How to Get Qualified Applicants to Apply to Your Remote Job Openings

One of the challenges you or your company might face is getting enough qualified applicants to apply to your remote job openings. 

Today more than ever, candidates have more say in the hiring process and what they look for in companies they want to join. Additionally, there is more competition in the remote category than ever before. 

This means your company needs to find ways to best stand out and ensure remote job seekers are discovering your company and any new listings. 

So how do you do just that!?

Below you’ll learn some tips you can apply to increase the top candidates applying to remote jobs available at your organization. 

Tips to Get More People To Apply for Remote Jobs at Your Company

For established brands or start-ups that raised some ridiculous amount of venture capital, it tends to be a little easier to build a talent pipeline for remote jobs.  But even if that’s you, that doesn’t guarantee consistent results.

No matter your organization or brand awareness, there is always room for improvement when it comes to increasing the talent pipeline. So let’s get into the tips! 

1. Have a strong remote work policy first

Although you may have remote jobs to start listing, it’s important you re-examine (or build) your remote work policy too.

If your company has one, great! But it doesn’t mean your work is done.

You want to examine that the content is clear, interesting, and grabs remote job seekers’ attention. Most of all, the policy should focus on what your company provides employees. 

You may need to connect with leadership on specific policies, especially if none exist or they are very basic. If your company has a goal of becoming more remote-friendly or remote-first, a clear policy is a must. 

The remote work policy should be accessible, engaging, and clearly established on your career page, social media, and any job listings – even if it’s just a link to where your policy content lives. 

2. Analyze your current remote hiring strategy

Beyond working on your remote work policy, make sure to analyze your current hiring strategy as well. Whether you are in talent acquisition or recruiting, you need a solid playbook to attract and retain qualified applicants. 

Work with your team or management to find a playbook that is consistently delivering and improving results. Over the course of time, you may need to revisit and adjust your strategy. After all, the job market and how job seekers research open positions may vary. 

A good option is to re-evaluate quarterly unless you see a dramatic negative turn in your results. Otherwise, a simple and consistent time to analyze a few times a year will suffice.

3. Monitor and evaluate your hiring metrics

Hiring and managing remote jobs can be time-consuming, but you have to ensure you evaluate your hiring metrics consistently too. It’s a great way to understand what’s working, what’s missing, and how applicants are interacting with your jobs,

What you’d like to measure and monitor is up to you, but here are some common metrics:

• Source of applicants
• Quality of applicants from different sources
• The time it takes to hire remote candidates that applied
• Completion rate on applications
• Diversity if applications
• Offer job accepted rates
• The cost per hire

The above are just scratching the surface here, but all of those should be metrics you consider during your remote hiring process. 

4. Write remote Job listings that attract talent

Copywriting is an art and even though you might not be a writer per se, you need to create remote job listings that attract and sell job seekers on your role (and company). 

Too often, job listings sound bland and list out very basic things.

That may have worked years ago, but applicants expect more and there are plenty of companies that would deliver phenomenal listings that spark intrigue. 

Those newer to hiring and posting jobs, often write the listing like a job description. However, the two are quite different. 

A remote job description is more of an internal use that covers:

• Title of the role
• Overview of the role
• Traits looking for in an ideal candidate

A remote job listing goes even more in-depth:

• Engaging title of the role
• Summary of the value of the company and role
• Responsibilities of the role
• What the benefits and perks are
• Remote policy info or link to it

But you can make them even more unique. Put emotion behind it, tell a story, get creative, include personalized videos, etc. Whatever you can do, that will give the “edge” that ensures your jobs and brand get more positive attention.

5. Improve the speed of the application process

Do you know what no job applicant likes? Being dragged on for weeks in the hiring process to then be denied a job or rarely get an update about the process. 

While you want to be methodical in hiring and ensure you found the right person, it should not take two months and ten homework assignments to get hired. 

And today, job seekers will abandon the process and look elsewhere if you drag it out. 

Other companies have a fast and efficient hiring process, which is exactly what candidates expect today. If you don’t adapt, hiring the best talent is going to be much more challenging. 

In your remote job listing, include some detail about the hiring process. And when you are working with candidates, keep them informed whether they are moving to the next steps or not.

You’ll build a strong reputation, even when candidates aren’t hired. That’s pure gold for future remote job openings you have and developing brand trust. 

According to some hiring statistics, the interview process takes an average of 23 days. That (or less) is a good basis to aim for with job seekers. 

6. Post remote jobs where people will see them

The good news for your company hiring remotely is you have a lot of options to consider. The bad news is, that you have a lot of options to consider with tons of competition fighting for top applicants. 

Besides the above tips, you also need to get eyes on your remote jobs in places where people are seeking new opportunities. While big brands like Airbnb get insane attention on their career page on the website, not every company has that reach. 

So the best thing you can do is find placements where your target audience lives, like remote job boards.

For example, Remote Work Junkie is a community for remote workers, those looking to start working from home, and employers hiring remotely. We attract thousands of skilled remote workers every month, many of those who are looking for the next great gig. 

You can also use social media where people are researching, find Slack communities for remote workers to join, advertise to target groups of people you want to see your remote job listing, etc. 

7. Ensure your company details are top-notch 

While your job listings are important to be detailed as well as distributed in the right places, you can’t forget to strengthen all your company details. 

What do I mean by this? 

Well, job applicants are going to research your company in multiple ways. So this means, you want every medium to be strong, engaging, and interesting. 

According to data, 64% of candidates will research a company online before applying to an open role and 34% will pass on it if they can’t find enough information about the company.

Here are a few places to tighten up your company details.

Company Website

• Most likely, your company will have a career page on the main website. Now you might use third-party applicant tracking software for jobs on your website, which is totally cool. However, having a strong careers page with interesting and engaging information is CRITICAL. 

Third-Party Websites

• If you use other third-party sites like Glassdoor, Comparably, G2, Indeed, ZipRecruiter, or have your company listed anywhere – ensure the branding and content align with everything else. As job candidates Google your company, they will click through some of these top sites as they will be high-ranking results in search engines. 

Social Media

• Have strong social media company handles. Have clean designs (logos, banners), headlines, company description copy, and more. And if you use LinkedIn heavily, consider upgrading to get a “My Company” tab on your profile, to showcase employees, jobs, culture, and more. 
• Get employees to share and create open remote jobs, work culture content, and more. They can extend the reach and drive more referral applicants. 
• 79% of job applicants use social media in their job search. (Glassdoor)

Start Posting Remote Jobs

Hopefully, the above tips will help you attract more quality applicants to your remote jobs. And not only increase the volume of those that apply but helps you fill the roles much faster. 

If you are ready to post more remote jobs and reach additional quality candidates, ensure you start posting on the Remote Work Junkie Job Board today. 

Not only can you create company accounts, but you can choose from numerous packages to extend awareness and reach of your remote jobs. We ensure your jobs are promoted beyond the job board. But don’t worry, we offer free listings too if you want to test the waters. 

And the other cool thing? 

We have remote job seekers creating free accounts, signing up for our newsletter, and getting job alerts weekly. 

Plus, we are the content hub for all things remote work, so we attract people with experience and interest in remote jobs. Check out more of our content around building remote teams and how to better advertise remote jobs!  

Now let’s find that next great hire 🤠

Share this post 👇