By Jaclyn Westlake | The Muse
Ask anyone who’s transitioned from working in an office to working from home and they’ll tell you: It’s not the same. While working from home comes with some undeniable luxuries (like no commute and the ability to work in your PJs), it poses some unique challenges, too (like less facetime with your manager and more distractions). Hiring managers are well aware of these differences and drawbacks, so when they interview candidates for remote roles, they’re going to be looking for people who not only have the skills to do the job itself, but also understand what it takes to successfully work from home.
“Remote work—whether temporary or permanent—requires a different skill set and type of experience than in-office jobs,” says Neal Taparia, founder of Unscrambled Words, a startup with a primarily distributed team. So while the remote jobs you’re pursuing may be very similar to in-office roles you’ve had in the past, working from home requires a different work style.
That means when it comes time to interview, you’ll need to be ready to answer questions that are focused around a specific set of remote work skills—in addition to the usual interview questions you might get for a traditional in-office job and questions specific to the role or industry.
