Global Recruitment: Strategic Advice from Top-Performing Brands Going Global Best Practices

Technology has enabled businesses to expand their capacity and hire the best and brightest regardless of location. This new global workforce gives recruiters access to a large, diverse, global talent pool. At the same time, this diversity has also created new challenges.

Although the talent pool of workers is larger than ever, employers are discovering that finding the right talent when they need it is not an easy task. In fact, according to Manpower Group’s most recent talent Shortage Survey of 35,000 employers across 36 countries, 34% of companies say they struggle to fill jobs. In addition to this, many human resources executives have found managing remote recruitment operations is a significant challenge. These struggles stem from companies not having a well-planned, consistent recruitment strategy.

iCIMS compiled tips and strategies for success from our top-performing global clients to address this need. Like many others, these top-performing global organizations initially struggled to find the perfect recipe for global success and now that they have achieved that success, they have graciously shared what they learned. Whether, your organization is planning a global expansion or simply looking to improve global recruitment processes the advice from top-performing global organizations can help guide you through the process.

Meet the Our Top-Performing Global Customers

ACCO Brands manufactures and markets office products to customers around the world. Based in the U.S.A., with locations around the world, ACCO Brand's 6,000 employees have delivered exceptional value to their investors, customers, and suppliers for over a century. http://www.accobrands.com

Canon, Inc. is a 10,000 employee, multinational corporation specialized in the manufacture of imaging and optical products, including cameras, camcorders,

photocopiers, steppers, computer printers and medical equipment. Globally recognized as one of Fortune's Most Admired Companies and ranked #35 on BusinessWeek’s list of Best Global Brands, Canon’s recognition is a reflection of its talented employees. http://www.canon.com/

Enterprise Holdings commonly known as, Enterprise Rent‐A‐Car is an internationally recognized brand operating neighborhood and airport rental locations in

the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Germany. Enterprise is the largest car rental company in North America, with over 66,000 employees, an annual turnover of $10.1 billion and 904,000 vehicles in its rental and leasing fleet. In addition, Enterprise of North America is part of a global strategic alliance with Europcar, creating the world's largest car rental network. http://www.enterpriseholdings.com/

Golder Associates strives to be the most respected global company providing consulting, design, and construction services in earth, environment, and related areas of energy through technical excellence, innovative solutions

and award winning client service. Today, our clients span the world's major economic drivers: Oil and Gas, Mining, Manufacturing, Power, Transportation and more. Employee-owned since being founded in 1960, our 8,000 people, operating from 180 offices worldwide, deliver deep technical understanding, cross-disciplinary thinking and a passion to help our clients succeed. http://www.golder.com

The Optical Express Group is a 400 employee company founded in 1991. Today, Optical Express is a Global leader of selected healthcare services. Currently

operating in the UK, US, Ireland, Belgium, Croatia, Germany, France, and The Netherlands, Optical Express covers optical stores, refractive laser eye surgery, dental clinics, state-of-the-art medical hospitals, and cosmetic treatment centers. http://group.opticalexpress.com/

TE Connectivity is a global provider of engineered electronic components, network solutions, wireless systems and undersea telecommunication systems. TE Connectivity

designs, manufactures and markets products for customers in industries ranging from automotive, appliance, telecommunications, computers and consumer electronics. An industry powerhouse, TE Connectivity has approximately 75,000 dedicated employees around the globe and serves customers in more than 150 countries. http://www.te.com

Terex Corporation is a diversified global manufacturer of a broad range of equipment that is focused on delivering reliable, customer-

driven solutions for many applications, including the construction, infrastructure, quarrying, mining, shipping, transportation, refining, energy, utility and manufacturing industries. With 18,000 employees worldwide, Terex reports in five business segments: Aerial Work Platforms; Construction; Cranes; Material Handling & Port Solutions; and Materials Processing. Terex offers financial products and services to assist in the acquisition of equipment through Terex Financial Services. www.terex.com

United Airlines and United Express operate an average of 5,446 flights a day to more than 370

airports across six continents. With over 42,000 employees worldwide, United and United Express carried more passenger traffic than any other airline in the world, operating nearly two million flights carrying 140 million customers in 2012. http://www.unitedcontinentalholdings.com/

A Global Recruitment Strategy Pays Off

Over time working with thousands of customer, many of whom have global operations or global aspirations, we have found that many organizations do not have strategic global recruitment plans in place. Accordingly, these organizations experience many challenges in their global staffing.

Common Challenges

Does the following sound familiar?

Unable to unify HR team on a global scale

Entirely manual recruitment strategy that is expensive and time consuming

No centralized location for shared candidate

Difficulties meeting international compliance laws

Many organizations that try or have tried to expand their operations globally face these common challenged and find they are bogged down by their own processes.

Global Recruitment Strategy Return-On-Investment

Generally, recruiting operations have always been managed and measured in terms of people, processes, structure, tools, and budget. Unfortunately, many organizations manage these resources using an outdated approach that implements disparate tactics. In fact, only 24% of recruiting organizations have a defined global recruiting strategy for deploying resources with a concentrated purpose and operations remain disparate. Accordingly, their candidate experience and the corporate brand are inconsistent and, at times, even alienating to local markets.

