personal life.

I'm also gay and married, that makes any "personal life" questions fraught
with discrimination liability.

------
alexpotato
This article reminds me of one of my favorite "quick filter" stories:

I had a female friend who would ask every guy she met two questions: 1\. Do
you have a passport? 2\. Do you have a library card?

If the answer to #1 was 'No', then that meant that they had never left the
country.

If the answer to #2 was 'No', odds were that they didn't LOVE to read. (This
story is from the pre-ereader days)

I've always been fascinated by questions like these that can quickly allow you
to parse/grok/filter people with a high degree of success and minimal false
positives.

------
phonebucket
> Hiring a remote team is not an easy task, but if you believe it’s for you,
> you will cope with it. Good luck!

The best I can hope for is "coping"? Doesn't sound so inspiring!

~~~
AznHisoka
Hiring is a huge pain point for many people. It's a billion dollar problem. We
want it to go away. Of course it ain't going to be fun, nor inspiring.

------
mytailorisrich
I don't see a problem with the "traps" mentioned, which are only a mean to
check whether the candidate has read the job description in full before
applying and/or that (s)he can follow simple instructions when applying.

So not really traps at all, and not aimed at tripping candidates up.

~~~
JAlexoid
Adding requirements for candidates to be fulfilled during the application
process shouldn't be a trap!

~~~
mytailorisrich
It's not a trap. Perhaps the author did not choose the best term.

~~~
JAlexoid
It is. He literally explains what kind of stupid actions he suggests going
"candidates to replace the subject line of their application with a specific
phrase".*

If you want attentiveness, then ask for a rational action to be completed...
Not senseless idiocy.

* - Had I seen this request(I read the job postings carefully) I would definitely skip the job.

~~~
mytailorisrich
If someone cannot follow a simple instruction in a job posting then perhaps
they shouldn't call the job poster 'stupid'...

------
malvosenior
Really disagree with a lot of this (and I'm a strong advocate for remote
work).

> _It’s reckless to judge a candidate only from the perspective of their
> portfolio or resume, not seeing this person in real work._

I try to hire exclusively based on portfolio and having an engaged and in-
depth conversation with a candidate about their work. Works great! Doesn't
waste anyone's time and I've got many excellent candidates who flat out refuse
to take tests or do homework to get a job.

> _Put some ‘traps’ in the job description_

Hell to the f'ing no! Do not work with anyone who tries to trap or trick you
during the interview process.

> _I have one simple rule: I don’t want to work with people whom I wouldn’t
> invite for coffee_

Grow up. You're not looking for friends you're looking for co-workers.

This company sounds extremely toxic.

~~~
0xffff2
>I try to hire exclusively based on portfolio and having an engaged and in-
depth conversation with a candidate about their work. Works great! Doesn't
waste anyone's time and I've got many excellent candidates who flat out refuse
to take tests or do homework to get a job.

What kinds of positions do you hire for? I can see this possibly working
alright for senior positions, but I've interviewed entirely too many people
for entry-level positions who seem competent on paper and can talk about
technologies on their resume in broad strokes, but struggle to solve even
simple problems (e.g. implement an array-based stack) in their environment of
choice in a screen-share interview. I started doing these simple exercises
intending them to be a way of gaining insight into the candidate's approach,
seeing what questions they ask, etc. Instead I find that many candidates
simply aren't able to solve the problem, which I would never have guessed from
their resume and conversation up to that point in the interview.

~~~
jschwartzi
These are entry-level positions, and frankly I wouldn't expect so much of
someone who is a junior engineer. They should be able to do it with coaching,
they may need you to remind them of things from time to time, but I wouldn't
expect a junior to be capable of just doing 100% without any coaching.

I would expect them to try to figure out what you're looking for, and I would
expect them to do some googling to figure out what that means. But I've met
too many juniors who couldn't do what you're asking without some coaching, and
they all did fine.

Frankly, software development is a team effort, and you have to work to build
a team. I've worked for too many companies that expect their entry-level
juniors to competently deliver without any coaching, and it just doesn't work.
Maybe we're all having so much trouble hiring because we're expecting too much
of people and giving them too little help?

