Employers want to know that you’re disciplined, can fend off distractions, and have tactics to keep yourself on track and productive. Communication is essential for all teams, but it plays a vital role when workers are based in different locations. Promising candidates are aware of the various ways colleagues can get in touch https://remotemode.net/blog/how-to-describe-your-experience-working-remotely/ with one another and aren’t afraid to learn new methods if it means better results. Employers are looking for thoughtful answers from someone who acknowledges the positive aspects of remote work, along with the challenges. They don’t want to hire someone who will become unhappy when working from home isn’t what they expected.
- Being forced to send workers home to slow the spread of the disease throughout 2020 and into 2021 will likely cause many employers to rethink their positions on remote work and open up more work-from-home positions.
- This might feel like a conversational ice breaker question, but it’s one you need to answer thoughtfully.
- Not all candidates make great remote workers, so the person interviewing you will be paying careful attention to how you respond.
- Politely decline, reminding an interviewer this is your private home.
- When you work remotely, you won’t have a manager looking over your shoulder.
- If your best hours are unconventional — like early mornings or late nights — explain how you structure your day to make yourself available to coworkers during typical office hours without being online nonstop.
Stating that you’re “looking for a remote job” is a dealbreaker, according to Brown. Show them you’ve got this by not just listing jobs where you’ve worked remotely but also explaining how remote work for you differs from in-office work. That’ll show you understand the skills necessary to work from home. And if you’re still hunting for a remote job, FlexJobs is here to support you. We offer members exclusive access to our jobs database, which is updated every day with new postings in more than 50 career categories. Take the tour to learn more about all of the ways a FlexJobs membership can empower your job search and career.
How do you use different communication tools in different situations?
Working in your home can be distracting (think your roommate’s loud sales calls or your cat constantly walking across the keyboard). It’s also easy to get sucked into doing just one load of laundry when you know your boss isn’t going to walk by and ask you why you haven’t turned that report in yet. Plus, you don’t have colleagues sitting all around you to serve as positive peer pressure to keep working or to provide a sense of camaraderie that keeps you going. So hiring managers will want some assurance that you’ve got a grasp on how to push through the inherent distractions and distance of remote work.
Leslie Stevens-Huffman is a business and careers writer based in Southern California. She has more than 20 years’ experience in the staffing industry and has been writing blog posts, sample resumes and providing sage career advice to the IT professionals in our Dice Community since 2006. Leslie has a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism from the University of Southern California. https://remotemode.net/ To avoid immediate rejection, never say that you or your team decided to “wing it” because you were unable to get what you needed from the product owner, Moise advised. Make sure you describe a detailed plan for boosting communication channels between stakeholders. I am very efficient when I work in my home office because everything is set up exactly how I need it to be.
Tell me about a time when you had to adapt to change
Use our zoom interview tips to learn how to come across well in virtual interviews. Every company wants to hire and work with people who share the same values. Be open about what you’re looking for in coworkers and what kind of qualities are most important to your team.
- It’s a good idea to follow up your answer with a question about how the hiring manager and their team handles distributed communication to show that you’re interested in understanding how the team works.
- Any resistance to changes or sign of rigidity could let the interviewer think that you won’t be able to adapt to a remote role.
- An interviewer asking this question may be as interested, or even more interested, in your personal attitude towards the challenges that this year has presented.
- Flexibility is a virtue that is expected in remote workers simply because the remote working model itself is a revolution of sorts.
Maybe you’re more productive at home, where there are fewer distractions. Perhaps you live in a rural area where there aren’t many opportunities in your field, or you have to commute a long distance to get to them. Or, maybe it’s not the idea of working remotely that appeals to you—it’s the idea of working for that particular company that excites you. If you are a relative newcomer to the world of remote work, you might be wondering what types of work-from-home interview questions to expect.
Only A Third Of IT Teams Do Hybrid Work Right
Chat doesn’t always convey tone, and sometimes wires get crossed. Marie says to classify your to-do list with “I” and “U” for important or urgent tasks and do the important ones first. You always finish urgent things on time anyway because they’re urgent!