International recruitment is on the radar of most companies today, but some are still reluctant about it. What are the exact advantages of hiring internationally? Discover the 6 key benefits of international recruitment!
The recruitment market is now a global one, yet some companies are still reluctant to hire internationally. By not doing so, recruiters and business owners alike are limiting their potential growth as a brand and business.
➡️ If you’re considering international recruiting, check out our list of the Top 55 Global Job Boards!
How and where people work has changed dramatically in recent years, and you can’t afford to be left behind with a redundant hiring policy. Remote work and work from home are the new normal now, so smart HR professionals are looking into all the possibilities these changes bring.
One of them is surely the possibility of international recruitment. So should you think about hiring internationally? Is it worth it? Keep reading to find out! 🙂
If you find yourself on the fence as to whether or not you should look outside the country for your next top talent, here are some great benefits to consider:
Hiring internationally means you’re no longer restricted to a local talent pool that, while interesting and full of skilled workers, might be getting stagnant.
The most productive workers in the world come from a diverse number of locations, so by limiting your talent pool to what is immediately around you, you are doing genuine damage to your potential. This talent pool is looking to be picked up and given a chance to work in a role within a new work environment. They are often trained in unique skills that may not be as widely used or studied within your country, giving you a valuable edge over your competitors.
This pool of workers is also generally more engaged, especially if they are actively looking to relocate for work. For a business that needs to fill a role quickly to advance with a new project or a recruiter looking to fill a monthly quota, this type of energized applicant is a lifeline that quickly fills a role and provinces you with all kinds of new opportunities.
Many businesses will struggle to diversify their workforce in a way that improves their culture, turning to recruiters to do the hard work for them. Hiring from abroad is just the answer to your problems.
Businesses owe it to themselves to build a diverse team and culture. They need to add different types of people and thought processes to every stage of their structure, for both legal requirements and to expand the scope of their vision.
Hiring internationally can be just the change in perspective a company needed and act as the catalyst for a more significant and welcomed change. Welcoming and then sharing global perspectives will help boost the internal and external perception of a business.
Workplace diversity has many benefits. A work culture enriched by a diverse team is a happier one that tries new things, builds connections and develops a community atmosphere that can be bragged about as unique within the sector.
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To save money on flying people across the world for a face to face interview, video software is an acceptable and sometimes preferred alternative. Video interviewing software allows employers and recruiters to get a feel of the candidate before investing in flights and accommodation beforehand.
➡️ Check out our list of the Top 6 FREE Video Interview Software!
As a recruiter, you’re always on the lookout for someone who can bring something unique to a business. Hiring overseas offers the unique asset of a team member who will be working different hours to the rest of your staff, should they choose not to relocate. Rather than limiting their interactivity with the rest of the business, this actually allows them to provide a unique, around the clock service.
Many international hirees will be looking to work remotely and will see doing so as an opportunity to establish themselves at the forefront of a business’ international expansion. This kind of worker is looking to impress and can do so independently without having to be monitored on a day to day basis, so they can be trusted to work to the highest level possible remotely.
These extended business hours let you cover multiple time zones as a business. It also gives your customers and clients an improved overall experience around the clock, whether you work in a B2B or B2C industry. If you’re looking to bring in more international clients or customers, hiring this type of team member is essential.
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In today’s market, work perks and incentives play a huge part in winning over top applicants. To entice an international applicant who may need to travel frequently for interviews or the role, offer to cover the cost of protecting their health and belongings as standard. A provider like Admiral will offer an improved deal on annual travel insurance covering each individual trip, so it works out as cheaper for an employer in the long run.
International hires offer businesses an insight into different markets and customer types that local workers simply can’t do. As employees who have excelled in different systems before, they are an excellent asset for a recruiter to offer a business looking to think outside the box.
An international workforce is a more creative and productive one. Even if they’re moving jobs within the same industry, an international hire will have unique experiences and the different perspective that brings with it. This will boost the creativity of your team and allow for new avenues to reach exciting markets. Recruiting internationally is a brilliant way to inject some innovation into a team with new thinking patterns and processes. An excellent way to save on research costs.
Just how a new hiree can bring over a client from their old position, the same applies to international workers, although on a much wider scale. If your latest staff member is able to convince a high-quality client over from their old job, you’re not just getting a lucrative new contract but access to an entirely new market and demographic of customers. This helps expose your branding and work to other companies working with them as well as their customers. You’re not just getting insights into new markets, but access to them.
In the same vein, if a business is looking to break into a specific market or appeal to a particular demographic, hiring internationally can help to narrow the recruitment process and distill your talent pool rather than having to do it yourself.
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Reaching the best applicants is often about a more creative advertising strategy. Using the most popular job websites often leads to lots of useless applicants to work for, and may not be the most useful for specifically targeting international applicants.
In fact, your best tool for reaching applicants is likely social media. If you’re an internal recruiter managing these paid or free adverts across multiple channels as you try to extend your reach requires the use of advanced tools to simplify the process, such as Buffer.
Branding is a huge part of building a successful modern company, and having a diverse, internationally hired team is an essential step of branding you shouldn’t overlook.
This is not to say you should look at hiring internationally as a cynical marketing stunt. But instead, you should look to take advantage of the incredibly talented team you have assembled from all kinds of different backgrounds and locations within your branding.
It shows you’re a company that focuses on bringing in the best talent they can find, even if it involves a more complicated and expensive hiring process. It screams that you’re a business that only wants the best. These are the kind of messages that potential applicants look for when applying for a position.
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Nobody wants to waste their time on a position they have no chance of getting, so start a precedent and use it to tell other applicants to try their luck with you. They want visual cues in your website, social media and marketing material that tells them they have a place in this business and it’s open to the idea of international applicants.
If your business or the business you’re recruiting for is international, your customer service needs to be international. Hiring internationally allows businesses to provide a better overall service to their growing worldwide customer base.
There are two main benefits here. If you hire internationally, your employees are more likely to be bilingual, allowing them to provide clear, straight forward customer service communicated in the customer’s native language. A language barrier can be a huge detriment to your service and ultimately have an impact on the number of retained customers, as the company will come across as ignorant.
Secondly, having a diverse customer service team gives you more insight into the unique problems facing your base in other countries. This can help inform your strategy and lead to important reforms across your business and website. An international customer in one country will face completely different issues to a local one, issues that a team may never have noticed without this more holistic view to customer service that hiring internationally provides.
This issue extends deeper than just customer service too, an international team is one that is better at solving a wider spectrum of problems and providing solutions that suit that particular customer.
International recruitment is on the radar of most companies today, but some are still yet to fully realize its benefits and potential. Whether you’re an internal recruiter or part of a recruitment team, know that international applicants always have something to offer businesses and stand out as a unique option.
Kayleigh Alexandra is a writer for Writerzone.net and Micro Startups, your online destination for everything startup. She's passionate about hard-working solopreneurs and SMEs making waves in the business world. Visit the blog for your latest dose of startup and charity insights from top experts around the globe @getmicrostarted.
