Traditional hiring playbooks weren’t built for the world we work in today. Resumes printed out for in-person interviews? One-size-fits-all processes? Those belong to another era. 

In today’s global talent market, the most forward-thinking companies like GitLab, Zapier, and Buffer are rewriting the rules. They’re building hiring strategies that are async, inclusive, and built to scale across time zones and cultures. 

This shift opens the door for Heads of Talent, People Ops leads, and startup founders to access diverse talent pools, improve retention, and build resilient remote teams. But it also raises new challenges: How do you ensure compliance across countries? How do you preserve culture without a physical office? How do you avoid mis-hires when everything’s remote?

In this article, we've broken down real-world hiring strategies used by top remote companies—tactics you can adapt whether you’re hiring your first remote engineer or scaling a global team. And throughout, we’ll show how RemotePass helps operationalize these strategies, from onboarding and compliance to payroll and perks.

Let’s dive in.

Buffer: Transparent, Asynchronous Hiring

Buffer, the social media management platform founded in 2010, has long been a poster child for radical transparency and remote-first work. With a distributed team across 15+ countries, Buffer’s hiring strategy reflects the same values it builds into its product: clarity, autonomy, and trust.

What They Do Differently:

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• Transparent Salaries: Buffer operates a publicly shared salary formula where every candidate knows what the role pays, leaving no room for ambiguity. According to Courtney Seiter, Buffer's Former Director of People, transparent compensation discussions upfront save everyone time and set the foundation for trust. 

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• Asynchronous Interview Processes: Using tools like Trello, Google Docs, and recorded video responses, Buffer allows candidates to engage in the interview process at their leisure. 

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• Clear Job Descriptions: Buffer invests in outlining what success looks like for each role, often including clear KPIs and the team structure the role fits into.

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Why It Works: Buffer embraces transparency from the get-go, allowing them to attract candidates that align with their values. The best candidates want to feel like their needs are catered to, and by displaying clear job descriptions, transparent salaries, and emphasizing asynchronous communications, candidates feel very settled and motivated, and the company also gets to see how they're likely to thrive in their remote environment. 

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This model reduces bias, improves candidate experience, and saves time for both sides. It's especially effective for early-stage companies that must set clear expectations without a traditional HR department.

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Scalable Takeaway for Startups: 

You don’t need to go fully public with your salaries to borrow from Buffer’s playbook. Start by:

• Including salary ranges in job descriptions
• Replacing one real-time interview with an async task or a recorded video
• Clarifying KPIs or success metrics for the role

These small shifts can help you attract better-fit candidates, improve trust, and reduce hiring friction, especially when scaling your remote team.

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GitLab: Documentation-Led Hiring

GitLab may be a popular open-source tool for developers, but its hiring process across all teams mirrors how it approaches product development: document everything. With over 1,400 people across 65+ countries, the company ensures that every detail, from the role requirement to the onboarding and feedback loops, is documented.

What They Do Differently:

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• Public Hiring Handbook: GitLab has a public hiring handbook detailing every step of their process, which gives candidates a peek at what to expect.

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• Role Scorecards and Interviewer Rubrics: In the spirit of documentation, there are standardized rubrics and scorecards for each role, which puts in structure and reduces subjectivity.

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• Hiring as Documentation Culture: Candidates' skills and engagement in GitLab's documentation-first workflows are assessed.

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Why It Works: For GitLab, this hiring process allows candidates to review the extensive documentation to scale hiring globally while maintaining quality. New hiring managers can follow established protocols, and the experiences can remain the same, regardless of who conducts the interview. This also allows the candidates to feel comfortable and manage expectations.

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Scalable Takeaway for Startups: 

You don’t need a 50-page handbook to start. Try this instead:

• Write out your interview steps and share them with candidates in advance
• Build a simple evaluation rubric to guide hiring decisions
• Document expectations for communication, onboarding, and collaboration

This makes your process repeatable, easier to improve over time, and more aligned with how remote teams actually work.

