Managing a company has always been complicated. But the recent explosion of remote and hybrid work is making things infinitely more complex, especially when it comes to global recruitment.
On one hand, now that remote work is a viable option, hiring internationally is much easier. Global reach gives HR leaders a larger talent pool to consider when searching for candidates with the necessary skills to succeed in a role. It also helps organizations build more diverse, inclusive teams.
On the other hand, going from a local to a global workforce can open a Pandora’s Box of its own. Although global recruitment is now a powerful option that was previously unavailable to most companies, it still comes with plenty of challenges.
If you want guidance as you shift to an international workforce, here are a few thoughts, strategies, and recommendations that can help. Consider it your roadmap for building and managing a global team this year.
3 Pillars of Global Recruitment Success
1. Develop an International Hiring Strategy
You can’t hire global talent unless you can find the right candidates. And the right sourcing moves start with a strategy.
Don’t skip this step. You aren’t attending a local job fair where you can simply figure things out as you go along. You’re preparing to search for potential employees in other nations. You’ll be facing language barriers, cultural differences, and countless legal considerations. (By the way, don’t let that last bit scare you away from pursuing the global job market. We’ll cover that in the next section.)
Before you get too far into the nitty-gritty of the search itself, create a strategy that can keep your talent acquisition team on the same page. Recruiters at Monster.com recommend starting with what they call the “Five C’s.” These include:
- Country: What are the pros of someone working for a company located in your country? What other countries pair well with these benefits?
- Culture: How does your local culture (regional and national) integrate with various international equivalents?
- Company: Is your brand reputable overseas, or do you need to explain why your company is worth considering?
- Careers: What opportunities do you offer for advancement and career development that international candidates will value?
- Colleagues: Does your workforce already include international employees? How will your existing staff integrate with overseas hires? What must you do to prepare them?
Use these five touch points to consider how to market your company’s vacancies to those who are based overseas. This approach will help you narrow your focus, so you can prioritize locations that best fit your business realities and objectives.
For instance, imagine you work at an American company that wants to hire only native-English speakers. Although qualified candidates may live anywhere in this world, this requirement would immediately narrow your primary search parameters to locations such as the U.K., Canada, Australia, and the Bahamas.
2. Promote Your Job Openings With Purpose
Getting a job opening in front of a qualified candidate is never easy. International talent pools are even more overwhelming, but they aren’t impossible to navigate. On the contrary, if you use the previous tip to narrow your search, you’ll have the basis you need to design and deliver an effective promotional campaign.
Once you’ve identified one or more geographies to target in your search for talent, look for local job boards in those areas. This is a bit of a scattershot approach, but for some positions it can be effective.
If you’re hiring people with specialized skills, you can use digital advertising to create hyper-targeted ads. Search Engine Land points out that when you’re looking for specific talent, it’s really a headhunting effort. In other words, chances are that highly desirable candidates aren’t actively searching for jobs. If that’s the case, you’ll need to position your company as a brand worth pursuing.
You can do this by creating a series of advertisements that showcase your culture. Emphasize key aspects of the employee experience, so people can understand what it’s like to work at your company. Highlight relevant pros, such as attractive benefits, development opportunities, and an environment that supports contributors from around the world. Once you’ve created this promotional content, develop an integrated campaign that targets high-potential job seekers based on their geography, professional interests, industry, experience and various relative keywords.
3. Invest in a Reliable Global Staffing Infrastructure
Finding an ideal overseas candidate can feel like a big win. And the truth is, it is. In a sea of global talent, actually finding a candidate that truly meets your needs is a huge victory. Remember, though, you’re just getting started.
The next step is to hire and onboard your ideal candidate. This is where things often become overwhelming — fast. You’ll most likely need to coordinate logistics and paperwork that apply to your geography and theirs. How will you pay them? Will you need to manage currency exchange? How will you handle health benefits, time off, and other basic employment factors that vary from one region to another?
If you already have the budget, manpower, and infrastructure in place to hire internationally, you can adapt these to fit whatever hiring challenges arise. But if you’re just getting into the global hiring game, it’s wise to find a third-party resource or support line that can help with all the red tape.
A PEO (professional employer organization) is one common solution to manage remote hires within the U.S. These are partner organizations that co-employ workers and share various employment responsibilities. Although this solution can be helpful, the HR experts at Oyster point out that PEOs are generally used within the U.S. and are less common internationally. Also, they require hiring companies to have a presence within jurisdictions where they’re hiring. This can quickly put a damper on the whole global recruitment concept.
As an alternative, you may want to rely on an EOR (employer of record) structure. These are fully independent entities that legally employ workers in lieu of another company. In other words, an EOR can offload the legal complications of global hiring by serving as a middleman.
This approach streamlines and safeguards the hiring and administrative processes required to manage an international workforce. EORs make it much easier to safely scale a global workforce without worrying about becoming bogged down with logistical details or breaking critical rules and regulations.
The Bottom Line on Global Recruitment
If you’re considering expanding your workforce across national borders, more power to you. Just make sure you’re do it in a smart way:
- Create thoughtful global recruitment strategies.
- Promote job openings with purpose.
- Develop a reliable, sustainable workforce management infrastructure.
If you take these steps, you can make every overseas hire with confidence that you’re not setting up an international headache for your HR team and your organization as a whole. If you haven’t done this before, the process may seem tricky and time-consuming, but it’s worth the effort. Think of it as an opportunity to literally infuse your company with the best talent in the world. And if you get it right, you can build a strong advantage as an employer.
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