While global recruiting is a powerful tool for growing teams quickly, lowering operating costs, and diversifying organizations, it also means that your company may carry a lot less name and brand recognition in a new market than it does on its home turf.
Companies can’t rely on prospective candidates in a new market knowing about their organization or their product/ services and must instead strategically position themselves in a way that’s geographically and culturally relevant to the new region.
In a recent webinar, Terminal’s Global Director of Talent Acquisition Kerri McKinney walked through four foundational steps to take to successfully position your company in a new market.
As your company gets closer to launching recruiting efforts in a new country, it’s critical to do local research to understand any cultural differences in a new market or region that need to be understood, considered, and integrated into your interviewing process.
This is a perfect time to reach out to local tech leaders and network connections in a new market and have discovery calls to get as curious as possible about local interviewing processes, communication differences, and hiring preferences that may be quite different from your own.
Many recruiters in North America, for example, are used to seeing a specific resume format, however, there are many highly-skilled and qualified candidates in different countries who will submit resumes in vastly different formats.
No two job markets are identical and the same is true when it comes to job offer criteria, where preferences among candidates vary from country to country. At Terminal, we have hubs in both Mexico and Colombia, and while there are certainly overlaps in candidate job preferences in both markets, there are also important differences.
For example, in Colombia, 93% of the engineering talent we surveyed said they valued having a flexible work arrangement, compared with Mexico, where candidates have less of a preference for flexible work options. In both countries, candidates value cash in an offer far beyond equity or benefits, which is important to consider when preparing to present an offer.
Another important distinction in these two markets is that in Mexico, many candidates do not maintain clean and updated resumes. Meanwhile in Colombia, submitting CVs is more common than traditional resumes. All of these nuances are essential to understand.
As your company prepares to begin recruiting in a new global market, it’s always wise to take on a beginner’s mindset. Get curious about cultural differences and about how your company’s processes will be received in a new country.
The importance of market positioning goes beyond company name recognition. It’s a way for recruiters to prepare themselves to speak with candidates in a fashion that demonstrates local understanding, and attention to the key nuances that can make or break a remote interview.
All of these efforts will add up to make a difference.