5 Top Tips for Recruiting Internationally

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Despite rising employment, the well-documented global talent shortage continues to worsen, with one-third of companies reporting difficulty hiring for roles and over half of U.S. employers reporting recruitment difficulty.

As many of you may be aware, there is no shortage of candidates, but there is a shortage of appropriately qualified candidates. Organizations are overcoming this problem by recruiting overseas candidates to work locally or within their home markets.

The emerging BRIC markets (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are becoming increasingly attractive places to recruit talent, either to work within the local market or in the domestic U.S. market. As a result, 88% of global CEOs entering the BRIC market are doing so to access local talent.

Recruiters and HR professionals must develop new skills to tap into international talent markets effectively. Below, you will find five valuable pointers to help you recruit internationally .

1. Get Ahead of the Curve

With the ongoing talent war in established markets, global companies are looking to tap into emerging economies to find a fresh and abundant stream of talent. The problem is that many of these so-called emerging economies, like India, China, Brazil, etc., have been “emerging” for quite some time. And the most adventurous organizations have established footholds in these markets and built highly efficient talent attraction and retention processes, making them extremely difficult for newcomers to penetrate.

Therefore, with recruiter saturation prevalent in many BRIC economies, the wise employer should look further afield to new emerging destinations that lay below the radar and where talent is more readily available.

Goldman Sachs has identified the next wave of emerging economies, naming them the Next-11. These are:

  • Bangladesh
  • Egypt
  • Indonesia
  • Iran
  • Korea
  • Mexico
  • Nigeria
  • Pakistan
  • Philippines
  • Turkey
  • Vietnam

This is where employers should go if they want to get ahead of the curve and find top talent.

2. Try to Attract Women in Emerging Markets

Employers must adopt more innovative strategies to attract talent with the increased competition for talent within BRIC countries.

In her book, “Winning the War for Talent in Emerging Markets – Why Women Are the Solutions,” Sylvia Ann Hewlett has found that increasing numbers of highly skilled and ambitious women are entering the market, and multinationals are not currently tapping this talent pool.

Innovative employers like Pfizer, Siemens, Wipro, and Google lead the way in developing talent management strategies that attract and develop women. Therefore, if you are a latecomer to the BRIC war for talent, you may be able to leapfrog the current competition by creating a talent management strategy that attracts the under-utilized and highly skilled female employee segment.

3. Tailor Your Social-Media Recruitment Strategy According to the Local Market

We all know that LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter are the most effective channels for employers to engage with talent within the developed economies of the U.S., Europe, and Australia, but this is only sometimes the case in emerging economies. You could only engage with the preferred social networking channel within that economy if you engage with the preferred social networking channel within that economy.

For example, if you are looking to engage with talent in Eastern Europe, research shows that you should use Vkontakte, which is the social media app that is used by 83% of the active users in Eastern Europe. 

Also, the FC2 blog is the top social media site in Japan, and Orkut is the most visited social site in Brazil. So, make sure you tailor your social-media recruitment channel usage according to the local market preferences.

4. Senior Recruiters Must Engage at Boardroom Level

Senior recruiters within international firms should be global resourcing specialists and appreciate global talent availability and capability within regions and countries.

They must be able to synthesize all this information. They should engage effectively at the boardroom level and lead the way in shaping and developing the organization’s global resourcing policy to leverage the global talent base fully.

5.  Appeal to Generation Y (Born after 1990)

A Deloitte study identified a global talent crisis in manufacturing. In Europe, there is a growing skills gap in the STEM disciplines.

The Deloitte research has shown that the STEM disciplines are becoming increasingly less attractive to Generation Y workers, who would be the largest population group to join the workforce since the arrival of the Baby Boomers. The proportion of Gen Y talent as a percentage of the working population is set to increase dramatically throughout the BRIC countries.

And, therefore forward-thinking multinationals wanting to recruit in BRIC markets will be looking to develop talent strategies that attract and retain Gen Y workers. 

Start Recruiting Internationally Today

These are only a few tips for recruiting internationally, but a smart company will hire the right recruiters as well.

You need to have recruiters that are experienced with global recruiting if you want to land the best talent. However, finding these recruiters can be challenging.

Learn more about our OnDemand recruiting solutions that can help you hire this top talent.

By Kazim Ladimeji