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When companies list a position as "remote," does it mean:
A) They really prefer someone who lives in the same city/region in case there were ever a need to have them come in to the office, attend a conference, etc.
B) They'll hire anybody with the right qualifications -- whether they live 2 or 20,000 miles away.
I would imagine this would depend in part on the company. So far, I have not had much luck with positions advertised by companies based in other states.
I don't blame them for preferring a local candidate -- it makes complete sense. But hardly any of them mention this in the job listing.
Do you think the odds of getting remote positions listed by companies outside your state are not all that great?
All else equal, I don't see why a South Florida-based company would pick Joan in North Dakota over Matt in Miami.
It seems to me like making positions remote may be a strategy for drawing local talent who want the flexibility to work from home more than it is trying to attract a wider pool of candidates from Anywhere, USA.
Last edited by Wordsmith12; 02-22-2022 at 01:46 PM..
Where I work you have to live in a certain state for tax purposes. I would think if the position is truly remote then it shouldn't matter where they're from as long as payroll can handle it.
In the industry I work in and job function (Technology, Technical Sales), they look for candidates with the appropriate skills, experience and education levels.
As technical sales requires human interaction, one job requirement is that remote candidates live within an hour drive (I believe it is 40 miles maximum) of a major airport, so that he/she can travel to client meetings efficiently. This is also so that the employee can efficiently cover travel within the assigned sales territory and also visits to the corporate office (as needed and requested.)
At the company I work for, most of the employees are in the same geographical area, because they weren't remote prior to 2020. Now probably 3/4s of the company is remote. There are employees from other states that have been hired in the last year or so.
It depends on the company culture and hiring manager and the organization's needs.
Obviously if it's advertised as remote, I would assume the company has a progressive, flexible culture. So you're probably good there.
Same for the hiring manager. Since they would have some say in whether this position is in-office or remote, I'm guessing that wouldn't factor in either.
However, where the local candidate may have a leg up in this situation is depending on their ability to travel or come in occasionally. If they live somewhere remote, where travel is costly and difficult for them, then I could see this potentially hampering their chances.
If it's advertised as 100% remote on the company website, I would assume the company is trying to get the best candidate from the largest pool they can. Being local probably would not be weighted that much.
It means whatever they (possibly don't) say that it means, no more and no less. Always ask and press for details, but in a way that doesn't make you seem desperate or controlling. You want to consent to whatever it is they want in a fully-informed manner.
I recently responded to a role that was advertised as "100% remote" but the fine-print required on-site visits "once a quarter".
This sounded aspirational and too weaselly for my taste, so I did ask about it in the interview. They were evasive, but what it boiled down to is that the software I would be working on controls factory robots, and they have a prototype line about 40 minutes from where I live, and whenever things needed to be trouble-shot on the hardware, or when they wanted to have a whiteboard session for design, they just want me in to facilitate that.
This would have been entirely reasonable pre-Covid, particularly for my senior role and if not abused, but I would not be driving into the branch office in the middle of a pandemic surge to sit in a conference room with a bunch of other people, even masked and vaxxed. They can arguably find someone willing to do that, but that someone isn't me.
Also, I'm pretty sure this going into the office thing was not "once a quarter" or "four times a year", it was ad-hoc and probably ended up being more like monthly. It just reeks of it. Anything in a job posting that they think might be a downside, they will minimize like that.
There are a lot of caveats like this on remote jobs. Pre-covid, even my dream gig expected me to be at the annual company meeting if I didn't want to be politically marginalized, and to come along upon request as technical liaison for client visits (these tended to be once every other year or so, so on a net basis, I was in-house / in-person once or twice a year). I would imagine that post-covid (whether actual or declared by fiat) they will tend to have these kinds of things. I saw a role just today where they want you in the regional office "periodically" for "team-building exercises", lol.
Businesses seem highly disposed to this kind of thing, and willing to spend $ for it. My recent side gig's home office was in Texas, and they were perfectly willing to pay to fly me from Central NY to their home office for an employee Christmas party. But they were also willing to allow me to decline, and because of the Omicron surge, it ended up as a virtual event anyway. I assume their willingness to spend maybe a thousand bucks in plane fares and hotels was to make me feel more invested in the team, knowing them as persons with full body language etc., that sort of thing. It's kind of understandable but for that kind of $ they can accomplish most of the buy in via other means, and it's only going to get better. Pretty soon, Micro$oft will expand the experience in their Teams remote meeting product so that the company could distribute AR headsets to their team members and you will have a more immersive experience where you're in a virtual meeting room with a virtual whiteboard and you see all the other participants as floating, waist-up cartoon avatars, interacting with the board and with each other, your facial expressions translated to the avatar, that sort of thing. Eventually this will become full-body photorealistic avatars, and then some sort of holographic representation of you without the need for a headset I suppose.
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We have many remote people now, and most are hybrid. We do requires that all employees live in the state. Also, we would not allow someone to come in and start 100% remote, they could be hybrid but must pass their 6 month probation before they can apply for 100% remote, which is then up to their supervisor/manager/director. Many of the high pay larger employers are calling people back in now, realizing that they are missing the face-to-face collaboration that they considered so important pre-pandemic when they eliminated cubicles and had people sitting together. We still have personal offices for managers and cubicles for the rest, and those of us going hybrid are returning next week. I have two employees that I hired during Covid that have not worked a day in the office yet.
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