Sample Work From Home Interview Questions
Communication is a critical skill that a remote worker needs. But if this is your first venture into the remote economy, how are you going to know what interview questions usually recruiters ask in their remote interview? Worry no more, this article will cover the most common work at home job interview questions.
Communication
Perhaps the single most important quality that a remote worker can have is the ability to communicate well. You need to be able to express yourself using the written word, for email, skype and slack (or whichever systems your company uses) but also in person for video and voice calls.
Remote communication needs to be a couple of things. It needs to be:
- Accurate – Not just correct in what is said but also unambiguous. Whatever is said needs to be clearly understood, so the language is best kept simple and the meaning nice and clear.
- Concise – We’ve all had that email come around that takes half an hour to read but only tells us one thing. You don’t want your time or that of your team taken up reading messages padded with self-important fluff. Brevity is the soul of wit, and all that.
- Professional – Or, if the company’s team prefers to communicate on a more informal basis, at least written with care for each other’s feelings. It is very easy to get offended by written messages because they lack the context of body language cues.
And communication is a two-way street. It isn’t just what they say to you that matters, but how they interpret messages from others. As Hanlon’s Razor, states, ‘Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.’ In other words, don’t assume someone is rude, dismissive or thoughtless when it could just be that they’ve expressed themselves badly’.
Work from Home Interview Questions
- How do you prefer to communicate when you’re working remotely?
- Tell me when you’d choose to explain something via email rather than through voice call.
- Has a message you’ve sent ever been interpreted the wrong way?
Working Hours
Before starting g to apply for remote jobs, you need to think about what hours you want to work. Will you work the usual office hours, regardless of time zone, or will you prefer working on your own time terms?
But for me and many work from home peeps, the flexibility of remote work is what attracted me. Rather than assuming everyone does their best work during business hours, would be great if your future company lets staff take control and do your job when you think you work best. For some that’s very early in the morning, for others it might be the evening.I’m an early bird and like to do my work early in the morning.
Working hours interview questions
- What time of day do you think you’re most productive?
- Describe your working day.
Organization
Remote workers have more control over what they do, and when. Whether it’s working outside regular hours or just setting their timetables, distributed staff work better when they’re able to control their workflow. But you need to earn that trusts from your manager and work in a company where there is no micromanaging.
This is particularly true for staff who will be working in a different time zone so that they can make sure they’ve got access to everything they need and don’t end up getting stalled because a colleague isn’t around to checking something with. You won’t believe how often this usually happens in remote companies.
Organisation interview questions
- How do you manage your time while working from home?
- How would you make sure you had everything you needed for the job you were doing?
- Have you ever had a project run over on time? What lessons did you learn from that?
Tools
Usually remote recruiters are looking for candidates who got some experience in using cloud-based or online collaboration software.
Being open and willing to work via these tools is vital for remote workers. Whether it’s a simple chat program or a virtual whiteboard, these are the things that help build a sense of what the company is trying to achieve and how that is going to be done.
Tools interview questions
- What are your favorite tools for remote working?
- If you wanted to share an idea with a colleague that needed collaboration, how would you do that?
Scheduling
When teams are working in different time zones it can present some challenges to scheduling. What recruiters want to see from their remote candidate is an awareness of the time differences between them and you and possible suggestions as to how you might overcome that if there is little to no overlap.
Scheduling interview questions
- What’s the time difference between you and us?
- If we needed to call a meeting at 9 am our time, would you be able to attend?
Flexibility
We, digital nomads tend to want to work from home because they we are self-starters. We don’t need to be micromanaged (seriously, don’t do it) and we’re good at coming up with solutions to problems when we face them. Hopefully this guide will help you get familiar with questions that recruiters usually asks and be prepared for your future virtual interview.
