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Remote Job Interviews: How To Showcase Your Problem-Solving, Time Management And Organizational Skills
In this article, we’re highlighting some of the soft skills that interviewers look for when selecting future talent. Read further if you are also targeting remote jobs, as you may find some of the examples to be relevant. Whether you’re planning to work by a pool in a warm country or from your home office, you need to know what to expect from a remote interview and what soft skills to showcase.
For each soft skill, you should prepare 1-2 career stories as examples of how you have used these skills in a past situation. Make sure to also read our other blogs on how to structure your career stories; we’ve added the links below.
Problem Solving
You won’t see your team or manager on a daily basis and you will need to demonstrate that you can be autonomous and self-motivated. Knowing how to get the answers you need is key. Your closest colleagues might be asleep by the time you start your day and you will not always get the support you need when you need it.
To showcase these skills during a job interview, you should prepare 1-2 career stories that demonstrate how you stay motivated while working remotely, or a time when the resources you anticipated were not available and you were able to find alternative solutions. For example, you might recall a time when you had to solve a problem without managerial input, or how you were able to break down your problem into smaller tasks to enable completion or success.
Time Management and Organization
Starting a new job requires adjustment and organization, and when you work remotely some people may assume that you face other types of distractions compared to when you work in an office. Those of us who have worked remotely for some time know that an office can be as distracting, (let’s be honest, sometimes it’s more!). Nevertheless, describing how you manage the freedom that comes with working remotely will help create trust and confidence between you and your potential manager or colleague during your interviews. Make sure you establish your own boundaries and deadlines to help with time management and work completion.
During your job interview, provide examples of how you’ve effectively managed several priorities at once, and remember to go further in your answer by describing the result of that, or the learning experience you’ve benefited from that, such as acquiring project management skills for example.
These are just a few examples of the kinds of soft skills recruiters will be searching for in prospective remote employees. We’ve covered each of the three techniques for creating your career examples in our site.
Do you want to practice how you describe these skills and build your confidence for job interviews?
If you’re looking for interview coaching at any stage of your career, book a free session with an Allora coach and learn more about our coaching!
Included in our coaching is the Allora Interview Prep Worksheet, which provides you with a simple way to prepare your career stories, work with others on editing recommendations to make them better, and customize them using templates for the STAR, SBI, or CARL methods, depending on the interviewer!
Rachel Meda
Rachel has lived and worked in the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Thailand and Paris, France while hiring global talent for Sales, Commercial, Finance, HR and other corporate positions at all levels of seniority.across the markets of Europe, Dubai, APAC, South America and South Africa. She speaks fluent French and English and specializes in expat careers, and relocation job searches.
