Innovative Techniques To Vet Remote Job Applicants

Publié le 15 September 2023 Par Fabian Sandoval

Find and recruit the right employees to take your organization into the future by using innovative techniques to vet remote job applicants.

Remote work is the way of the future. According to recent research from McKinsey’s American Opportunity Survey, 58% of Americans have the opportunity to work from home at least one day a week. That’s indicative of a trend towards remote and hybrid working arrangements that may have started with COVID-19 but which isn’t going away anytime soon.

As an HR manager or business owner, you must know how to leverage the most innovative techniques to vet remote job applicants. These techniques can help ensure that you hire the right person for the right position at your company and don’t have to go through the laborious process of finding a new candidate over and over.

If you’re unsure where to start, read on; we’ll explore some major techniques you should use in your hiring process to vet remote job applicants.

Why Is Remote Job Applicant Vetting Important?

Vetting job applicants for any position, both in-person and remote jobs, is highly important. If you don’t vet or check a job candidate’s background, you significantly increase the chances of hiring someone who isn’t a good fit for the open role.

It can often take several months to find someone who’s the perfect fit for an open position. Therefore, the last thing you want to do is waste your time or your hiring budget. This is doubly true if you are in the midst of a business expansion and are trying to fill multiple remote work positions quickly.

Even though it takes some extra effort, spending the time and energy to vet job candidates will pay off in the long run. Each hire you make will be much more likely to be:

A rockstar employee

Someone committed to your company

A person who provides real value to your brand and its customers

The Most Innovative Techniques for Remote Job Candidate Vetting

Even though remote job candidate vetting seems tricky, there are innovative techniques you can leverage to make the process easier and more accurate.

Utilize AI for Remote Job Applications

First and foremost, consider using AI tools to scan and filter out remote job applications.

At the time of this writing, 99% of Fortune 500 companies use AI-powered talent-sifting software to some extent. These AI tools scan through huge piles of job applications and bring the best or most relevant ones to the attention of your HR team.

In theory, every candidate will fill out an online application thoroughly and accurately. They’ll also provide a digital signature, which is a digital representation of their signature, proving that they understood the task and filled out the information accurately.

In reality, many remote workers will spam job applications and attempt to get hired anywhere, anytime. They may not actively pay attention to which jobs they apply for. In the process, they waste the time of your human HR representatives. Other candidates may simply not have the right qualifications, so looking at them would be a waste of time for your hiring staff as well.

AI tools can help by taking care of the surface-level phase of the vetting process. For example, AI recruitment and job application scanning tools can:

Check job applications and resumes for required keywords, especially those related to skills, qualifications, certificates, etc.

Analyze the linguistic quality of the job application in question. For example, an AI tool can determine whether a job candidate really provided a cover letter or if they copied and pasted a cover letter template from somewhere else.

Determine whether an application is likely to be worth the time of your hiring staff based on its length, whether it has background history included, etc.

All of these elements can cut down on the time your hiring staff has to spend vetting job candidates. With the right AI tools, you can quickly sift through a massive pile of applications and find the best fit for any open position.

This isn’t to say AI tools can completely replace your human hiring staff, of course. You’ll still need human agents to interview job candidates, review resumes personally, and ensure that the right people get hired for the right positions. Still, using AI tools to complement the remote job candidate vetting process is a wise idea.

Be Accurate With Remote Job Requirements

From time to time, job applicants may not be fully aware of what a remote job requires. For example, you might have a mostly remote job opening but require the employee to come to the office once per month or once per quarter.

Therefore, you can vet remote job applicants to see who’s really committed to sticking with your company for the long haul by including requirements like:

Must be willing to come to the office once per quarter

Must be willing to travel

Must be willing to collaborate frequently on video conferencing software, etc.

These requirements will filter out the unengaged applicants who are just looking for easy jobs. When putting together your requirements list, choose a contract template with features such as the ability to set payment terms, carefully outline job applicant responsibilities, and so on. The more detail you can add to a job advertisement, the better.

“Gamify” Job Apps To Test Candidate Skills

Gamification is the art of adding game elements or games themselves to the hiring and onboarding process. For example, you might be hiring for a remote position requiring candidates to have good mathematical skills.

