[Interview] Laura Roeder, Founder of MeetEdgar

Every week, we share the story of an inspiring Remote Worker. Today, we're are super excited to share Laura's story.

1.- What is your name, role, and what does your company do?

I'm Laura Roeder, Founder of MeetEdgar, a platform that automates social media marketing by building a library of your best content that re-posts automatically to maximize your traffic from social.

2.- What do you consider the biggest benefits of a remote team?

I love being able to hire talent from anywhere. We're not limited by the geography of one city. I also love that we're able to keep our team through life changes - we've had people who have moved due to their spouse getting a new job but it doesn't have to affect their work with us.

3.- What traits do you look for in candidates for a remote job?

We actually only hire candidates who have worked remotely before. As a remote worker you have to be above average at written communication, and you have to thrive on working alone. It does take some time getting used to it.

4.- Why is your company working remotely?

We work remotely because of the expanded talent pool and the additional perks it allows us to give our team. Not having the expense of a physical office gives us the budget for perks like 4 weeks paid vacation and a monthly home cleaning service for each member of our team.

5.- What is your hiring process for remote workers?

We do video interviews for skill and culture fit with several people across the company. We also like to do test projects using slack to communicate as a little test run of what it's like to hang out in our virtual office.

6.- What’s the best piece of advice you can share with an applicant?

Let us know that you have the independence and drive that it takes to succeed without teammates looking over your shoulder. Show us examples of where you took the lead and made a challenging project happen.

7.- Do your remote team members meet in person?

Yes, our entire team meets in person twice per year. We also have smaller department specific meet-ups occasionally. Our team lives in North America so we've ended up with some geographic clusters like the New York area.

8.- How do you cultivate company’s culture in a remote work environment?

Culture is how we communicate with each other every day, in remote companies that communication just looks a little different. We don't have the option to do fancy meals or happy hours, so our culture is much more about the respect, camaraderie, and collaboration that happens among our team every day.

9.- What are your favorite tools for remote team communication?

We love slack for written communication, Asana and Trello for task management, and google hangouts and zoom for video chats.

10.- Why did you decide to start working remotely?

I started working for myself as a freelancer designer and my various businesses grew organically from there one hire at a time. I didn't have an office for myself so I didn't see why I needed one once I started hiring others. I've been working for myself for nine years and just got my first dedicated office a month ago!

Thanks Laura! You can find Laura on Twitter over here :)!

Would like to start a conversation about sharing your story? Let us know over here- thanks :)

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