[Interview] Scott Burgess, CEO of Continu

Adrien Belhomme -

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

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

I'm Scott Burgess, CEO and founder of Continu. Continu.co is beautifully simple Learning Software, built for the modern workplace.

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

Some of my favorite parts of working in a remote team are:

  • Flexibility: Getting to work from wherever I feel most creative. Which could mean a coffee shop or a new city.

  • Work-life balance: I can work within the hours that I feel most productive.

  • No commute: I gain a lot more productivity time by not needing to commute to a set location during rush hour every day.

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

The number one trait we look for in every candidate is Passion. We value this as the highest quality as we believe people who are truly passionate about the mission and work they will be performing will always grow and exceed expectations. We even wrote a post about it.

Along with passion, working in a remote team requires great communication and a person who is self disciplined.

4.- Why is your company working remotely?

We chose to work remotely for a number of reasons:

  • We build software to help modern companies and we believe this is the way all companies will eventually work.

  • We understand that the best talent isn't all in Silicon Valley, SF or NY (although we also employ team members from these areas)

  • We have a global focus and working in this way has helped us understand different cultures and perspectives

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

Our hiring process is simple - A successful candidate will go through three rounds of interviews with various team members depending on the role.

We typically ask a number of questions to get a sense for the individuals personality and how they will fit within the team as well as their technical ability.

Questions vary depending on the role, but we try to keep this process as short and simple for all candidates.

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

Get to know the company and their mission before you apply for a position. Understanding where they started and where they want to go will go a long way during the interview process.

Demonstrate that you're passionate about the position and show examples of relevant work to back it up.

Also, understand that a lot of companies see many applicants for a position, so try and keep communication short and to the point.

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

Many of our team members at Continu travel while working, so we try and make it a point to meet up if we are in or around the same city. We're also planning our first company retreat for early 2017.

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

Cultivating a great company culture comes down to communication. In a remote team this means over-communicating the company values and mission and practicing it in everything that we do.

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

We love using Slack for internal communication and Google Hangouts for our video calls.

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

I love the flexibility it gives me and ability to work with team members that I might not have had the opportunity to meet if I was restricted to only working with others here in San Francisco.

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

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

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