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Remote and distributed work

7 questions for any role that is remote-first. The italic line under each one is what it is actually testing.

  1. Were they remote the whole time, or part of it?Sets the baseline before anything else.
  2. How did you know what they were working on?Looking for a habit of visible written updates, not surveillance.
  3. How did they handle being blocked with nobody online?The defining remote failure mode is silent blockage.
  4. What was their writing like?In distributed teams, written clarity substitutes for presence.
  5. Did they work across time zones? How did they handle the overlap?Tests whether the burden was shared or dumped on someone else.
  6. Did they disappear for stretches?Asked plainly, and worth asking.
  7. Would you hire them into a fully remote team again?Remote is a skill, not a preference.
Before you dial. Ask the candidate for the reference and tell them you intend to call. Confirm the reference's relationship to the work. Nothing here asks about protected characteristics, and you should not go there if a reference volunteers it — steer back to the work and do not write it down.

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