The ability to choose from a global candidate pool really feels magical at times. Giving everyone the ability to work on your projects is not only great for people in remote areas, it can also give your company new insights and views into how you're doing business.
Obviously, that also has downsides: Giving everyone the ability to apply means that some part of "everybody" will apply. Expect to receive hundreds of applications – sometimes many of which might be low quality. For a quick primer on recruiting, feel free to read our guide here.
So–where should you hire? While it may work for local companies to hire and distribute their postings through the biggest provider, that may not be the best choice for you.
The big players: WeWorkRemotely, RemoteOK, ...
In the past few years a ton of general-usage remote job boards have popped up, including WeWorkRemotely, RemoteOK and a lot of others.
It can be a good idea to utilize these, compared to traditional job boards, because you can expect applicants to be familiar with the concept and trade-offs of remote work. Using these platforms, your posting would get distributed to a wide, but still targeted audience.
The downside? You're truly getting the most coverage possible. Pieter Levels, who has founded RemoteOK, has recently shared some stats about this, and mentions that popular remote postings tend to receive a few hundred applications every time. This means that you're likely be able to pick the best candidate – but you'll also have to invest a lot of time into going through applications and CVs.
Utilizing Platforms & Niche Boards
For a long time, niche job boards have been a very popular business to build and do. Thanks to that, there are now hundreds of smaller, active niche job boards out there. One example of that is RemotePython. RemoteML is another one (disclaimer: NoHQ and RemoteML share the same founder).
Another possibility are platforms like AngelList, who share the same idea of having niched-down job boards, but connect that with some additional features and hiring tools.
This is an alternative that connects the best of both worlds: You're likely to receive more higher quality leads, while also decreasing the sheer amount of applications you're receiving.
Referral-Based Hiring
Referrals are a popular way to hire new people in any company, but it works a lot better when all candidates can be considered.
Hiring someone locally can have problems outside of the work environment too: A commute that is too long, times being not flexible or schedules not working out. But as a remote employee, a lot of these things are not an issue. Where you used to need hundreds of employees to get a handful of good referred leads, you nowadays need no more than 20 or so.
Related: Hiring in Communities
If your team is not at a size or network where you can go solely based on referrals, hiring in communities (i.e. referred by people you trust) can make sense too.
Communities are making up the vast majority of the internet: See HackerNews, Dribble, Dev.to – if you're looking for the best people to join your team, then aligning yourself with one of these communities and hiring members from there might make sense too.
