How to Hire International Talent: A Guide for Growing Companies

When hiring international talents, you should ensure that you understand where your skills gap is, what countries you want to target, what the employment laws are in those countries and how you’ll consistently screen candidates. Put together a plan for hiring international talents.

If you need to hire someone with specific skills and aren’t able to find enough local talent, then hiring internationally could give you more options. This would also be good if you were looking to grow into new markets, develop your tech skills or create a distributed team.

Some common reasons why you might want to start hiring internationally include:

• Access to specific skills
• Growing your business by hiring people who know the region, what customers expect and how business works in that region.
• Create flexible teams, Getting remote, hybrid or local teams to suit your needs.
• Diverse perspectives, Get diverse perspectives from professionals.
• Scale your hiring: By hiring internationally you’ll have more candidates to choose from.

However, hiring internationally doesn’t always mean you’ll save money or time. Costs can vary per country, as can employment laws.

Having a process in place means you can easily manage your international candidates.

1. Identify your international hiring needs

Before you start looking to hire internationally, why are you looking to hire internationally? Are you looking for someone with particular skills, to help expand your business or build a remote team?

Your hiring brief should include:

• Role description and requirements.
• Skills required.
• Preferred countries/regions.
• What type of role – permanent, contract or remote.
• How many hours they’ll be working and what they’ll be reporting to.
• What their salary range will be and when they’ll be starting.

For example, a tech company might look at hiring internationally for cybersecurity specialists.

2. Choose the right countries and markets

Not every country will be right for the role. You should decide what countries you want to target based on the availability of skills, salary expectations, language requirements, employment laws and time zones.

Consider:

• How many professionals with the required experience are available.
• What the salary expectations are in that country.
• Language requirements.
• How many hours they’ll be working and public holidays.
• What the employment, tax and work authorisation requirements are.

Even if there are lots of technical professionals available, you may not be able to hire from that market due to not being able to create a compliant hiring process.

3. Choose the right international sourcing methods

Once you know what countries you want to target, decide what sourcing methods you’ll use.

You can use a mixture of:

• International job sites and professional networks.
• Internal referrals, communities.
• Recruitment agencies.
• Professional bodies and specialised talent networks.
• Recruitment partners with international experience.

If you’re looking to hire someone for a niche role then specialised recruiters can help you find the right candidates.

4. Consistently screen candidates

International candidates may have varying levels of education, job titles and certifications. Ensure you’re focusing on what they can actually do rather than what they have on their CV.

Ensure you consistently screen your candidates by:

• Checking they have the right experience.
• Their education and certifications.
• Testing their skills for the role.
• Checking they have the right communication and teamwork skills.
• Checking references.
• Ensuring they’re available, what their salary expectations are and if they’re eligible to work.

For example, when hiring a software engineer ensure you’re testing their coding skills rather than relying on their previous employer.

There are some additional things to consider when hiring internationally. Ensure you’ve considered the following before offering a role.

1. Employment Laws and Remote Working

Each country will have different employment laws. These can include employment contracts, minimum wage, hours worked, holiday pay, termination, employee benefits and data protection.

You’ll need to understand if you can hire someone directly from that country or if you need to do something else.

This could include:

• Creating a local legal entity.
• Using an Employer of Record.
• Using independent contractors.
• Using a local staffing/recruitment partner.

Employer of Records can be used to employ someone on your behalf in a country where you don’t have an employing entity. However, ensure you understand what they’re responsible for, costs and if they’re compliant in that country.

2. Salary and Benefits

Think about what the salary expectations are in that country.

Consider:

• What the salary expectations are in that country and currency exchange.
• What mandatory benefits and social contributions are.
• Health cover and holiday entitlement.
• Payroll taxes and costs.
• Any equipment, relocation or remote working costs.

Having a clear salary structure will help avoid any confusion when discussing offers.

3. Cultural Differences

Different cultures may have different ways of communicating, providing feedback, having meetings etc.

You can help international employees by being clear on:

• When they’ll be having meetings and time zone management.
• Who they’ll be reporting to and how they’ll communicate.
• Feedback.
• Teamwork and documentation.
• Company policies and values.

Whilst understanding cultural differences will help improve teamwork, don’t assume anything about individuals.

Depending on the role, aims of the business and your ability to manage international employment responsibilities.

To find the right professionals from different markets, you’ll need a structured approach, knowledge of the industry and understanding of evolving workforce needs.

Elite Maverick provides recruitment and workforce solutions to multiple industries across the globe. We can help you with permanent recruitment, contract/temporary staff, executive search and bulk hiring.

We provide recruitment and workforce solutions to help you find the right people for your permanent, contract and temporary recruitment needs, executive search and large scale recruitment.

If you’re looking to expand your talent search then the first thing you should do is identify what skills, experience, location and employment you need. Having a clear hiring brief will help your recruitment teams find the right candidates.

Connect to the Elite Maverick team to discuss your recruitment needs.

Hiring internationally should be seen as part of your workforce strategy.

To improve your approach:

• Plan ahead – Know what skills you’ll need in the future.
• Be consistent – Ensure you’re using consistent criteria to assess candidates from different countries.
• Know the local laws – Get qualified legal and tax advice.
• Be clear – Be clear on what their responsibilities, salary, hours and policies are.
• Create an inclusive culture – Ensure your international employees feel part of the organisation.
• Track your recruitment – Track how quickly you’re hiring, quality of candidates, retention and costs.

By regularly factoring these considerations into your process, you will be able to spot problems quickly and make better decisions when hiring internationally.

Hiring international talents can enable expanding businesses to gain particular skills, expand into new markets and build more flexible teams. Although there are many considerations to take into account such as employment requirements, pay, communication and integration, taking a structured approach to your recruitment and working with experienced partners will help to increase your international workforce.

For more recruitment insights, workforce trends, and company updates, follow Elite Maverick on Linkedin.