Today’s installment was submitted by Julie Parsons of Premium Consulting in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. Julie is a member of the NPA board of directors and an occasional guest-blogger. Premium Consulting is a boutique independent recruiting firm that provides professional and practical recruitment consulting advice specializing in retained recruitment, partial services, psychometric assessment and appraisals, outplacement and career counseling.
At some point, most recruiters or recruitment firms realize that in order to stay competitive and present a broad range of solutions to their clients, they need to go global. Some common excuses to avoid the work of creating a global firm include: “it’s too hard,” “that’s what franchises are for,” “franchises are so common, set up in every major city with multinational contracts.” Although each of these excuses have some merit, none of them should stop you in your global expansion tracks.
Try to set yourself above your competitors by keeping up on international market conditions and legislation. Your knowledge in these areas will be valuable in targeting where you want to expand and in what industries. One way to jump the international hurdle is to connect with like-minded firms throughout the world. A great place to start is through LinkedIn. Recruiters are pretty transparent on social media so they might be easier to find than you think.
Also, think about joining a network. There are obvious questions to ask as it relates to policies, operations and integrity before jumping into something like this, but if you’ve done your homework, your investment will almost certainly result in a positive ROI as well as global connections. NPA’s President, Dave Nerz, says “half of something is always better than all of nothing.” Yes, this statement may be a little cheesy, but he’s right. Could it be that the way to growing your reach is not through giant steps alone, but through half-steps with others recruiters like yourself?
What are some of the challenges you face with making your global footprint?