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Community

Your Top 10 Instant Teams Questions Answered

As we continue to move the needle, evolve, and grow as an organization committed to helping more and more military-connected individuals land quality remote work opportunities, we know you have plenty of questions.

So, today, we’ve got the answers to your top Instant Teams inquiries!

Q: What’s your most important piece of advice for those new to the community?

A: Know your worth!

We can’t help you unless you know your ideal outcome. Unfortunately, the common “I just need a job” doesn’t empower us to help efficiently: we need your grit and hustle broken down, so we know how to match you with a customer team best. That said, we always encourage you to hone in on your skills and the types of roles where you can offer the most value and succeed.

Also, keep our four key focus industries in mind: Sales Support, Customer Support, Technical Support and Operational Support. Create your Arti profile in a way that illustrates how you fall into any of these industries.

Want an inside look into the journey of landing a remote work opportunity with Instant Teams? Here are some stories from Remote Team Members to add to your reading list ASAP.

Q: How long is this process going to take? I’ve created a profile – now what?

A: This is a big one! And the answer is two-fold. One, we’re building teams as fast as the customers are coming to us. That also ties into one of the inspirations behind creating the customer referral program! We know the community needs military-friendly employment options. It’s why we do what we do every day. We’re working hard to scale to provide technology and support to our customers and feed that need from within the community.

So, we’ve built an internal sales program. To date, many of our customers have come to us through word-of-mouth and networking. But, after plenty of hard work, we now have a mechanism that allows us to get outbound and inbound to find those customers, talk to them, and seek them out to bring in more remote positions.

The short answer is – it’s challenging for us to determine how long it will take. So, we’re also working hard to develop a new candidate dashboard. You’ve seen Arti, our proprietary technology, and the next phase focuses on you and your journey: you can get real-time updates and check-in on your placement status. (You’ll be one of the first to know when this goes live as we’ll share it on our social pages and in our e-newsletter!)

As long as your profile is active and you match the desires and skillsets to the type of team we’re building, you’ll filter through as a candidate for our customers.

Q: How long does it take to place someone? I’ve been considered for about five different positions over 3 or 4 months, and none of them resulted in work.

A: Great question! First and foremost, if you’ve popped up as a candidate several times, you rock. To create the best-matched teams, we reach out to the best possible matches for every position. If you’ve been contacted multiple times, you’re a potential candidate for many roles and have a great chance of matching SOON.

Those candidates who don’t move forward may not have the correct available working hours, or your experience or skill set didn’t perfectly align with the customer’s expectations. Several other data points go into the final selections for each role.

Feel free to reach out to us, and we can give some direct feedback that might be helpful moving forward!

Q: Once I’m selected or contacted for being a possible candidate for a job, how does the hiring process work?

A: Our process moves very, very fast. In fact, one of Instant Teams’ value points is that we build remote teams in five business days – or less! So, once we’ve contacted you, the team is ready to go! If it’s a smaller account, you’ll have the opportunity to do an introview (a get-to-know-you conversation) with the customer. And, we also handle onboarding within Instant Teams.

Q: What industries does Instant Teams work with?

A: We have a very diverse customer base, which is fantastic because we have a very diverse community! We keep that in control by focusing on those four groups we mentioned earlier: Sales Support, Customer Support, Technical Support and Operational Support.

However, the customers themselves range from tech startups to cybersecurity, education, health care, and so much more.

Q: For those of you working from overseas stations, how was the process of getting hired and working? Was it more challenging because of the time difference? About the same? Insights?

A: We have spouses in several OCONUS locationsfrom Germany to Japan and Guam. Some of our customers seek that out due to the ability to have 24/7 customer care and customer service opportunities. Otherwise, it depends on the specific role.

Often, writing or content development positions that don’t require a synchronous schedule are just fine OCONUS. However, roles requiring more real-time, daily work are rarely matched outside of a customer’s requested time zone. It’s all dependent on the role and customer that position serves.

Read this RTM’s story for a closer look into working remotely while overseas. 

Q: What’s the working relationship dynamic like with your other team members?

A: From a remote work perspective, this can differ per customer/remote team relationship. At Instant Teams, we’re grounded in Mindful Communication policies that outline communication best practices in every daily workflow. Team dynamics live and breathe within how communication is supported and encouraged on teams.

Q: What are some things you’ve learned you need or need to do to be successful on a remote team?

A: Awesome digital communication skills, basic digital marketing knowledge, stellar organization, tech-savviness and time management! Get more details about these specific must-have skills for your remote toolkit.

Also, if you’re looking to level up your remote skills, we frequently share the following list of unique programs and training opportunities with our community. Check it out:

  • Coursera – Offers a range of learning opportunities, from courses to job-ready certificates and degree programs
  • edX – Created by Harvard and MIT, this platform offers 15,000+ courses on various subjects to help you propel your career
  • [Excel]erate – Online courses provided by Instant Teams, empowering you to advance your remote work skills
  • Google Career Certificates – Improve your digital skills with Google’s Career Certificates or training opportunities

Q: How does Instant Teams get paid? What’s going on here?

A: We have a business model in which we build and handle the continued management of remote teams for our customers. We’re not headhunters, recruiters, or doing one-on-one hand-offs of talent. We saw the need and the gap from the community standpoint and different types of customers Liza and Erica have worked within industries before forming Instant Teams to facilitate the relationship between those two parties.

A customer comes to us with the qualifications of someone they’re looking to add to their team, and we utilize our own proprietary technology to match a candidate to the remote position. As we do that, the customer pays us directly for the work that’s being done by the team, and we pay the team. They’re also paying us for the operational necessities we support in managing and building that remote team for them.

Q: You talk a lot about skill-based hiring. What does that mean, exactly?

A: We like to say we’re “skill-focused.” Why? Because frequent moves and the demands of military life can make changing careers and translating your skills into new opportunities a challenge.

Our exclusive skill-based matching technology focuses on you and your one-of-a-kind skills, pinpointing the best match out of the remote team positions we have available: your list of relevant skills within your Arti profile is so important!

Doing so will set you up for success to land a remote opportunity with Instant Teams.

Q: How can we apply to work for Instant Teams directly?

A: Our service becomes more practical – even internally – as we grow.  Our customers’ work determines ours: If there’s a specialized role, we may announce it externally. However, we have a core team that’s been with us pretty much since day one. But when those opportunities come about, we go to our system and look for those candidates the same way we do for our customers.

Have additional questions you need to be answered? Send us a message! Or, if you’re ready to go remote with the insights we’ve shared today, create or update your profile now.