

Senior Applications Architect @ScaleFactor, former CTO and co-founder @Bench
Beyond time zones, writing skill, and reading skill, look for empathy, an innate desire to grow, persuasion and discussion skills, self-motivation and self-awareness. They are always valuable in candidates, but they are especially valuable to teammates in a partially distributed organization.
It’s also a corollary from our discussion of asynchronous communication that having strong writing and reading abilities will help your potential employee find success. If a candidate doesn’t enjoy reading, he or she may not be a good choice as a remote employee. Consider incorporating writing and reading into your hiring process, so you can evaluate communication skills.