Top-performing global recruitment organizations require a long-term business strategy rather than a tactical approach. Focusing on strategic recruiting objectives yields significant returns in performance and business outcomes. So, what does the term ‘strategic objectives’ mean? Simply, top-performing global recruitment organizations coordinate recruitment resources (people, processes, structure, tools, and budget) in a way that complements the organization’s overarching business goals to achieve efficiency, agility, and influence.

Revenue Targets Growth Targets Budget Targets

Impact of Strategic Recruiting Objectives on Recruiting Effectiveness

Typical Resource FrameworkPeople, Process, Tools,Budget, Structure

ObjectivesCoordinating Resourcesaround Strategic Objectives

+30% +28% +40%

Strategic recruiting objectives increase a businesses ability to achieve revenue, growth, and budget targets.

Global Recruitment Strategy Best Practices

The following key steps must be taken for a global recruiting strategy to be successful.

1. Define Scope and Align Common Goals

Fostering consensus and alignment on common goals is a critical first step in designing a global recruiting strategy. Key stakeholders, who understand the goals, resources, and expectations of the organization, can better establish a strategic vision and ensure it produces desired results. Having executive sponsorship and getting input from all stakeholders can ensure talent strategy aligns with business needs.

Communication is the key to achieving consensus. Organizations should develop a shared lexicon and develop a common understanding of different program elements such as the appropriate resource requirements and process milestones. Keep in mind that certain terms may not mean the same thing to people in different parts of the world.

By mapping out your global opportunity, focusing on resource alignment toward a common goal, you start to get an idea of the recruiting picture in each location, and you begin identifying some key scope parameters.

The goal of the global recruitment strategy must align with the overall business goals. In general, the business goals relate to revenue targets, growth targets and budget targets. For recruiters, this means developing goals surrounding pertaining to cost-effectively recruiting the best talent who will be capable of improving revenue and promoting company growth.

Revenue Targets Growth Targets Budget Targets

Impact of Strategic Recruiting Objectives on Business Outcomes

Typical Resource FrameworkPeople, Process, Tools,Budget, Structure

ObjectivesCoordinating Resourcesaround Strategic Objectives

+7% +8% +16%

Golder Associates: All locations should use the same software with

consistent workflows. This will not only result in standard processes, but also

facilitate standard reporting which is invaluable to managing processes

moving forward.

Enterprise Holdings: Standardization does not eliminate flexibility. At

Enterprise, we have a decentralized approach to empower local managers

within our standardized corporate framework.

To that end, our experts had these recommendations toward the development of your strategic goals:

2. Design Globally For Local Execution

The next step is to think about any additional regional, country specific, or other key design parameters that might influence the project. This will help you provide a project framework to meet the organization’s needs for standardization and flexibility around brand, technology and compliance.

Scalable recruiting initiatives, such as workforce planning, university recruiting, and employment branding, benefit from higher levels of standardization. Our experts had this to say:

Candidate-facing activities, such as sourcing, conversion, and screening, should be locally tailored within a standard corporate framework. The local tailoring must support the recruiters and applicants in terms of language and culture, while maintaining the integrity of your brand around the world.

Here are some areas that will benefit from standardization:

Workforce planning

Terex Corporation: Maximize automation and information sharing using a

single recruitment tool accessible 24/7.

United Airlines: Make sure all processes are consistent and easy for

recruiters and candidates.

TE Connectivity: Eliminate all manual processes around the world.

Cannon Inc.: Use a unified and seamless recruitment and onboarding

solution to share data and streamline operations.

Employment branding

Recruiting (university, diversity, internal, external)

ATS data entry and workflow

Hiring manager training

Administrative processes

New hire onboarding

Interviewing

Screening questions

Social Media recruitment strategy

Our experts had these recommendations for standardization:

This is not intended to imply that localizing your message is not imperative. Success in hiring globally means knowing your audience. For example, in parts of Mexico and Africa, Internet access can be limited and processes need to accommodate these limitations. In that case, organizations can use print advertisements and establish kiosks that enable candidates to apply for open positions electronically or accept paper applications.

Additionally, languages are not all the same. For example, the Spanish translation

of a job ad in Mexico won’t necessarily work in Argentina, Peru, or Spain. This is a case where businesses must rely on local recruiters to tailor the verbiage of postings in different regions.

United Airlines: Implement standard automated screening questions and

interviewing procedures that are required in all international locations. In

that way, all candidates are measured by the same standards.

Terex Corporation: Configure online applicant portals and automated all

paper forms. This reduces paper, standardizes processes, and creates

information on which you can report.

Golder Associates: [Using our ATS, iCIMS] we standardized job creation

fields, making approximately 95% of the fields required. Each step ensured

greater consistency for accurate reporting and metrics. We also

standardized job advertisements and applications to ensure jobs looked the

same and the brand is consistent around the world.

