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What must a recruiter / recruitment team keep in mind while hiring candidates / expats from overseas locations?

Please provide a list of what a Recruiter must keep in mind before or while hiring expats from overseas locations.

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Question added by Amal Mandhora , 'Temporary Assignment' , Hamad Medical Corporation
Date Posted: 2013/09/07

   Dear Amal

There are several points to consider when selection after making sure of the safety certification of academic fraud most important of these points:

 Do you possess the skills, knowledge and expertise to perform the function has the ability to work abroad in another environment and culture different from the environment in which he lived, and to what extent up motivation and enthusiasm to do the work

Shobha Jaison
by Shobha Jaison , Senior Manager- Human Development , Bayt.com

Since all countries have certain formalities to be followed for immigration, the recruiter should ensure that the candidate is eligible to obtain a visa/ work permit for the given location. It helps to keep the candidate informed about the hiring formalities “subject to certain conditions”. When hiring from abroad, the recruiter must also keep in mind that most candidates are keen to learn more about the country, work culture, cultural sensitivities, cost of living, etc. and it would create an excellent impression on the candidate if the recruiter were to provide the candidate with any additional/ useful information to enable the candidate to make an informed decision as well.

I think as a recruiter you are always looking for the best person for the job - so i'll assume that the overseas candidates meet the job criteria, qualifications, and skill sets needed to do the job well and what is left is the 'other' stuff, such as:

1) Relocation expectations: First things first, does the company have a relocation allowance? Is the candidate elligible? A relocation policy allowance means the company will cover some of the relocation expenses incurred which can include some or any like new furniture, moving, temporary housing and so on. Companies are not obliged to which is why this is a very important conversation to have with the candidate before any job offer is on the table.

2) Tax & Social Insurance benefits: Some countries provide income tax breaks for Non-residents (like Canada), while other countries have a different income tax category (like Germany, France). Some overseas candidates expect the company to make up the difference in remuneration. Same for social insurance. There are legal requirements and again some companies pay net income, some pay gross. This is also important to clarify and be clear on offer letters and contracts.

3) Settling-In period:This refers to the period between the candidates date of arrival and starting date and this period of time allows the person to sort-out their housing, open bank accounts, get loans, driver's license, settle children in schools. - or at least understand the lay of the new land. Moving is known to be the biggest inducer of stress so some companies have Welcome Packages, or suggest Expat Associations that the new hire and their family can join, and so on. Unless your company already has a program in place to help people with this, for a recruiter these are important elements to take into consideration so that when the person starts work, they are not consistently distracted by these issues and end up being very unproductive in their probation period.

I hope these help provide you with some new perspective.

Samar Abu Shaban
by Samar Abu Shaban , Regional HR Operations manager , souq.com

Hi Amal!

I agree with all the previous inputs, but I believe there is one important issue missing which is not commonly considered by recruiters as it is very technical matter. This is the national culture.

 

Don't be surprised, the individual national culture predict his performance. For, instance, if I am hiring for multinational culture with mostly European or American employees, the HR strategy will be designed to fit this culture which depend on inidividual performance and not team performance; while if the organisation relays on social and team work job design  the recruiters should consider middle easterns or asians employees as they will prefer these strategies.

I would like to point that inidividual national culture is not country national culture; this is very sofisticated measurement done by the HR analysts to diagnose it on the individual level. So, there is a possibility to have asian employee yet fit for the inidividualistic culture than his corresponding european employee and vice versa; the trick is in identifying the employees' national culture to predict his performance and whether he will fit the existing organisational strategies or no.

Asma Ibrahim
by Asma Ibrahim , Customer Service , Advisor , International Group for Tourism and Travel

- Reasons about leaving ex-job if he was employed in company prior to that .( make sure about what did he say  from references or company itself )

- His motivates to work in urs ... what things can he add to ur company?

- skills.. do u need these skills or not ?

- His answers .... r u satisfied .... he is tense or has self-confidence? 