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Zapier: Hiring for Autonomy and Communication

Zapier has a team that is well-distributed across over 40+ countries. What unites them? A strong focus on autonomous execution and excellent communication skills.

What They Do Differently:

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• Skills and Values Alignment: Zapier designs its interviews to assess not just skills, but alignment with company values. Behavioral questions follow the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result), helping candidates offer structured, reflective answers. This approach uncovers how candidates have demonstrated initiative, ownership, and remote readiness in past roles.

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• Async-First Hiring Process: As a fully remote company since day one, Zapier treats async communication as a must-have skill. From email-based assessments to thoughtful written exercises, the hiring process mirrors how the team actually works day-to-day. Candidates are evaluated on how clearly and concisely they communicate, without relying on meetings.

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• Hiring for Remote-Readiness: CEO Wade Foster has been vocal about Zapier’s commitment to autonomy. Candidates who thrive are those who can self-manage, make decisions with limited oversight, and communicate proactively. The hiring process is designed to surface these traits early.

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Why It Works: Zapier is a 100% remote team, and as such, constantly seeks out life experiences of high performers who are willing to work within the same environment and thrive by allowing them to talk about it and show it in various stages. 

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Scalable Takeaway for Startups: 

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You don’t need to go fully async overnight. Start here:

• Replace one live interview with a writing-based task
• Use behavioral questions tied to values like ownership or clarity
• Look for signals of self-motivation and decision-making in past roles

These small shifts can help you find candidates who thrive remotely without needing constant check-ins.

Doist: Slow Hiring with a Global Lens

Doist, the global company behind productivity apps Todoist and Twist, embodies a more deliberate, values-first approach to hiring, thinking of it from a 'hire slow' principle. In this way, they prioritize cultural fit, emotional intelligence, and long-term alignment over speed.

What They Do Differently:

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• Paid Trial Projects: After candidates pass the initial stages, they complete paid trial projects that mimic the job's core responsibilities. 

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• Values Alignment Interviews: Doist's hiring funnel also includes multiple assessments about how they'd handle specific scenarios they'd encounter in the role, testing with real scenarios.

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Why It Works:  Doist treats every hire as a long-term investment. According to former COO Allan Christensen, who was at Doist for twelve years,  emphasized that skills alone aren’t enough, Doist won’t hire someone who’s a poor cultural fit, no matter how talented they are. This commitment results in stronger retention, better team cohesion, and fewer costly mis-hires.

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Scalable Takeaway for Startups: 

Speed isn’t always your friend. Even with limited resources, you can:

• Introduce a short paid trial project to simulate real job tasks
• Design scenario-based interviews that reflect your company’s values and culture
• Involve potential teammates in the hiring process to test collaboration and chemistry

Hiring slowly doesn’t mean dragging your feet, it means being deliberate. And in remote teams, that extra intention can pay off for years to come.

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Hotjar: Culture-First Hiring

Hotjar—a remote-first company with 200+ employees across 33 countries—believes that skills alone don’t make a great hire. Culture does. Since 2014, the behavior analytics company has embedded cultural alignment into every stage of its hiring process, treating it not as a soft add-on but as a core strategy for long-term success.

What They Do Differently:

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• Culture-Add Interviews: Hotjar has dedicated culture interviews, different from skill assessment tests, that allow candidates to interact with the company's values and alignment with the remote principle. These interviews are thoughtful, scenario-based discussions that probe how a candidate thinks and behaves in a remote, values-driven environment.

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• Cross-Team Collaboration: Hotjar often includes team members from outside the candidate’s immediate department in the final interview. For instance, a marketing hire might be evaluated by someone in customer success. This broadens the perspective on culture alignment and reinforces cross-team empathy from day one.

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Why It Works: Culture is a multiplier. Hiring individuals who elevate the company strengthens cohesion, which is essential in distributed settings. It also gives candidates a richer sense of how teams work together, leading to more informed decisions and stronger retention. 

