Clearing up the myth that only local recruiting agencies can find you suitable candidates

Over the past few years the workplace has been evolving faster than ever before. Markets grow globally and while most search agencies have already understood they need to extend their candidate search internationally, many employers still find it quite challenging to adapt their recruiting strategy.

Why do they hesitate?

a)   If foreign agencies propose international candidates, employers sometimes fear that these candidates do not possess sufficient language skills to integrate into the workplace. However, international search agencies are generally very good at assessing language skills  and will only submit profiles, if they think they are a good fit.

b)   Traditionally successful candidate searches depend on long-standing personal relationships with particular search agents. Therefore, especially in the beginning, it can be difficult to imagine communication and processes without all parties being available locally.

c)    Some HR Managers still underestimate the power of global interconnectivity and doubt that foreign agencies have access to local candidates. However, due to increasing competition, international agencies are usually very well connected, committed and most of the time maintain even better relationships to their candidates than their local competitors.

Thanks to the rise of the internet, finding candidates from all over the globe is no longer an issue anymore and new online and mobile recruiting channels offer nearly endless opportunities.

At Talentory, we connect employers with search agencies from all over the world and, in our experience it is not surprising at all that agencies from different nationalities work on vacancies on a global scale.

To give an example, here is a quick illustration of a common scenario:

In a recent Talentory case, a Swedish employer approved 13 search agencies to work on a particular vacancy for the IT industry. What’s interesting is, that none of these 13 agencies was located in Sweden, but all of them took up their search from different places all around the globe. Four of these agencies were based in the UK, five in Germany, one in the Baltics, one in Eastern Europe and one in the United States. At the end of the process, it was one of the UK based agencies that was able to deliver the best candidate and make the placement.

We understand that for employers, such scenarios may sound a little disconcerting at first sight. However, working with foreign agencies may also offer valuable advantages:

Most of the time foreign agencies are more exposed to competition and therefore feel more pressure to attract the best talent without compromising speed and efficiency. As a result, foreign agencies usually are:

a)   very committed to finding suitable candidates, faster

b)   connected to a large pool of candidates across various business areas

c)    very adept in finding candidates for niche industries 

After all, in today’s constantly changing world, not only search agencies but also employers would be well advised to adapt to new recruitment requirements as fast as possible. In this regard, online platforms, such as Talentory, may offer a real opportunity to transform the way companies recruit, develop and engage their employees. Adding new agencies to an already existing preferred supplier list, does not undermine long-standing, proven relationships, but most of the time rather extends reach and enhances the overall recruitment experience, for both employers and candidates.