
How to Determine If Candidates Will Thrive in a Remote Work Environment - drieddust
https://hackernoon.com/how-to-determine-if-candidates-will-thrive-in-a-remote-work-environment-d538d1e8f831
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codingdave
> If they talk about how great it was to do their laundry during work hours,
> thumbs down.

I've worked from home, successfully, for many years, and I disagree with that
criteria. Everyone works from home differently, and I know people who can rock
their work exactly because of the added flexibility to care for their home and
family on their work breaks. It decreases the stress in their life to slice
their day in different ways, and allows people with busy lives to do better on
all fronts.

There are many different ways to manage remote teams - some are hands-off,
only concerned about whether the work is done. Some monitor their people to be
sure they are 100% online during "working hours". Many are in a middle ground,
with expectations set of specific response times to Slack, IMs, emails, etc.
Likewise, there are many different remote working styles. Some people do well
with a typical 8 hour day. I tended to target a 40 hour week, but that would
be made of many 2-3 hour chunks throughout the week, not 8 hour blocks.

At the end of the day, you have to trust your team to do their work. The
companies that are resistant to their remote people handling personal tasks
during their "working day" don't truly have that trust.

~~~
gregmac
Seriously.

I don't regularly work from home, but I have solved several difficult problems
while doing laundry, and I can specifically think of one time recently that
was during a workday while I was folding towels. I know it's happened other
times as well, I just can't specifically think if it was during the day while
working from home.

I've also solved problems while showering, mowing the grass, eating dinner,
and laying in bed trying to fall asleep.

Who knew -- developing software involves lots of thinking. You don't have to
have your butt in a seat in front of the computer in the office to think.
Sometimes doing something completely different is just what's necessary to
break through -- whether this is getting up to get a drink, going for a walk,
or doing sometimes completely non-computer-related like laundry.

~~~
HurrdurrHodor
My high-school math teacher used to say that we have our best ideas for
solving problems in the shower and on the toilet. :)

~~~
Fnoord
There's actually scientific support for that theory. You gave an example of
'diffused mode' [1] of thinking as opposed to the 'focused mode' of thinking.

Neither is necessarily 'better'; both have their place in our daily lives. The
'diffused mode' regularly doesn't get the credit it deserves as people (e.g.
educational systems) are hammering too much on the 'focused mode'.

If you are interested in learning how to use the 'diffused mode', more things
related to learning, and optimizing the way you learn I can recommend the free
course on Coursera called Learning How To Learn by Dr. Barbara Oakley and Dr.
Terrence Sejnowski.

[1] [https://staciechoice1010.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/focused-
vs...](https://staciechoice1010.wordpress.com/2014/08/08/focused-vs-diffused-
mode/)

[2] [https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-
learn](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn)

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prh8
> If they talk about how great it was to do their laundry during work hours,
> thumbs down.

That really just means they're a butts-in-seats company that doesn't have an
office. Take this from a job listing of theirs[1]

> we don't care if you work at night, on weekends, in your pajamas, after
> class, in another timezone, etc. We do ask that you are available by Skype
> during regular 9-5 CST work hours

That's great if you can flex your work time, but if you have to always be
available, that means you are either working or thinking about work almost all
the time. This makes work even more stressful, unless you only work during the
proper business hours.

On another note, the laundry thing is just ridiculous. That's a 5 minute task.
People in an office environment burn 10 minutes at a time playing ping pong,
foosball, or any number of time wasters.

[1]: [https://community.articulate.com/discussions/building-
better...](https://community.articulate.com/discussions/building-better-
courses/part-time-e-learning-designer-remote-flexible-hours-small-fun-company)

~~~
JshWright
That's a pretty hilarious quote from the job posting... We don't care when you
work, as long as it's in addition to the regimented 40 hours we prescribe.

~~~
pc86
Don't forget the very first line: 15-20 hours to start. So you're paid for 15
hours, but required to be available for 40.

Decorum prevents me from saying how I truly feel about that.

~~~
randlet
Also don't forget the:

    
    
        Cool things about working for us:
            Potential to earn bonuses for projects. Very *LOW* salary but since we are ROWE (Results Only Work Environment), bonuses are part of the deal!

~~~
prh8
I didn't even make it that far in the posting. Here's another gem that is very
close to the top

> You would be part of our underpaid production team

------
dgreensp
_We’ve found that people from big companies with a slower work pace and
unclear project owners often find it difficult to adjust to a culture that
expects them to personally drive their own deliverables._

This doesn't sound very compassionate to engineers leaving big, dysfunctional
companies (which by the way preach the exact same ethos of personal
responsibility). Basically, they are damaged goods who aren't expected to
thrive in a better environment?

~~~
albertgoeswoof
More likely that people who are succesful at big companies don't leave as
much, because there's a higher upside sticking where they are than joining a
small startup that allows remote working. So the people they are hiring from
big companies are usually the rubbish ones.

