Hiring remotely is high-leverage but only if you treat it like a system, not a gut decision. After hiring 100+ people (and vetting hundreds more), we’ve learned what actually works when building a distributed team.
Here's the process we’d follow today if we had to hire our first remote employee all over again.
Step 1: Don’t hire until the system hurts
Most founders hire too early. It feels like progress. It feels like scaling. But remote hiring done too soon adds drag instead of leverage.
Before posting a single job ad, pressure-test whether a hire is truly the best next step.
Ask yourself:
- What’s the ROI of this hire? (e.g. $5K/month salary → $25K/month output = 5x ROI)
- Can I build a system or automation that delivers higher ROI first?
- Have I validated my offer, delivery model, and revenue streams?
Hiring is a multiplier, not a fix. If your operations are still messy, adding a person just spreads the chaos faster.
Step 2: Define the role using performance, not personality
Remote hiring fails when there’s no clear definition of “success.”
Start by writing the role around three measurable KPIs tied to business outcomes.
Examples:
- Sales hire:
- Call volume
- Cash collected
- Client retention
- Content hire:
- Articles written
- Clients served
- Quality score (via client feedback)
Keep it to three. You need just enough signal to judge performance—without overloading the person or yourself.
Step 3: Add a one-way video interview (yes, async is your friend)
A study found 305 workers apply to every remote job advert, while three quarters of employers struggle to fill vacancies.
There's something wrong with candidate screening. This is why we recommend using a one-way video interview early in the process.
Ask 3–5 role-specific questions like:
- “Walk us through how you’d manage deadlines across five client accounts.”
- “What’s your approach when a project isn’t going to plan?”
- “What do you need from your manager to do your best work remotely?”
Why it works:
- You see how they communicate under light pressure
- It removes timezone friction
- You eliminate the need for endless scheduling back-and-forth
Combine this with a paid task (coming next) and you’ll know exactly who can perform and who’s just good at talking.
Step 4: Use a paid task, not a promise
Everyone sounds great in interviews. Few can deliver real work under light constraints.
That’s why the most accurate hiring signal is a paid async project.
Structure it like this:
- Keep it close to the real work (e.g. write an article, design a graphic, build a Zapier automation)
- Cap time at 1–2 hours
- Offer a fair flat rate (e.g. $25–$50)
Let the work speak. If it’s good, move forward. If not, no need for another round of polite conversation.
Step 5: Build a 7-day onboarding sequence (or die trying)
Remote hires don’t ramp themselves. That’s your job.
Think of onboarding as dragging them up a hill. Once they hit the top, they can coast and deliver value. But until then, it’s all about structure.
Sample 7-day onboarding (for a sales role):
- Day 1: Complete CRM training
- Day 2: Watch five calls and share takeaways
- Day 3: Shadow a live call
- Day 4–5: Practice calls + manager feedback
- Day 6–7: Join live deals or start outreach
The actual number of days doesn’t matter. What matters is hand-holding them through your culture, tools, and expectations until they can swim on their own.
Step 6: Implement a daily check-in system
Without daily structure, remote workers drift. And it’s hard to course-correct when you’re not in the same room.
Create a daily check-in form (Airtable, Notion, ClickUp, etc.) that asks:
- What did you work on?
- What KPIs did you hit?
- Any blockers?
It takes 30 seconds to complete and gives you instant visibility.
Bonus: Make the check-ins public in a Slack channel. Peer visibility improves accountability without needing to micromanage.
Step 7: Source talent where async workers hang out
Here’s where we’ve consistently found quality remote candidates:
Wherever you hire from, send candidates through the same async funnel:
- Role expectations + pay
- One-way video interview
- Paid trial task
- Offer (if the work’s good)
No bottlenecks. No endless interviews. Just signal-rich, async-friendly steps that work.
Step 8: Review, refine, repeat
Once they’re in the door:
- Review KPI data weekly
- Address blockers in 1:1s
- Keep expectations public and evolving
- Collect feedback on the hiring + onboarding process
Every hire should improve your system. Remote hiring isn’t about scaling chaos. It’s about building a machine that gets smarter with every new input.
Our tried-and-true remote hiring process
Async-first remote hiring is no longer a nice-to-have—it’s the standard for lean, efficient teams. When you replace time-draining calls with one-way video interviews, use paid tasks over promises, and systemize daily output tracking, you build a team that ships—even when you're offline.
Most hiring advice still assumes an office. Most interviews still reward talkers. But real-world remote performance comes down to structure, systems, and proof of work.
Build your hiring machine accordingly.