~~~
JAlexoid
+9000

------
pier25
I'm fine with the "traps" mentioned. I know I would pay attention to those
things even if I was looking at many job applications and I would expect
anyone I'd hire to do the same.

As for "talking about life" I think it's a great idea. Many people ITT think
it's about finding buddies, it's not. It's about getting a reading of the
person and be able to make a better decision. This goes both ways, the
candidate will also know what type of person he will be working with.

~~~
astura
What sort of non-(illegal)discriminatory reason would you consider someone's
life plans in a hiring decision? And it is _really_ worth the legal risk of
asking this question?

~~~
pier25
It's not really about life plans or discrimination, it's about getting a sense
of what the person is like outside of the professional skills and experience.
Everyone brings extra baggage when getting into a job.

Does he/she have interests outside of the tech world? Maybe contributes to
open source projects? Maybe likes learning new things constantly? Etc.

I've been hiring people for almost 20 years for my company, working as a
manager in other people's companies, or sharing a project with other
freelancers. It's undeniable the chemistry between team members is an
important factor.

It also works the other way around, for the candidate to evaluate what kind of
person his/her next boss will be like.

~~~
astura
>what the person is like outside of the professional skills and experience

Not relevant as long as they are professional and capable at work. Just sounds
like a (poor) justification for illegal discrimination.

>Maybe contributes to open source projects?

If you want to know this try asking "do you contribute to open source
projects?" instead.

>It's undeniable the chemistry between team members is an important factor.

Sounds like an proxy for illegal discrimination. "Oh, our teams chemistry is
important so we don't want to hire an older
person/woman/Mormon/mother/Indian/recent immigrant/double amputee because they
are too different and would mess up the team chemistry." Even if this isn't
intentional its the end result.

I'll tell you what's important for team chemistry - respect and
professionalism in a work setting, good work performance, and good work ethic.
Not their life ambitions, what type of literature they read or what type of
hobbies they have. I've _only_ worked in incredibly diverse teams and it's not
a problem for "team chemistry." However, I would think working with someone
who could only work with people they are friends with WOULD be a problem, a
big problem.

But, really, could you actually honestly defend this position in court if you
had to? Doubtful. I'm a childless woman at the age where most conversations
about vague future life plans are actually inquiries about childbearing.

But, really, what's an example of a "wrong" answer to this question? Are you
really going to say "Oh, she's boring outside of work, lets not hire her?" How
silly.

I know a guy (not a coworker of mine) who literally does absolutely nothing
outside of work except sleep, play video games, exercise, cook and clean, and
very occasionally grabs a beer with me. He rarely leaves the house except to
go to work. He's got the most boring life ever but he's gotten several
promotions over the course of the first couple years of his career.

~~~
pier25
> _respect and professionalism in a work setting, good work performance, and
> good work ethic_

And how do you evaluate that in an interview?

> _I 'm a childless woman at the age where most conversations about vague
> future life plans are actually inquiries about childbearing._

I already said this is not about life-plans.

> _But, really, what 's an example of a "wrong" answer to this question? Are
> you really going to say "Oh, she's boring outside of work, lets not hire
> her?" How silly._

You are making many assumptions here which clearly indicate you are missing
the point. It's not about knowing if the candidate prefers reading Dostoevsky
or Dan Brown, it's about knowing a bit more about his/her character and
personality.

------
strig
Most of this advice also applies to hiring onsite employees.

------
mdip
There were several good points in the post and one really bad one ("traps"
which has been pointed out a few times).

There are a few issues with "traps" that should be avoided (any kind, not just
the one mentioned): (1) Taking a failure to pay attention to a minor detail in
a job application and assuming that applies more broadly is a nice idea, but
not practical. People make mistakes, people overlook things and they
prioritize how much they'll pay attention based on the task, not desire --
i.e. if I'm applying for 30 jobs, 2 of which I'm really excited about, I'll
spend more time on the two I'm excited about but I'm probably going to spend
as much time reading the description and instructions as I did for the
previous 30 because the task is repetitive and similar. (2) It's likely to
turn people off -- when I see very specific, very odd instructions in a job
application, it's a signal that the company is doing things ... oddly. Are all
of their internal processes this rigid? Especially for _remote_ hiring, where
your staff usually places a high value on flexibility, it's the wrong message
to send.