Recruitment Tip: Employing standardization within your recruitment

technology is imperative. Items like field names, required information from candidates, workflow set-up, and processes should be defined at this stage. This ensures data integrity for better global reporting metrics. As a company operating in many regions with many users, your technology should scale and be configurable in this respect.

3. Deploy In Phases

Successful deployment of a global recruitment strategy requires careful attention and execution. An agile implementation process allows the flexibility global companies need, while providing enough structure to make sure that no important pieces are missed. Be sure to plan a kickoff meeting before deployment to reinforce shared understanding of scope, rules and processes. This keeps everyone current on where things stand, where they are headed, and when changes will occur. Following the kick-off meeting, regular status meetings are imperative to make sure that the project stays on track.

Rather than fully deploying at once, deployment is best done in measured phases. As each location goes live, monitor solutions closely, allow for a learning curve, and prepare to make adjustments.

Recruitment Tip: Candidate-facing elements of your recruiting software will start having an impact once you deploy in a region. Candidate-facing elements include multilingual Career Portals, multilingual electronic forms and applications, and tailored employment branding per region (if applicable). Software flexibility is important as each region will incorporate something different in order to be most effective.

4. Refine

Every global recruiting project, no matter how carefully planned, will require some adjustment as time goes by. Talent managers need to check the internal temperature and scan for opportunities to improve or redefine processes.

After the global recruiting strategy has been rolled out, the project team likely will be redirected to other roles. However, the program still requires nurturing and support. Formal communication of project milestones can prevent the program from getting stale or failing to deliver on business requirements.

During the refinement phase, take advantage of teachable moments by looking at how well the project was executed against original objectives to provide intelligence and insight for future initiatives.

Optical Express: The software you use will need to be flexible allowing

configuration for multilingual career portals, bilingual applications and other

forms required for international compliance.

Recruitment Tip: Robust reporting allows you to isolate bottlenecks and improve processes. Regional operations become transparent, allowing you to make better decisions for your organization.

Best Practice Checklist for Building a Global Recruitment Strategy

1. Obtain leadership support: Executives leaders have many priorities to juggle. Before launching a global recruiting strategy, ensure that you have their support in every aspect, especially your objective.

2. Consider regional processes and challenges: It’s easy to forget that other regions have different challenges, processes, and concerns than headquarters.

3. Develop a thought-out plan: How is the technology going to work? How will you communicate? Who will communicate to whom? What is the change-of-management plan? How will users be trained? How and what will you measure for continuous improvement? All of this and more needs to be considered before launching.

4. Treat regions as equal partners: Avoid top-down implementation and demonstrate that you’re all one team. Meeting regional representatives face to face and having that discussion is the key to success.

5. Be consistent: You will start seeing progress once consistency is implemented.

6. Communicate thoroughly: Make sure that every system user is up-to-date on processes, field changes, configurations, trainings, and new releases to ensure that everyone is well engaged.

7. Make yourself available: People will always have questions. It’s important to be there as an ambassador and provide help and resources.

8. It doesn’t end with deployment – ensure continuous improvement! Even after your recruitment strategy is deployed, there will always be areas to improve or challenges that will pop up. With the proper processes in place, you can record, measure, review, and continuously improve operations.

A global recruiting strategy can strengthen a global brand, expand the talent pool and support standardized, cost-efficient processes and better candidate experiences. Take the advice of the experts that have established top-performing global recruitment strategies.

Golder Associates: Configure every user’s dashboard to support their

role/purpose/metrics. Also, perform quarterly system audits to identify any

needs for training or challenges that different regions may be encountering.

Terex Corporation: Reporting is imperative to measuring the success of your

global initiatives. Compare metrics across regions.

How iCIMS can Help

The iCIMS Talent Platform provides organizations with the tools to succeed in the global talent marketplace. Due to the inherent scalability of iCIMS’ solutions, our Platform is flexible enough to meet corporations’ domestic and international recruiting efforts. Free configurations can also be made in any language which allows global user group can view fields in their own language to effectively meet recruiting goals.

In addition to scalability, configurability, and flexibility, iCIMS products offer the following tools to support your global recruitment needs:

Software-as-a-Service software model providing 24/7 worldwide access to the iCIMS Platform.

Award-winning three-tier customer service model, providing personalized support 24 hours per day, 5 days per week.

Multilanguage support, including special character support for languages like Arabic and Chinese within the iCIMS Platform and in all electronic forms.

Availability of multiple Career Portals to support regional branding, different languages, or different recruiting strategies such as diversity or university recruiting.

iForms technology to turn any paper form into an electronic, searchable, and reportable form in any language.

Integrations with internationally competent job board posting vendors like TMP, Job Target, and e-Quest.

Integrations with other system that provide screening, background checks, payroll, employee management, and many others.

Social recruitment tools that allow recruiters to leverage popular social networks such as LinkedIn and Twitter as well as popular international boards like Vkontakte in Russia, Weibo in China, and hundreds more around the world.

To learn more about how iCIMS can help your organization go global, call us at (800) 888-4422 or take a look at an online virtual tour of iCIMS Talent Platform:

http://www3.icims.com/candidatemanagementdemo/1555/9948