Dutel has been in the remote business since 2014 — when he founded remote hiring platform Remotive. And while Dutel has ‘preached the same gospel’ for nearly seven years, 2020 marked a staggering shift in the sheer amount of people tuning into his concert. “2020 changed everything”, he says. “Our job has been to help companies transition to remote work and hire remotely. With hiring freezes, 2020 had been a complete stop when it came to recruiting — but now it’s been back to hiring on cylinders.”
“With hiring freezes, 2020 had been a complete stop when it came to recruiting — but now it’s been back to hiring on cylinders.”
While his company is registered in France — the company does roughly 80% of their revenue outside of Europe, according to Dutel. Working for both organisations and job seekers, Remotive is a world-class, one-stop-shop for all remote work. “We have a world class, Google-like search-engine”, Dutel says. “So job-seekers can browse the thousands of available, remote jobs and be notified of them immediately.” On the organisational side, Remotive offers the unique ability to post remote jobs on their job board to its unique, enormous pool of remote job seekers.
Going ‘remote first’
Though the idea of remote work had been a long-lasting discussion among C-level executives — even those who were initially against it, will seemingly have no option but to adapt. “I may be deeply biased”, Dutel laughs, “but I do believe that people are now going to favour working remotely. Before COVID, people believed every major successful tech story originated and grew out of an office — well, no longer.”
“Before COVID, people believed every major successful tech story originated and grew out of an office — well, no longer.”
Coinbase, Shopify and Twitter have all recently announced the intention to go ‘remote-first’. And according to Dutel — they will not be the exception to the rule. “Many companies will stay in this remote state, where you do not have to come to the office, only for infrequent meetings and socialising. The bulk of them will be hybrid. What you’ll see is a small HQ, that is dedicated to a co-working space where people will meet every now and then — and the rest will work remotely.”
‘It’s about trust and flexibility’
“The future of work is all about flexibility”, Dutel says. “And that flexibility is enabled by remote work and an a-synchronous work culture, which in turn is enabled by a higher degree of trust. Wherein managers trust their people and vice versa. Most people got back 2 hours in their day, which they got to spend on their family, their dogs. They will no longer be willing to commute across town for hours on end just to please a company, the boss, or someone’s ego.”
… and a great job description
Meanwhile, organisations are still doing what they’ve always done: vying for the best available top talent. For talent leaders or recruitment managers struggling in that aspect — Dutel has one tip. “If you want to project yourself working with an individual for a certain amount of time, you want to give them a taste of what it feels like to work within your organisation. If you pride yourself on having a great working environment, you should invest the time and effort to have a great job description.”
“If they don’t know so much about you, and you only fire off a list of skills they need, it’ll be very hard to attain top talent.”
“It’s all about being thorough on what you have to offer, and being very explicit about your remote possibilities and what that person stands to gain. What’s in it for them? The more detailed the job description, the higher the calibre of the candidate. Passive job seekers need to be fully secure in their knowledge about what it is you have to offer. If they don’t know so much about you, and you only fire off a list of skills they need, it’ll be very hard to attain top talent.”