You can simply ask job candidates whether they have the skills for this position. Or you can include a mathematics game in the job application process. Job candidates then have to complete the game and score sufficiently high for their application to be brought in front of your HR team.

Not only is gamification good for vetting remote job candidates, but it’s also an excellent way to increase the job application completion rate. That’s because gamification inspires job applicants to complete the process and score as highly as possible. People love playing games, even in the middle of a serious task.

You can also apply this philosophy to other elements of the hiring process, like onboarding a new employee. Giving them a tutorial with a progress completion bar at the top of the screen will inspire that new hire to look through everything your committee has put together and to complete training materials promptly.

Lean Into the Benefits of Video-Based Interviews

Just because you are hiring someone for a remote position doesn’t mean you can’t interview them face-to-face.

You should invite every candidate you are considering hiring to a video job interview. Think of this as another hurdle the candidate has to cross to determine whether they are worthy of being hired. If the candidate can’t attend the video interview or doesn’t have a webcam, they likely wouldn’t be a good fit for your company anyway, as they wouldn’t be able to attend company video conferencing calls and engage in similar requirements.

You Can Make Sure the Candidate Is Who They Say They Are

Video-based interviews are also important because you can ensure that a candidate is who they say they are. When you see their face on the screen, you can compare that image to social media pictures, photos included with their job application, and so on.

Think of this as another level of transparency you can acquire between you and a potential job candidate. With so much distance between your hiring team and applicants, fully understanding the candidate, who they are, what they like, and what they sound like is key.

The last thing you want is to hire a remote worker who won’t fit your workplace culture. A video interview can and should stand in place of a traditional interview for all the same reasons.

Key Questions To Ask From Remote Job Applicants

You should also keep in mind that you can ask various important questions from remote job applicants before deciding whether to hire them. Even better, with a video interview, you can immediately research claims that the candidate makes using Google or your job hiring software.

For instance, if in their application the candidate says they have a degree from a specific school, you can research that school while they are explaining their answer and make sure the program and degree are both legitimate. You and the candidate can also exchange resources, documents, tutorial guidelines, and more over the Internet in real time while proceeding with the video interview.

The big takeaway is that you shouldn’t think of video interviews as lesser or more limited than traditional, in-person interviews. They can still teach you much about a remote job candidate and whether or not you should offer them the job.

Hiring remote workers is always a risk, but you can learn more about potential remote job candidates by searching through their social media profiles. These days, people post a ton of information online, which can relate to their views, previous work experience, education, and so much more.

You can think of social media research as a way to verify what a remote job candidate has said about their skills and qualifications. You can also research their social media presence and photos to determine whether they will be a good cultural fit for your company.

For example, say you receive an application from an apparently stellar remote job candidate. At first glance, they seem to have everything your company needs for the position. However, upon looking through that candidate’s Facebook page, you notice they are present in several photographs with known hate groups.

Hiring someone with associations with hate groups is never a good idea, so you decide to pass on the candidate and go for someone else. Utilize this innovative technique to double-check whether a candidate is really worth the time of your company.

Order a Background Check Prior to the Final Interview

One last innovative technique to vet remote job applicants you should use is ordering a background check before your final interview with a job candidate. Most employers order background checks after an initial interview but don’t hold another interview with the candidate. A second interview is important for remote positions to ensure they’re the right fit. Scheduling a background check between both interviews might sound unnecessary, but it can be more beneficial than you think.

For example, one of the most important parts of becoming an Uber driver is agreeing to a background check. Uber thoroughly vets all of its candidates, who are remote by default, by performing comprehensive background checks on each potential driver for the brand.

You should do the same thing, especially if you will never meet the candidate in person. A thorough background check will help you ensure that the candidate told you the right information in their initial interview. If there is a discrepancy, you can schedule another job interview with the candidate to clarify any confusion or determine whether to proceed with a job offer.

In any case, background checks are great for brand security and peace of mind. They can also ensure you don’t accidentally hire someone with a criminal background, for example.

Wrap Up

These innovative techniques to vet remote job applicants will help your HR staff find the perfect people for open positions at your company. More importantly, you’ll be able to guarantee that the remote workers you hire for your brand are just as good fits for your workplace culture and your brand goals as in-office employees.