I currently work at a technology startup named Belong. I am the Director of Talent Acquisition and I was brought in to build out the recruiting team and operationalize our recruitment practices.

How big is it?

‍I lead a team of 6 recruiters. We have 2 tech recruiters, 2 corporate recruiters, and 2 recruiters that hire for our blue collar workforce (called our “pro recruiters”).‍

Where are your teammates located?‍

Both tech recruiters are located in LATM, both corporate recruiters are in Utah and both of our pro recruiters are located in California.

‍What does your team do? What are you responsible for?‍

My team is responsible for recruiting top talent into the company.

Bringing in leaders who have experience either leading or participating in remote teams. Empathy is incredibly important when leading remote teams.

Remote team members need to feel like they are connected to the company mission and culture. It’s my job as a leader of remote teams to ensure that everyone feels like they have purpose and that they have many opportunities to experience the culture. In addition to weekly touch points both in a 1:1 format and as a team, I prioritize intentionally scheduling remote team activities to build and foster a connection between each one of us on the team. It’s also important that performance is clearly defined. Being a remote team member, it’s important to have clear definitions of what strong and weak performance looks like and it can be frustrating if you don’t know what is expected of you.

It can sometimes be easy to get lost in the work and forget to intentionally schedule meaningful touch points with your team. It takes discipline to sit down and map out how you are going to create great experiences for your remote team that will deepen their connection with the company mission, culture, and their role within the organization.

I’ve hosted virtual activities, in-person retreats, and we dedicate the first 10 minutes of our team meetings to banter.

I’ve created many remote trivia games via Kahoot. That has always been fun. I’ve also put on family feud for my team…that works well in a remote environment.

As I previously mentioned, we dedicate the first 10 minutes of our weekly team meetings to banter about everyone’s weekend (our team meeting is on Mondays…so weekends are top of mind for everyone)

We don’t have any tools for this at the moment.

I’m a huge fan of mentorship sessions. I’ve identified a few leaders in HR that I look to for guidance and mentorship. I also use LinkedIn a lot as a recruiting professional and get a lot from some of the content posted there.