How to Answer Interview Questions About Working Remotely

This helps you and them find points that will be challenging and come up with ways to fix it before it starts. Time to get real; an employer wants to know if working remotely is even an option for you. Is it closed off from the rest of the house and background noise? Do you have kids at home right now that are going to need attention? Share a story of a project that shows your initiative and determination to demonstrate that you don’t let projects slip. Since there won’t be a boss looking over your shoulder, the employer is asking how you will stay motivated to accomplish your tasks.

• Do you answer challenging questions clearly and forthrightly, and disclose your flaws?
• It allows them to be creative, humorous, and give background into their own lives.
• They’ll have to provide specific reasons as to why they believe they’d do well as a remote worker.
• Employers want to see that you’ve been successful and accomplished while working remotely.
• Maybe you want to ask to keep working remotely — or maybe you’re even seeking a new role that’s 100% virtual.

Give a clear picture of how you will work and why it will be a quiet and productive space. Mention what technology you’re skilled with that will help you in remote positions. Maybe you’re well-versed in Google Docs for sharing and editing documents, Trello for project management, and Slack for collaboration. Or, perhaps you worked in the office, but describe your experience working remotely you worked with remote clients. The ability to structure work and life is important when working from home, given how easy it is to be distracted, explained Jared Brown, CTO and CEO of Hubstaff. When you’re part of a distributed team, you’re pretty likely to run into situations where you don’t feel 100% clear about what you’ve been tasked with.

What’s the Key to Making Sure a Project Is Successful When Working Remotely?

Have them provide examples of how they live their values to see if they’re genuine responses. Candidates should be able to provide specific areas of the job that excites them. Those that seem genuinely excited and can go into detail about their interests are great hires for your organization. No answer here is better than another, but you’ll want them to discuss in further detail the answer they chose. If they said that saving time from a commute was most important to them, look for them to explain what they do with that extra time instead. If they put it into another hobby or caring for their family, they’re a better candidate than someone who wants to use that time to catch up on sleep.

Here’s how to answer it strategically, plus sample answers to help you prepare. In your remote job interview, be ready to share at least one factor that motivates you in this particular industry or job, apart from the money. Next, a hiring manager will want to know how their remote employees are staying organized. When all your interactions with colleagues are virtual – either voice, video, or text – it’s easy to miss out on social cues like body language or tone of voice. That’s why remote workers with a high level of emotional intelligence are more successful.

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You’ll have an easier time managing remote team members who you can trust to make the right call on small and medium-sized decisions autonomously. The best remote workers take time to understand the bigger picture, as well as what they need to optimize for at all costs versus where they can be flexible so they can evaluate trade-offs effectively. It’s hard to course-correct someone’s sense of purpose if they’re remote, so make sure your candidate nails this one.

• Work-life balance can be more important to remote workers than those in-office.
• They don’t want to hire someone who will become unhappy when working from home isn’t what they expected.
• Promising candidates are aware of the various ways colleagues can get in touch with one another and aren’t afraid to learn new methods if it means better results.

Monday through Friday, I commuted an hour and a half into the city and two-and-a-half hours home every day. Like many people, I had my doubts about whether sitting in traffic was necessary to be productive, and about whether in-person interactions were the most meaningful ones. So, when Covid forced my team and I into remote work, I was ready to take on the challenge. As with other remote interview questions, if you can point to an example from a past remote environment, that’s ideal. Work-life balance can be more important to remote workers than those in-office. When your home and office are located in the same place, it can be stressful and hard to separate the two.

What about this job/company are you most excited about?

Remember to demonstrate that you understand how caustic conflict can be in a remote environment. Taking some time to dig deep and think about what you do and how you do it can reveal that you have all the skills you need to be a fantastic remote employee. Even if you’ve never worked at home before, you’ve probably worked with co-workers and clients that live somewhere else. Think about your interactions with them and mine those for examples of your remote skills. “Previous Employment” entries on a resume typically include the employer’s location as part of the standard information.