After the pandemic reshaped the universal approach to working arrangements, many more of us have been reaping the benefits that remote work can offer. Between the 24 million people who were believed to be working from home during the pandemic, they saved an estimated £1 billion every week on costs related to going into the office. As such, it’s understandable that when moving jobs, you may want to hold on to the freedom and flexibility that comes with this more modern set up.
Whilst you could want these reassurances during the interview, it can be a potentially tricky subject to broach.
Fortunately, there are many opportunities in an interview to naturally bring up the topic of remote working. As well as deciphering what your new working arrangements could look like, it’s also important to speak about any prior experience of remote work and highlight any skills you’ve picked up since working from home. With many companies now operating a hybrid model, these skills could be desirable attributes in a new hire.
In this article, we’ll highlight some of the ways you can bring up remote work as a topic for discussion in an interview for your next secretarial role, to help you get all the answers you need.
Research the company
You may find that the majority of your questions regarding remote working can be answered with a little pre-interview preparation. Look into the firm to see whether remote working is a feature of their working policies. It’s always useful to gain an insight from existing employees – job sites like Glassdoor can be really helpful for this. Having a basic understanding of a company’s internal processes before the interview will help you and offer an opportunity to ask questions about anything that wasn’t clear.
Ask the right questions
You may not feel comfortable asking whether remote work is an option in the interview, but there are certain ways you can phrase the question to help you get the answers you need without appearing too demanding. For example, you could ask what a typical week looks like.
You may want to expand on the research you’ve done and get some more details that perhaps you weren’t able to find out during your prep. Increasingly, employers are altering their job posts, to include a note about whether or not remote working is part of the role. This means you should have an idea whether it’s a possibility before the interview.
Finding out more about what existing employees do will offer you a better sense of how they manage their workload and split their time between on-site and remote environments, which you can then apply to your own situation. This will help you to determine whether the company culture will be a good fit for you and your working style as a legal secretary.
Discuss previous roles
Generally, you will find that the topic of remote working comes up naturally when you discuss your previous roles, even if the interviewer hasn’t explicitly asked you about it. If you have spent some time in a remote role over the last few years, this is a great opportunity to mention how you coped with managing your workload, as well as any new skills you feel you’ve picked up since working from home.
If you don’t have any experience in this area, and it will be your first time working in a remote capacity, you may want to discuss the ways in which you think remote work could benefit you in a professional capacity and highlight any existing skills that would help you to succeed in the role.
Author: Mike Bell
Since graduating from a top London university, Mike has explored his passion for the law in a teaching capacity in several different roles. Away from the classroom, Mike enjoys sharing his knowledge with a wider audience through his blog posts, with which he aims to inspire and inform his readers.