But it makes you feel good, as the person doing hiring. It looks like a "quick
way to eliminate a large number of resumes" and works about as well as all of
those other quick ways.

The flip side of this sort of trap is that it can back-fire. Assuming that it
truly does weed out candidates who lack an attention to detail, it could also
skew toward perfectionist types who get everything perfect ... once it
_eventually_ , _maybe_ gets completed at all.

~~~
hayksaakian
To play devil's advocate:

If I'm the hiring manager, then I probably don't want to hire you for the 28
out of 30 jobs you're not interested in.

Sure, you're selecting for perfectionists, but arguably that's better than
hiring people who don't really care about your company.

~~~
noirbot
But at the same time, I only have so many hours in the day to research
companies. If you asked me what companies I was interested in working at,
you'd mostly get big-name stuff, even though right now I work somewhere you've
likely never heard of.

If you're not a FAANG company, you almost have to be hiring folks who are
applying to you because "why not", and then pitching them on your company.
I've gone to plenty of interviews and been sold on a company that I previously
had almost no knowledge of, especially in B2B industries. Massive portions of
the jobs in tech are for teams, companies and industries that your average
developer has no exposure to, and no real reason to care about, but it doesn't
mean people can't become passionate about working there if given more
information.

~~~
mdip

        > even though right now I work somewhere you've likely never heard of.
    

I'm with you on that. I'm working at a place that, prior to the interview, _I_
had never heard of. It turned out I and much of my family had DTE Energy
Bridges, which they were responsible for, had watched a cable news network who
featured their Surface Table app for the 2008 elections and a number of other
things that I'm not actually sure I'm allowed to mention.

Some of the best companies are hidden gems like this and almost all of the
people I've interviewed have started out not knowing who we were before the
interview and being very excited to work for us by the end (the others were
already excited). Even _though_ we tend to attract great talent -- it's
_difficult_. Frankly, lately, I'd _like_ it if my thinking was "I need fewer
people who are ~qualified~ somewhere-in-the-same-time-zone-as-qualified for
this position[0]" that would require a trap to weed some out.

[0] And we've paired down our job requirements -- these are also common
positions: C# Backend Web / JS Front-end React (with TypeScript as a bonus!)

edit: the year was 2008, President Obama, not 2018 mid-terms (the network was
MSNBC)

------
zrth
Has any of this been A/B tested?

Is it disowning of me, if the absence of A/B testing make me think this is
rather random opinions than solid advice?

------
JAlexoid
A few rules that are sorely missed

\- Remember to check out local work culture.(Americans stick out like a sore
thumb in many western European work social situations)

\- Always, always, always have a good leader on site.

~~~
iheartdata
>Remember to check out local work culture.(Americans stick out like a sore
thumb in many western European work social situations)

Care to elaborate a bit? I'm an American working at a large US University with
a very diverse community. I've daydreamed about moving to western Europe, so
I'd like to hear what the work social situations you're referring to are.

~~~
JAlexoid
Depends where you want to move to. Diversity has really nothing to do with it.
I work in a very diverse workplace, but many European countries have strong
cultural norms for the workplace.

As an example - corporate events in Europe rarely include a +1. That confused
all of my American colleagues, that are used to having their spouses join.
Making friendships with people at work requires more than just "we work
together".

In England having a pint after work on Thursday or Friday is basically a team
building event. You better join in, or you'll stop being invited.(Drinking
isn't mandatory, though)

In France - lunch time is not work time, so don't talk about work.

~~~
iheartdata
Thanks!

------
draw_down
> It’s reckless to judge a candidate only from the perspective of their
> portfolio or resume, not seeing this person in real work.

> Put some ‘traps’ in the job description

Good grief.