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Scalable Takeaway for Startups: 

To apply Hotjar’s approach:

• Define 3–5 non-negotiable values that guide how your team works
• Include a culture-focused interview to assess alignment beyond technical ability
• Bring in team members from other departments for final-round interviews

This helps you build a strong team  that actually works well together across time zones, tools, and cultural differences.

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Automattic: Trial Periods Before Full Offers

What if hiring worked like test-driving a car—no pressure, no long-term commitment until you're sure? That’s exactly how  Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com with 1,800+ employees across 75 countries, approaches hiring.. Automattic has long championed paid trial periods to reduce post-hire regret and ensure mutual fit.

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What They Do Differently:

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• 2–6 Week Paid Trials: Prominent candidates are offered paid trial contracts at competitive hourly rates after initial screening. They work on actual projects alongside team members for approximately 20 hours per week for 2- 6 weeks, allowing them to maintain existing employment while trialing. It’s a low-risk, high-insight window for both sides.

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• Collaborative Reviews: Hiring managers get feedback from multiple full-time staff who work with the promising candidates and can share insights into how they work

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Why It Works: This “try before you commit” approach dramatically reduces bad hires and early turnover. Candidates get a taste of the work, culture, and expectations. Teams get to observe how candidates collaborate, communicate, and solve problems in real conditions, especially valuable in async, distributed teams.

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Scalable Takeaway for Startups: 

You don’t need to run a full trial period to borrow from Automattic’s playbook. Try this:

• Introduce a paid project-based task that mirrors the day-to-day role
• Make the task collaborative—loop in one or two current team members
• Pay fairly for the candidate’s time and clearly communicate expectations

It’s a small investment that can save you from costly mis-hires and help ensure new team members hit the ground running.

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What Startups and Scaleups Can Learn From Top Remote Companies

Several patterns emerge across these pioneering remote companies that any startup or scaleup can adapt to strengthen their hiring approach.

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Asynchronous evaluation components
‍Asynchronous evaluation components, like pre-recorded video interviews, allow companies to screen a larger talent pool without scheduling constraints and enable a more standardized approach to evaluating skills and cultural fit.

Startup Tip: Add one async task to your hiring funnel to assess communication skills without real-time feedback.

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Prioritize transparency
Transparency builds trust. Whether it’s publishing salary ranges, sharing your hiring steps, or clearly stating remote work expectations, the best companies treat hiring as a two-way street.

Startup Tip: Include compensation bands, working hours, and reporting lines in your job descriptions to set expectations early.

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Culture Fit Interviews
‍Leading companies bake in structured interviews focused on values alignment and team dynamics, often involving cross-functional team members.

Startup Tip: Identify 3–4 core values and design situational interview questions to assess alignment.

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Testing Skills and Trial Projects
Simulated or real tasks can help with applications and real-life scenarios. While specific candidates may be great at the theoretical bit of the work, it is also essential to test real-life happenings and observe their situation to assess job readiness.

Startup Tip: Introduce a short paid project or case study relevant to the role. Bonus: Have the candidate collaborate with a potential teammate.

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Document your process
A repeatable hiring process is a scalable one. Companies like GitLab thrive on clear documentation—interview steps, evaluation rubrics, onboarding workflows—so anyone on the team can execute without guesswork.

Startup Tip: Start with a Notion or Google Doc outlining your interview stages, timelines, and evaluation criteria.

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Evolve your Remote Hiring Process with RemotePass

Remote hiring isn’t about copying enterprise HR playbooks. It’s about designing a system that fits your stage, reflects your culture, and supports your global ambitions.

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Take inspiration from the best:

– Buffer’s radical transparency

– GitLab’s documentation-first rigor

– Automattic’s trial-based onboarding

– Hotjar’s culture-first mindset

Then make it your own, with RemotePass by your side.

With RemotePass, you can:

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• Hire in 150+ countries without setting up local entities
• Offer compliant contracts, local benefits, and seamless onboarding
• Run payroll, taxes, and expenses in one dashboard
• Ensure compliance with international labor laws, eliminating costly misclassification risks

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Ready to build a smarter, more scalable hiring strategy? Book a demo to find out how RemotePass can support you every step of the way.