Testing Written Communication

💡 The goal of this step is to test candidates remote written communication and learn more about non negotiable skills and experiences.

Task: Test candidates written skills

We usually start with a few basic questions like timezones, hours of work, whether the position is short-term or long-term, any quick, simple questions on their proposal etc.

Have a think through your specific job requirements and have a short list of non-negotiables. Like hours of work, timezone overlaps, skills etc.

The simpler the better! That way you get a good understanding of the candidates async communication.

Example of a short conversation between Duncan and a potential candidate -

Duncan 10:47 AMHey Jay 👋 We really like your past work. It's excellent!Before we move on, can you share your timezone and preferred working hours?Thank you!

Jay 11:46 AMHello Duncan,Thank you for your response to my proposal.I work in IST timezone.But I am open to overlap 1-2 hours in your timezone where we can conduct the daily standup call and meetings.

Duncan 12:08 PMHey Jay 👋 It might be too much of a timezone shift... ideally, we'd need 3 hours of overlap sometime between 9am est and 4pm est 🤔 This project will last a long time, and we don't want to mess up your sleep schedule for the next few years.

Jay 12:22 PMI suggest scheduling my one technical interview.I am sure you will definitely hire me based on my technical skills and experience in React.I can be available at your time from 7-8 AM - 12 PM EST.I am open to use Upwork time tracker/work dairy to track the hours and work.And the best thing is I am also looking for a long term project where I can work for years.I can work weekly 40-45 hours as per the project requirement.

Duncan 2:29 PMThanks so much for your excitement and willingness to work with us. I will follow up soon once I have heard from a few other candidates. Would you also be open to part-time work? We only need 10-20 hours of help right now

Jay 12:31 PMAs you can check my previous React projects, 60% of my Upwork projects are long term.Also got 5-star rating in my React projects on Upwork.Sure I can work daily 4 hours - 20 hours per week.Moreover, I am using TypeScript in day to day basis, for the last 5 years and I have a 70% test case coverage policy, I do not merge PR without test cases. So I follow a strict TDD approach.

In this instance, we were happy with the written communication and we moved the candidate onto the next step.