Global Talent Acquisition: Strategies to Hire the Best in Your Industry

The journey towards becoming a global powerhouse begins with discovering extraordinary talent from around the world. Yet, hiring internationally can pose significant hurdles for managers and HR departments.

To truly stand out in foreign markets and promote smooth expansion, it is essential for organizations to abide by local employment laws and embrace cultural nuances in every region they source talent from.

This brief guide serves to enlighten you on effectively sourcing the ideal workforce for your organization’s distinct recruitment objectives—irrespective of their geographical location.

Decoding Global Talent Acquisition: What is it?

Global talent acquisition is a company’s blueprint for engaging talent from various countries while expanding business operations globally.

Implementing a global talent acquisition strategy assists a company in recognizing its recruitment requirements, traversing labor laws, and interpreting cultural nuances across a worldwide market to construct a compliant and efficient distributed team.

Each company is unique, equipped with distinct hiring necessities and objectives. Consequently, global talent sourcing strategies vary. However, global companies can adhere to certain fundamental principles to achieve their specific objectives.

Key Factors for Global Recruitment

Outlined below are critical elements to consider when formulating a global talent acquisition strategy and hiring a diverse workforce. These range from undertaking market analysis and evaluating cultural norms to crafting locally tailored offers and ensuring compliance.

Develop a Strategic Workforce Plan

Building a strategic workforce blueprint is a crucial part of global expansion. The blueprint should incorporate your long-term business objectives, foresee future hiring demands, and strategize the onboarding of the right personnel at the opportune time to stimulate smooth growth.

Here are primary aspects to consider when constructing a strategic workforce plan:

Identify long-term business targets: Establish precise, achievable, and pertinent long-term goals to shape a growth vision and pinpoint specific roles that need to be created and filled.

Evaluate your current workforce: Recognize your team’s strengths, weaknesses, and overall capacity to meet your long-term business targets.

Predict potential obstacles: Identify the talent and resources required to meet present deadlines and draft a contingency plan in case growth deviates from the predicted trajectory.

Bridge the gaps: Once you understand your present standing, long-term objectives, and necessary resources to meet them, begin to address deficits, open new roles, and engage the talent required to actualize your plan.

Implement and adjust: Execute your plan, keep track of your progress, and modify as you expand. A well-crafted workforce strategy that factors in your team’s abilities, long-term objectives, and potential hurdles allows you to mitigate setbacks and optimize growth.

Undertake Market Analysis

Consider the legal and economic aspects in your recruitment locations and their possible influence on your hiring efforts. Some questions to consider:

• What’s the economic forecast in your target markets?
• Are the economies on the rise, or are they plateauing?
• Are any political happenings in the pipeline, such as significant elections, which could affect the market?
• What does the local talent pool have to offer for particular roles you need to fill?

At this stage, many organizations collaborate with a third-party specialist, like an employer of record (EOR), to unburden their HR department and obtain precise, country-specific evaluations across several markets.

Evaluate Cultural Differences and Norms

Over 75% of U.S. businesses that venture internationally falter due to inadequate understanding of the markets they penetrate. Gaining insights into the local regulations and culture in the locations you intend to hire from significantly impacts your likelihood of success.

Moreover, there’s no universal approach to global expansion. Certain aspects of your global talent sourcing strategy are influenced by the customs and values of your target markets.

Exhibiting patience and maintaining an open mind to cultural variations when conducting international business yields enhanced communication and fewer misunderstandings, resulting in improved long-term success.

Moreover, accommodating differences between team members regarding communication etiquette, time perception, tastes, and other cultural norms aids in constructing a productive and diverse workforce.

Begin Hunting for Suitable Recruits

First, decide whether to utilize in-house staff to source foreign talent or to delegate recruitment to a local partner.

Reflect on these questions to aid in making your decision:

• Are language barriers a potential problem?
• What are the cultural norms in your target markets?
• How will you advertise the job vacancy?
• Are there local professional networks that you can utilize to find talent?

If the recruitment process seems daunting, contemplate delegating it to a local partner who can handle the heavy lifting, allowing you to focus on identifying the perfect candidate without the added stress.

Assess Your Candidates

Exercise patience throughout the hiring process and plan for multiple interviews to comprehensively evaluate a candidate’s skill set and ensure they align with your company culture.

Reflect on these questions to formulate an effective evaluation process:

• How many stages should the interview include?
• What tools or technologies do you need to conduct interviews?
• What criteria should you use for shortlisting candidates?
• What assessment criteria should you use?
• What skills do you need to test?
• How should you assess a candidate’s cultural fit?

A thoughtful candidate assessment approach simplifies the recruitment process while ensuring you don’t miss out on competent candidates.

Propose a Competitive Offer

The battle for top global candidates is intense. Research talent anticipations and cultural norms in the target country to ensure your offer is competitive.

Begin by asking these questions:

• What are the wage expectations for this role and location?
• What are the mandatory benefits in this jurisdiction?
• What additional benefits do employees in this market expect from their employers?
• What further benefits would employees in this market appreciate?

For instance, workers in Germany typically anticipate a 13th-month salary, even though it’s not a legal requirement.

Understanding talent anticipations and values enables you to craft more appealing offers and gives your company a competitive edge.

Compliantly Engage Top Candidates

Once you’ve selected the perfect candidate, familiarize yourself with the labor laws in their country of residence to ensure compliance when engaging them.

This involves maneuvering numerous local regulations, including the following:

• Minimum wage stipulations
• Payroll taxes
• Statutory benefits
• Permanent establishment
• Worker classification
• Collective bargaining agreements

The specific compliance risks you face when engaging foreign talent depend on the country of hire and your method of engaging talent.

Usually, employers engage remote, global talent in one of three ways: establishing a legal entity, engaging contractors, or partnering with an employer of record (EOR). We detail each of these methods and their associated risks below.

Set Up a Foreign Legal Entity

Establishing a foreign legal entity is the traditional route for global hiring and expansion. This option protects the parent company from foreign tax liability and ensures compliance.

However, establishing a foreign entity is a time-intensive process that demands a substantial budget. Therefore, it’s suitable for organizations that are prepared to invest long-term in a foreign location.

For instance, establishing an entity in Japan takes over three months, from application for the required permits and approvals to the point where you can legally engage talent and conduct business in the local market.

For companies interested in experimenting with a new market before committing long-term, establishing an entity may not be worth the investment.

Engage Contractors

Engaging and paying contractors is a faster, less expensive method of hiring global talent compared to setting up an entity. However, contractors are usually unsuitable for organizations looking to engage full-time employees or those who are keen to protect their intellectual property.

Moreover, engaging contractors overseas exposes a company to compliance risks, such as misclassification and permanent establishment. In some jurisdictions, the potential penalties for these compliance failures are severe.

For instance, in France, companies face fines of up to 45,000 Euros and three years imprisonment for misclassifying employees as contractors.

Moreover, using contractors can limit your ability to manage and control your workforce and usually doesn’t offer a long-term solution to meet your strategic workforce plan.

Global Talent Acquisition: Frequently Asked Questions

What is global talent acquisition?

Global talent acquisition is the process of sourcing, attracting, recruiting, interviewing, hiring, and onboarding talent from around the world to meet a company’s global expansion objectives. It involves long-term strategic planning and relationship building with potential hires, not just filling immediate vacancies.

What is the role of a global talent acquisition manager?

A global talent acquisition manager strategizes and executes plans for identifying and hiring top talent to meet the company’s global business objectives. They oversee the entire recruitment process from start to finish and ensure that hiring practices are consistent across all locations.