- Languages .... do u need certain language ??

- Experience ... does he has enough experience and skills or  he need some training hours to be improved?

- Health status ... is ur work outdoors , need to movement and great effort? 

-His emotions and communication skills ... may be he cant work with customers or he hasnt these skills 

- Tact .... is he tactful ?? 

- His appearnce ... as good appearnce is very good influential factor for customers and reflect ur company reputation 

 

- His location .... u need to be in certain city as principle place not to affect his work 

- after all of this .. ask ur self as recruiter .. is he right person ??

Mark Van Dongen
by Mark Van Dongen , Chief HR Officer RKW-SE , RKW-SE

In the middle east, depending on what country you recruit for, one of the first questions to ask is, will I be able to get a visa for that job at that level in that function. For instance, if you recruit for junior roles, it is usefull to discuss with your government relations first to ensure you are able to get a visa. If the MOL feels a local can do that role, and wont grant you the visa, it was all a waste of time and money, Potentially worse, in the market the word might get around you are not a serious employer, because you recruited for jobs you did not do your ´homework´ for..

 

So while all other on capabilities, culture (so values) etc are  very much true, start with the basics, check from what countries you can hire for this job, based on visa likelyhood, and then focus on these countries (and dont forget to see if a Local might be able ot do the job, a much cheaper option, and will help oyu in your nationalisation quota..)

Zacharia Rugongo
by Zacharia Rugongo , Software Developer , Bistate Computers

Be aware of cultural diffrences or biases. For example, in some countries fellow workers tend to be jealous of those that have more knowledge. Therefore, when hiring from such places, a recruiter might not get a true picture of a canditate's performance when inquiring from his/her peers.

Some candidates from such countries could even decide to not give job referees while applying for jobs.

Muhammad Ismail Rajpoot
by Muhammad Ismail Rajpoot , HR Officer , Mfaheem Al Emar Trading and Contracting Co.

While hiring expats the recruiter or the recruitment teams should keep in mind the following points:

Extensive reference check,

Extensive skill check,

Visa Availability,

Cost effectiveness,

Govenment Regulations,

Cultural issues,

there are many others but these are currently in my mind..... hope you get the pint as i made it short and simple.

rabea saeed
by rabea saeed , Operations Manager , Amazon

might be several factors.

 

e.g., adaptation, stability in organization, risk...

 

this is some of the factors from my point of view. ;

1) clear picture and crystal clear references

2) ensuring the certification are legal

3) testing the skills

4) health and related factors

5) clarify the team playing behaveior.......

 

Abdul Wahab Awan
by Abdul Wahab Awan , Sr. Officer Procurement & Inventory Management , Model Craft Saudi International

Well I beleieve there should be a list of researched questions with an interviewer who is pooling candidates for the over seas jobs And a professional from respective industry should accompany him/her while interview process. For example if you are recruiting for a supplychain FMCG industry or any FMCG distribution company then you must prepare few basic questions to figure out the bogus and genuine candidates for the role:

List of questions from an FMCG distribution company prospective can be:

  1. How many brands your company distribute?
  2. How many warehouses you have?
  3. What is supply chain (i need no bookish defination)?
  4. Are you experienced in cold, dry or chilled logistics?
  5. What are the basic storage criteriea for cold chain logistics if you are operating in a cold chain environment.?
  6. What is3PL?
  7. How you manage your3PL? 
  8. Who are your suppliers?
  9. Have you outsourced any of your services?
  10. How many SKU's you deal with?
  11. What is the storage capacity of your warehouse? 
  12. Are your products palletised or non palletised?
  13. Does Expiry matter?
  14. Which ERP system you are using in your supply chain department?
  15. Share any one interesting experience in your field while you were on job.

These are few basic questions and then you can drill down more when you have selected final candidates.

 

Then after final selection you can undergo the background check and all by sending email queries to the previous employers of the candidates.

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