Many people will agree that there are some aspects of a job that lend themselves well to telecommuting. But they will also tell you that other aspects do not. Near the top of that list of “difficult tasks to perform virtually” for all but the most experienced of telecommuters is the job of interviewing a potential employee or team member.

Well, you can probably guess where I’m going with this blog post.

I do agree that in general there is a lot of benefit from a live, face-to-face interview. You can learn a lot from the other person’s body language, eye contact, etc. And this information can be valuable in determining the person’s comfort level with the topics they are discussing, as well as their general social skills and how well they interact with others.

However, I will say that even interviewing potential team members is something that can be performed effectively by phone if need be. I have participated in many such interviews myself due to the globally distributed nature of the team I work on. In fact, we’re so comfortable with this mode that we often even interview local candidates by phone rather than coordinating schedules to have them come into the office.

So what are the best ways to deal with interviewing a candidate by phone?

Well really, it’s not much different than any other important interaction that, as a telecommuter, you must handle by phone. 

• First, when you start the interview, if the person seems uncomfortable with the lack of face-to-face interaction you can take a couple minutes to chit-chat and break the ice a bit. A small chat about the big game last weekend or the local weather can give you both a few minutes to warm up to each other.
• Don’t be bothered by the silences. Interviews can be uncomfortable, or downright awkward for some people. When you’re face-to-face, a pause in the conversation can seem pretty natural. But on the phone it sounds as awkward as dead air time on the radio. Don’t rush to interject a comment just to fill the void. Give the other person the time to finish thinking through whatever they were going to say. Continue to talk and act comfortably so the other person knows you are not judging that silence.
• Without the body language to interpret, you might have a harder time judging the comfort level a person has with particular questions you ask. So you need to be a bit more explicit in how you ask them. For instance, if you ask the candidate if they’re comfortable managing a customer escalation and they pause and say yes, you can’t tell if they really are. So ask them how many escalations they’ve handled in the past, or ask them to describe their most difficult escalation and how they handled it. Or if they tell you they’re comfortable learning a new technology independently without much assistance, ask them to describe the process by which they would teach themselves.

Of course, if you’re interviewing for a job where the candidate needs to have really good people skills, and/or exceptional phone skills, you shouldn’t have to do any extra work to put them at ease or help interpret their comments – they should do all that work for you. And if they can’t, they’re probably the wrong person for the job.

However, performing interviews by phone is not all downside. In fact there is one big advantage I’ve come to discover. Often when there’s a couple of us on the phone interviewing a candidate together, we’ll use Instant Messaging (IM) to communicate during the interview. We can suggest follow-up questions to the team member who is talking, compare thoughts on how the candidate answered a particular question, even lead each other a bit on the direction we want to go with the interview as we learn more about the candidate. It can be quite useful and help make the limited time we may have with the candidate that much more effective in learning what we need to know.

Technorati Tags: telecommute careers, telecommuting, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

Well folks, I have some really exciting news to announce. My Telecommuting Expert career is taking a big step forward. I am now a paid article writer for a telecommuting website!

Small Business Resources (SBR) is building a website full of useful information for telecommuters, which it offers for private label to its major clients (for example, telecommunications companies). They have asked yours truly to be their featured expert. I will provide articles and tips twice monthly for the site.

This will of course be great visibility for me and is a huge step forward in my journey of helping others succeed in their own telecommuting careers! And of course, it provides extra incentive for me to keep writing useful, info-packed articles on a regular basis, which benefits you, my loyal readers too as I will be posting those same articles to my blog. So keep an eye out here for more articles just like the great ones you’re used to reading.

Here’s some more info about SBR:

Small Business Resources (SBR)  is a boutique marketing company assisting Fortune companies and leading brands with customized programs for acquisition, retention and enhanced customer loyalty. Through its hands on approach, SBR has built a marquee roster of clients in the small business and consumer marketplace. SBR’s clients include major banking and telecommunications companies. SBR’s customized programs include Business Resource Centers, Moving Centers, Women in Business Resources, Retirement Centers and Home Office Resource Centers.

Technorati Tags: telecommute careers, telecommuting, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom

When you’re telecommuting, self-discipline is key. Think about it. You’re sitting down at your desk to start work on that important project that’s been hanging over you for a while. But first, you’re just going to check email to see if there’s anything urgent that you need to work on. Nothing urgent, but there is an email where it would be best to get a response out sooner than later, so you can get it off your plate and focus on getting started on your project. And while you’re working up a reply to that message, you get a phone call from one of your co-workers who needs to discuss an important aspect of the new code that’s going into the release cycle tomorrow. And after that you look at the time and realize you have a meeting in 20 minutes. No point starting on your project now – better to find some other small tasks to complete and you’ll get started after the meeting.

Does this sound familiar? We’re all capable of procrastinating, especially when we’ve got a big task looming over us. And all those examples I gave apply no matter where you’re working – even if you are in the office.

So what’s different for telecommuters? Well, when you’re in the office, there’s only so many emails, phone calls, and meetings you can hide behind. Eventually you realize you do really need to get to work. But at home there are even more distractions. Hmm – I need a break from my desk. I’m going to get up and throw in a load of laundry – it will be good for me to move around for 5 minutes. And now I notice it, the kitchen is a mess. Let me just wash a few dishes before I get back to work so the place won’t be so messy for dinner tonight. You know, now I’m in the kitchen, I’m feeling hungry. I’m going to pull out a snack – it’s still hours until dinnertime. And while I’m eating, I’m going to read just a couple pages in that great new book I’ve started.

Well if you’re really trying to avoid getting started on that new project, a few pages in that great book can turn into a few chapters! And even if you’re not avoiding your work, if the book is good enough, you may still get sucked in for much more time than you intended. At the corporate office, it’s much harder to sit and read a book for longer than the time it takes you to eat your lunch or your snack. You’re very conscious that people are walking by you – probably eyeballing you and questioning why you’re not working. Even if you have been putting in really long hours lately and deserve to take a nice long break, you’re not going to be so visible about it because you know others don’t know how long you’ve been working lately and you don’t want to be judged.

At home, you are really your own gatekeeper. You have to be self-disciplined and not let the household chores (or the household TV) call to you too loudly. That, of course, is not to say you can’t do anything around the house when you’re working at home. I’m a strong believer that just like in the corporate office when you take breaks to go to the gym, or chit-chat with your buddies, at home you’re allowed to take breaks and do household chores if that’s how you want to spend your time. But you do have to keep an eye on that time yourself. And for some people (myself included) I can be quite disciplined about most activities, but when I’ve got a really good book I do have trouble putting it down when I’m finished with my lunch and I struggle with the eternal “let me just read a couple more pages” battle!

So consider your own levels of self-discipline when you work from home. Use a timer when you take a break to do some chores around the house. And if you have a really good book, maybe you need to leave it safely closed away in the drawer of your nightstand and don’t take it out until the evening, after you work is over!

Technorati Tags: telecommute careers, telecommuting, remote work, telework, work from home, work at home, work from home mom