Nancy Neumann
Hong Kong Executive Search
Hong Kong

1. Promote and market your organization’s capability in handling international assignments through your NPA partnership network.

2. When you secure the job order, you have to determine how you wish to work this job order:

2.1. On an importer/exporter relationship (when the client is based in home country and looking for staff outside of home base).

2.2. On a referral arrangement (when the client is based outside of home country and your NPA partner has the charge to pitch the assignment, manage the client on-site, as well as source candidates). Here usually it will be up to the affiliates to negotiate an equitable fee split, usually 20/80 or 30/70 are the norm.

2.3. Work exclusively with one firm or a scattered gun approach. On retained searches, it is highly recommended to engage a qualified partner who is committed to the project.

3. Post the job order to SplitZone and email the job order individually to those consultants whom you identified as having the expertise to assist you in the project.

4. In the case of an exclusive working arrangement with one NPA firm, agree on the fee split and document such arrangement if it is not the normal 50/50 split.

5. For retained searches, agree with your NPA partner on timelines and milestones of the search including submission of progress reports. Communicate to your NPA partner your style of candidate presentation. If you want the candidate profiles/reports to be submitted according to a firm-specific presentation format, send your NPA partner a sample.

6. After you gathered your long list of candidates, arrange telephone interviews (mindful of the time difference between locations). On rare occasions, the importer may want to conduct video conferencing interviews.

7. Present the short list to your client and arrange telephone/video conference interviews between your client and the candidates.

8. Conduct reference checks on the finalists.

9. Offer accepted by candidate. Deal closed. Celebrate!

10. Importer submits placement report to NPA.

11. On receipt of client’s settlement, remit the exporter’s fee share and NPA brokerage via wire transfer as international checks can take a month to clear.

Jim Gifford
J. Gifford, Inc.
Tulsa, Oklahoma

Incorporate it into your business plan

Develop “NPA international” as part of your company and personal business plan and have a strategy and formula to implement it.

Proactive vs. reactive strategy

Instead of waiting for the phone to ring and reacting to those job orders, progress to proactively identifying and marketing to clients
who can provide you with international staffing opportunities.
Marketing to the right person

Do your homeworkfind out who makes hiring decisions on international staffing, and make your presentations to that person. Find
out who at both the staff and operations levels has hiring authority and responsibility.

Involve your international affiliate. Have a 3-way teleconference among you, your local hiring representative, and your in-country NPAaffiliate. Or, have the hiring representative meet face-to-face with your in-country affiliate if the company person responsible for that
staffing is located in, or traveling to, the affiliate’s home country.
Have a formal presentation

Develop a formal presentation that presents your business as part of an international network rather than a casual “seat of your
pants” plan.

Feature benefits & services (e.g. local in-country recruiting experts able to not only provide candidates on the local level, but also cultural information relevant to hiring/placing candidates, local compensation rates and ranges for positions, unusual benefits [i.e. 13-month salaries, superannuation], visa or immigration issues and processing).

Highlight areas of specialty expertise these international affiliates have relevant to the types of positions your client is looking to staff.

Focus on “case study” success stories of international placements using NPA.

Presenting features & benefits

Efficiency of the Internet for candidate identification, communication between client and affiliates, both locally and internationally,ease of candidate delivery.

Video interviewing

Cost savings on travel of management to interview/recruit

Retention of local control and involvementclients able to continue working with their local recruiting firm who is known and proven to them, yet still get needed staffing assistance half a world away.

In-country affiliatesusually, there is more than one affiliate in a given country or city, meaning the client gets the benefit of several firms identifying local, pre-screened talent, which is then able to be further screened and cultivated and controlled at the local level.

Tested techniques to increase international job orders:

Branding program: NPA, The Worldwide Recruiting Network

Mailers and emailers

Web site and company brochures

“Bulls-eye” marketing

Association memberships

Trade shows and exhibitions

Formal presentation on international capabilities on every client marketing call

Use of the local SHRM chapter to set up an international roundtable on a recurring basis for local chapter members involved with International HR issues. Remember this audience is comprised of “operating company” clientsNOT other recruiting firms.

Attendance at NPA’s international meetings.

by Maggie McPhee, PHR, Director of Information Services

Courtesy of: www.teagr.com

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