With remote working becoming a norm, remote hiring is a practice most HR and recruitment teams find time and cost-effective.
However, like everything related to technology, remote hiring practices also come with challenges. To ensure safe and secure remote hiring practices, here are a few steps you or your organization must follow.
Secure Remote Hiring: Why Is It Crucial In The AI Age
Remote hiring removed the most common barrier an HR team faced day in and day out – scrounging for the right talent.
With remote hiring, there were no geographical restrictions, and HR teams could find talent in far-fetched small towns or metro cities.
Secure remote hiring practices ensure you hire only a reliable and capable workforce. A workforce that has been carefully and thoroughly vetted and verified by a group of expert third-party verifiers.
To ensure only the qualified and capable are hired, it is best to deploy security measures must be deployed right at the start of the hiring process.
Associated Risks With Remote Hiring
There are numerous potential risks associated with remote hiring.
Candidates can misrepresent their identity during online interviews thanks to AI-based tools.
The result is it becomes difficult to verify their true credentials.
Additionally, with AI masking a candidate’s true face, it can become difficult to assess whether or not a candidate is the right cultural fit.
So, while remote hiring practices are here to stay, there are some ways to ensure you practice remote hiring with security with the latest tools and technologies.
Top Secure Practices For Remote Hiring
Here are the top five secure practices for remote hiring. With these practices in place, you can ensure safe and secure remote hiring practices.
Authentication System and Process
Streamline your authentication system and process and enhance security during remote hiring with the following practices
↳ Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication or MFA: MFA is an additional layer of security on your network or systems. Using only a password can lead to critical security issues. So, when you blend MFA with Single Sign-On (SSO) systems, you can mitigate these risks to a certain extent.
↳ Biometrics: Biometrics is something you are, such as your fingerprints or your facial expressions. It is an essential component of the MFA. Additionally, biometrics is one of the challenging factors to imitate. Thus, it makes for a stronger component of a secure remote work environment.
↳ Passwordless authentication: With passwords being the prime target of the threat actors, you must move on to the tools that offer Passwordless authentication. Passwordless authentication is a verification method where users access an application, network, or system without shared secrets such as passwords, personal identification numbers (PINs), or security questions.
Use Virtual Private Network (VPN)
A virtual private network or VPN is your best ally when hiring a remote candidate. VPNs can securely connect the remote candidate’s network connection to your organization, thus ensuring complete security while hiring remotely.
VPNs use encryption to create a secure tunnel in a public or shared network, just like the public internet.
Conduct security awareness training
Security awareness training for your employees, including your recruitment department, will ensure secured hiring practices. When your employees are trained to be aware of cyber threats, they are better equipped to handle any anomalies in remote hiring practices.
Integrate Zero Trust Architecture
Zero Trust works on the principle – ‘Never trust, always verify.’ It implies every request from every user is – authenticated, authorized, and encrypted. And all this is done in real-time to safeguard your sensitive data.
With these steps, you ensure your security practices are robust and fool-proof during the hiring process and afterward. Reason: When you hire a candidate remotely, the person may not enter your office, so you must ensure your security measures are strong.
You may implement zero trust for remote hiring with these steps
↳ Authenticate every user: Every user, even the prospective candidate, has to be authenticated before you start the recruitment process.
↳ Authorize every access: Ensure to set up the role-based access controls (RBAC) that give them limited access to the information required for their role or for the interview.
↳ Encrypt all your organizational data: Ensure all the data exchanged during your recruitment process is encrypted to protect the sensitive data.
↳ Regular monitoring and auditing: Even during the hiring process, it is imperative for your hiring team to continuously monitor and audit the access logs to catch any anomalies and suspicious behavior immediately.
Establish clear remote incident management policies
To establish clear remote incident management policies, you must assume that security issues will come. Especially during remote hiring practices.
You must establish clear protocols for responding to incidents like cybercrime, fraud, and human error, and remote candidates can pose unique challenges. Your recruitment team must implement endpoint detection and response tools to manage security issues across all locations.
Five Strategies To Ensure Candidate Authenticity in Remote Hiring
As mentioned earlier, remote hiring has some unique challenges, especially in the age of AI, where a candidate can mask their true identity.
So, how do you ensure authenticity in such scenarios?
Here are five strategies you can deploy to ensure a candidate’s authenticity during remote hiring.
↳ Vet the candidates rigorously
Implement multi-layered background checks and consider third-party services for identity verification and social-media analysis.
↳ Insist on switching video during interviews
Note any inconsistencies between the candidate’s appearances and their online presence.
↳ Thorough reference checks are crucial
Verify the references thoroughly to rule out any discrepancies and understand the candidate’s work ethic.
↳ Assess the candidate’s behavior online
Use behavioural assessments to evaluate personality traits, work style, and potential for deception.
↳ Be aware of the red flags
Train your hiring managers to spot the red flags, such as polished responses, and investigate for potential AI assistance and red flags.
Final Words
The rise in cyber threats has ensured organizations to robust their security postures. Especially during remote hiring practices. Managing remote hiring can be quite challenging. With the use of AI in recruitment and hiring processes, the process has simplified but has also given rise to unique challenges.
