Attracting international candidates is one thing and choosing the right international candidates is another. You might have understood what international candidates are looking for and you might be willing to give it to them. But the most important thing for your company is to make sure that you choose the right international candidates.

Given the lengthy process that candidates might have to go through to come to your country, you want to make sure that it wasn’t all for naught. The candidate has to fit in with the culture of your country and your company. They have to be a good fit.

It might be difficult to tell if this is going to happen for sure but there are certain indications you can look out for.

Qualifications

The most important thing you’re looking for in a candidate is their level of qualification. Obviously the reason you’re looking abroad is because you can’t find someone in your own country who has all the qualifications that you need. So you need to make sure that any international candidate you hire does have them.

In general, it’s best to go with candidates who are qualified but not overqualified unless, of course, there is scope for growth in the position that you are hiring them for. Plus, you want to make sure that they received their degrees from well-known universities. In fact, it’s probably a good idea to devise some kind of test to make sure that the candidate has the knowledge that you are looking for.

You can never be too careful. After all, you’re going to be putting quite a bit of effort into bringing them over to your country. So they should be the right fit.

Language Issues

Another thing that’s important is to make sure that the candidate speaks the language spoken in your country. For example, if you’re bringing someone from Southwest Asia to the US, they need to know English. If you’re bringing candidates to France, they should know at least some French.

Sometimes, the candidate might seem so good that you might compromise on the language issue. But if the candidate knows the language, this will make it easier for them to fit into that country and into that company too. If they fit in, they’re going to be able to socialize, perform daily tasks with ease and generally be happier. And if the candidate is going to be happy where they are, they’re likely to stay there.

Work Ethics

Believe it or not, work ethics are different in different countries. In North America, many people in the IT field get to make their own hours. As long as they finish the work assigned to them, it’s not necessary for them to stay overtime.

But if you’re working the same job in India, you’ll need to work late. In India, the work day starts late, continues at an easy pace and ends late too. This can be difficult for someone who’s used to working their own hours.

So you should ask your candidate exactly how they like to work. Do they like to have a lot of supervision? No supervision? Are they task-oriented? Or do they get just tend to put in a certain number of hours per day? Are they into brainstorming and creativity? Or do they prefer to work on their own without being disturbed?

Then compare how they like to work with the working conditions in your company to figure out if they’ll be a good fit. But keep in mind that someone might not have any objection to changing their work ethic too. You can figure this out by asking them the right questions in the interview.

This article was originally published on our website at www.the-network.com/spotlight.