Hong Quan, Owner of Hire Haus

How to hire for remote teams

In this episode of Lead Time Chats, Jean Hsu, VP of Engineering at Range, chats with Hong Quan, owner of Hire Haus, about hiring for remote teams.

Hong and Jean discuss:

  • the main challenges in hiring for and building remote teams
  • how companies and hiring managers think differently about hiring for remote teams
  • how to fill in the gaps so that remote hiring doesn't feel isolating or impersonal
  • what candidates are looking for and what’s important to them as the work environment has changed over the last few years

Takeaways from Hong

Focus on how you integrate remote teammates into new or existing teams

“A lot of lessons learned in the last year have been building these remote teams or finding remote employees to join an existing team. And it's difficult because some of the teams have context. They've been working together 4-5 years and then you're trying to find new people and the added challenge of doing interviewing remote, you lose a lot of the nuance when you're not in the same room and you could potentially hire somebody remote. They never ever come into HQ. They never ever meet the team. And then you're expected to like work as you were normally. And when you don't have that context, I think that's really challenging.”

Flexibility is key when returning to in-office work

“With shifts in the pandemic, I think there's a return to office that's going to happen and there's no right or wrong. Right? There are people who love being in an office. I love being in an office. I also don't love driving. So everybody will find out their own personal preference and hopefully the team has flexibility to schedule. I think flexibility is more important than anything.”

Recruiting standards and processes are changing

“There's a shift in the way we do recruiting. And then there's also a major shift in the way candidates think about work. So that's a bigger conversation we can have. But the way recruiting standards now, you know, it's very process oriented. It always has been — I've always emphasized clean process and fast, speedy kind of decisions. And these days more so than ever.”

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About Lead Time Chats

Listen in on unscripted conversations between Jean Hsu, VP of Engineering at Range and other leaders in tech to help you make remote teamwork a little bit less challenging.

Lead Time Chats is brought to you by Range. Range helps remote teams work better together — with asynchronous check-ins, integrated team-building, fewer and more effective meetings, and easy goal-tracking. When you run your team with Range, you’ll always know what’s going on — without having to be in back-to-back meetings.

Checking-in with Range creates more focus time for heads-down work, all while feeling a deeper sense of connection and belonging with your team.

To learn more about Range, you can check it out here (https://www.range.co/).

Season 4 Episodes

» Episode 1: Najeeb Khan on Fostering Belonging on Remote Teams

Season 3 Episodes

» Episode 1: Jen Kim on how startups can hire better

» Episode 2: Kate Heddleston on managing burnout on your team

» Episode 3: Jessie Duan on the Chief of Staff to CTO role

» Episode 4: Dan Na on pushing through friction

» Episode 5: Pat Kua on flavors of tech leadership

» Episode 6: Anna Sulkina on Endurance Sports and Software Engineering

Season 2 Episodes

» Episode 1: Camille Fournier on making boring plans

» Episode 2: Tess Rinearson on early career engineering managers

» Episode 3: Kim Scott on building for systemic justice

» Episode 4: Sumeet Arora on moving on from a big company

» Episode 5: Rachael Stedman on IC manager work

» Episode 6: Chris Bee on Behaviors of Effective Eng Leaders

» Episode 7: Lynne Tye on the Engineering Hiring Landscape

» Episode 8: Beau Lebens on Distributed Team Meetups

» Episode 9: Indrajit Khare on Getting Acquired by Google

» Episode 10: Jack Danger on Technical Debt

» Episode 11: Sarah Milstein on Successful Remote and Hybrid Teams

Season 1 Episodes

» Episode 1: Will Larson on the path of the senior engineer

» Episode 2: Duretti Hirpa on mentoring junior and mid-level engineers

» Episode 3: Cate Huston on working with an external coach

» Episode 4: Juan Pablo Buriticá on common eng manager mistakes

» Episode 5: Gergely Orosz on the decision to go into management

» Episode 6: Lara Hogan on leading effectively in a pandemic

» Episode 7: Kaya Thomas on common early career engineer challenges

» Episode 8: Uma Chingunde on starting a VPE role in a pandemic

» Episode 9: Katie Wilde on supporting your team's mental health

» Episode 10: Akhil Gupta on navigating uncertainty in new roles

» Episode 11: Harper Reed on giving everyone a voice in team meetings

» Episode 12: Marc Hedlund on sponsorship

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Hong Quan on how to hire for remote teams
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