International Recruiting/Sourcing

Always an interesting subject is international recruiting. How do US based recruiters source for international candidates. Well first as I said in my "Words and Phrases to Recruit by!!!" Blog posting, "go beyond the basics" and as I said in my blog post "Top Ten Rules for Successful Internet Sourcers ! " " Research Comes First". In other words, do you research and think about the things you do for US candidate sourcing and go beyond them to find international candidates and resources and of course remember the basics as well.

For instance, with regards to boolean searches, think about the country you are searching in, if it is the United Kingdom than try at the beginning of your search string to add "site:uk" if it is Canada then add "site:ca". These additions to your search string will give you candidates in those countries. Think of these 2 letter combinations as URL international area codes. Every country has them. Below is the list of them:

Like you can search on country codes you can also search on postal code by simply adding the postal code to the end of your string. Of course you can also search by area or country code. In addition as we all know, not any one search engine searches the entire internet. Now add in most of the ones we in the US use mostly search US sites, remember I said mostly. However there are meta search engines that search a larger portion of the internet and also have the ability to search multiple countries. "Copernic Agent" is one such engine that give you the ability to search up to 16 search engines and to search other countries. "Copernic Agent" allows you to use boolean search strings as well, and as an added bonus searched social networking medias and have the ability to weed out anything that is not a resume.

User groups, forums, and blogs, are not just a thing we in the US use, these things exist all over the world utilize them as well. Social networking works all over the world. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Myspace etc.. are not just for the US it is for all over the world. For example if I do an X-ray of LinkedIn looking for Sharepoint people in Spain. I would go to google and type in:

site:linkedin.com (inurl:pub OR inurl:in) -intitle:directory -inurl:updates (”Area, Spain”) “Sharepoint”

I would get 182 hits which is pretty good. remember you can do this for any site on the internet ( of course you can create more specific strings, see my blog posting on " If You Build It, They Will Come: the story of a successful Boolean search string!!")

A hint on LinkedIn is all LinkedIn addresses in the US are:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/NAME (this link will not work as there is no name associated with it, it is just the model)

This is what the link to my LinkedIn profile is:

http://www.linkedin.com/in/deandacosta (notice the same pattern as above)

However in other countries all you do is put the country code above, in the right url format and there you go. For example for Spain you would do the below:

http://es.linkedin.com/in/NAME (this link will not work as there is no name associated with it, it is just the model)

Also remember there is a way to search for people in LinkedIn and put in different countries as well. Below is a link to a search for people in Spain, utilizing the LinkedIn search capabilities.

http://bit.ly/9ezJBM

Of course you can add other search words as well, so you could just add Sharepoint. So you can either do it through LinkedIn people Search or if you are not on LinkedIn you can do it through the boolean method above.

The key is to remember all these boolean search ideas I am providing work with any site on the internet. You can use them to find people in social sites, forums, news groups, user groups etc...

Remember to utilize Alumni boards and use my blog posting titled " Top Colleges and Universities from around the world!" it will help you identify which colleges to look at.

Also remember just like there are job boards here in the US there are job boards in other countries. One example is http://www.infojobs.com/ which is one of the biggest in Europe. You can also go here for allot of other resources:

http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/careers/keywebsitesworldwide.shtml

Of course sometimes it is more practical to utilize local(in the country your are searching) agencies to help. Part of the reason for this is, in some countries there are legal and cultural issues you must deal with. A local agency, to that country, will know how to navigate them.

Your branding and name recognition with regards to recruiting and sourcing is just as important internationally as it is in the US. So placing adds, ensuring you have an international web presence (or at least in the countries you are recruiting in) is very important. Utilizing at least the main job board of that country would help. Social networking and Web 2.0 recruiting. Having an open house for potential candidates, hosting a local users group, a networking event, participating in a local career fair or even organizing one. These are some hints on getting your name out there and at the same time getting to see some candidates.

In some ways, with regards to international recruiting, as with all recruiting you want to both go beyond the basics, but also remember to use the basics. Utilize X-raying, Peeling back, ASA, Flipping, etc.. (see my other blog postings about these tools/skills)will greatly help you be successful. Going beyond the basics and do what others have not done or thought of to do will ensure you success. I think too many people get nervous and uptight when they hear the words "International Recruiting". Stay calm and remember everything you have learned, and everything you have read in my blog and you will be fine. Also do not be afraid to ask for help. Help is one email, tweet, or post away.

I decided to take a break from my series on Diversity Recruiting/Sorucing. I will continue that series soon.