There’s no doubt about it: The pandemic changed recruiting. Before COVID-19, most companies were hiring local employees that would come into the office every day. Now, remote work is ubiquitous. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, remote work opportunities have seen an increase of four to five times over their pre-pandemic prevalence.
Remote work doesn’t just mean fewer employees in the office; it also means companies have the option of hiring people from the next town over, the next city over, or even across the globe. What does this pandemic-charged global playing field for remote recruitment mean for your business? How can you simplify and strengthen your company’s global recruitment process in relation to this shift?
The Benefits and Challenges of Global Recruitment
The expanding remote recruitment field holds exciting potential, especially for companies in the health science and life science spaces. First and foremost, global recruitment gives you more access to better talent because you can hire the experts you need whether or not they live nearby. And since pharmaceutical, health care, clinical research, and other life- and health-science industries are becoming more global, the ability to hire employees from around the world not only helps to cement your international reach, it also infuses your company with new ideas, information, and other differentiating expertise you need to remain competitive.
Bringing people from around the world into your company is also a wonderful way to expand your diversity and inclusivity, not only in terms of race, ethnicity, and gender but also in backgrounds and cultural values. Finally, as running a productive, cohesive global team is vastly different from running a fully local, in-office team, it forces you to optimize your workflow, communication, and organizational processes to keep things on track from location to location, time zone to time zone. The natural necessity of reducing redundancies and inefficiencies to account for a globe-spanning team streamlines your operations in the short term and makes it easier to scale faster in the future.
Of course, nothing in life comes without downsides, and global remote recruitment is no exception. There are two main challenges: culture and competition.
Establish and Strategically Market a Global Company Culture
As you strategically expand your global recruitment efforts, one essential part of attracting right-fit international employees is ensuring you have a globally oriented company culture — and that prospective employees and new hires can clearly see and experience this.
Working remotely means less face-to-face time, which can mean less comradery and connection amongst team members. This struggle is compounded when employees are working in different countries or continents, as they must often navigate extra hurdles like time zones and language barriers to connect. The strength of the global team culture you create is the key to resolving this challenge.
Create a strong global company culture by implementing remote culture initiatives such as virtual happy hours, a buddy system, contests or challenges, and quarterly company swag gifts. Make sure your company values are up to date and ready for a global audience. Then, make sure potential hires know about your efforts by connecting the dots between your culture and the candidates who want to be part of it through strategic marketing.
When building a marketing strategy to highlight your global company culture, first consider what you want candidates to know about working with you, like remote working flexibility across multiple continents and time zones, opportunities for international connection and networking, great benefits, superior work-life balance, exciting opportunities for professional growth, and so on. Then use platforms such as a culture webpage, videos featuring your international team, social media campaigns, and paid ads to make sure the talent you want to attract experiences a sense of your global culture from click one wherever they find you online.
It’s also important to keep in mind that remote recruitment can be riskier for your business than traditional recruitment; it’s harder to tell if a new hire is a good fit for your work culture and team personality without in-person interviews. Spend extra time getting to know remote potential hires to be sure they’re the right fit. Build in more interviews, setting up meetings between them and their potential future co-workers in addition to the standard candidate acceptance decision-makers. Ensure all involved team members agree the potential hire is aligned with your company values.
Increase Brand Visibility to Compete for Global Talent
Hiring globally means you have access to a larger pool of top talent — but it also means you’re competing with larger numbers of potential employers for that talent. Approaching your remote recruitment as a marketing and sales program is the best way to stand out from the crowd on a global scale.
The first step is to establish your employer brand. Your employer brand is the first impression potential employees get of your company, answering the question, “Who are you and why should I work for you?”
Once you establish your employer brand, you need to build strategies and customized messaging to attract potential employees and raise your business above other competing employers. Use a branded careers webpage, your social media channels, paid search and paid social media campaigns, recruitment-specific trade show appearances, exciting job postings, and other tactics to build recognition of your employer brand and engage with target candidates, enticing them to apply.
Additional Considerations
Hiring globally also comes with operational challenges — from time zone differences impacting work hours to payroll, taxes, country-specific documentation, and even the onboarding process. Consider if the benefits of an expanded worldwide team are worth jumping over these operational hurdles.
Are You Ready to Build a Global Team?
Are you ready to expand your team worldwide? As your competitive advantage in recruitment marketing, we offer creative solutions that will help you stand out from the crowd, attract top talent, and bring together a team that will propel your company forward.
Contact us today to learn more about our recruitment marketing solutions.
About the Author
Alyssa Kent