Btw, if you're really good you can work remotely even in the largest
companies. Just work your way up to your own P&L, hire a global team and away
you go. Probably will have to check in a few times a year in person, but
that's no big deal.

~~~
Clubber
There are pockets of awesomeness in big companies. I worked for a company that
sold for over half a trillion, and it was a great job until we got acquired.

Small companies can be hellholes too, especially when runway is short, or
competition is fierce. Like anything, it depends on the culture.

As far as staying at big companies, inertia is a big reason. It's easy to
justify staying at a place that pays really well, particularly if you have a
family, a car payment, and/or a mortgage. 5 weeks of vacation is nice too;
that comes with tenure and leaves as soon as you do. I have to constantly
check myself to see if I'm miserable. I have scars for staying miserable for
too long. It's bad for my career due to burnout. Not everyone has learned that
lesson though.

~~~
eip
>I worked for a company that sold for over half a trillion

Que?

There are only a few companies worth that much in the world. The only (well
known) company big enough to buy another company for that amount is Saudi
Aramco.

~~~
Clubber
Sorry, over half a billion not trillion.

------
randlet

        - If they talk about how great it was to do their laundry during work hours, thumbs down
    
        - we don't care if you work at night, on weekends, in your 
        pajamas, after class, in another timezone, etc. We do     
        ask that you are available by Skype during regular 9-5 CST
    
        - Cool things about working for us:
            Potential to earn bonuses for projects. Very *LOW* 
            salary but since we are ROWE (Results Only Work 
            Environment), bonuses are part of the deal!
    

As someone who successfully works remotely full time: nope, nope, nope. These
guys have offloaded their office space costs to their employees homes under
the guise of a flexible work schedule.

~~~
randlet
Too late to edit but I realize now points 2 & 3 are from a non Articulate job
posting posted on the Articulate site. My apologies!

------
Clubber
I miss the old days when companies interviewed you, asked some technical
questions, some personal questions, then hired you. It took 30 minutes to an
hour. If you didn't work out, they just fired you and started again.

~~~
mahyarm
Thats called the phone screen now :D

~~~
Clubber
We made them come in to make sure they didn't have any weird shit attached to
their face. This were client facing people after all. :)

~~~
mahyarm
That is solved today in the world of video chat

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mellery451
> Successful remote workers are disciplined and self-motivated. No boss is
> eyeing them from across the office to see whether they’re working. They
> alone are responsible for structuring their workdays.

This sounds like precisely the kind of person I want to work with, regardless
of whether they are remote or co-located.

------
johnpython
_If they talk about how great it was to do their laundry during work hours,
thumbs down._

Talking about the work/life balance benefits of remote work is a bad thing?
This makes even less sense since remote work is usually coupled with flexible
work hours.

------
hashkb
Success in remote cultures has a major dependency on leadership as well. I've
helped a client start a company who was dead set on having a remote
engineering team until he realized that he wasn't comfortable with it. He
would have said "they were all bad at remote" but really he was a micromamager
with trust issues.

------
ksk
It seems like every other week an article is posted about interviewing, and
then half the commenters proceed to customarily disagree with their own
personal anecdotes and such. Has anyone proposed an alternate method that has
been put into practice, and actually works? OTOH, it seems like tons of
different styles based on often opposing viewpoints (yes/no CS questions,
yes/no whiteboard coding, etc) all work. Maybe what needs to happen is someone
needs to create a proper taxonomy of the differnt styles, and a method to
choose one depending on the situation ala data structures.

~~~
kvonhorn
> Has anyone proposed an alternate method that has been put into practice, and
> actually works?

Not that I've read this year, but I think we're finally past peak FizzBuzz.

------
darioush
I find it somewhat hilarious that companies think they're vetting employees
and use these small little "probes". It's much more likely that the candidate
is vetting you and already has a good idea of whether or not they will be able
to work from home.

Wow, I really like lunch time with my teammates so... I think I'll go remote
where I can't do that at all and just freeloading on a random company so I can
do my laundry from home! No one will ever notice my evil scheme! Said no one
ever.

------
j45
Having remotely hired others and being hired, I've noticed remote workers
don't always understand how critical it is to deliver and add value, instead
of putting their interests and balance and what they're getting out of it
ahead.

Highly recommend anyone who has opinions about certain rights try hiring
someone for a gig and see how much the responsibilities come to mind, when it
comes to being effective.

Some people aren't geared to work from home, or good at it from the get go.
They still may be geared to work remotely (maybe a coworking space). Managing
distractions at home is no different than managing distractions at the office.
Same goes for finding a way to be effective at the office vs remote.

The ability to focus and manage distractions is something that can take people
a while to figure out, and a worthwhile thing to focus on.

I just try to remember the value of removing the commute - If we take an the 2
hours a day saved in a commute (door to seat), it saves 60 hours a month, or
720 hours a year. That's an entire 30 days of living per year of extra waking
hours.

------
tcfunk
> We look for work-from-home experience and affinity

Great, back to the "you've gotta have experience to get experience" dance.

