International Recruitment has some special features, for example the difficulty of finding local candidates in countries that are totally unknown for the company, as well as the cultural differents between the home country and another. We talk about this and other topics with Marta Garrido HR Director of Himoinsa, leading company in the production of gas-powered generators.
Q. When does Himoinsa use the help of recruitment agencies?
A. We don’t outsource everything, it depends. Most of our selection processes are covered internally, thanks to our database and other recruitment tools. We cover most of them from our HR Department, except when it comes to more complex profiles (such as Management, Commercial and Engineering Department). Those profiles require a more specific search, in a concrete market or sector, with experience and a demonstrated technical background both in the sector and in the position, and with specific requirements when it comes to expatriate or relocate, that make the process more costly and longer from our own department. And that is when we start outsourcing.
For us, a recruitment partner means we have to make an alliance of collaboration. And here is when I get in touch with you, when I have these concrete needs and tight deadlines to cover these type of selection processes for strategic profiles within the company.
What happens when it comes to recruiting in other countries? What difficulties are you facing?
Well there are some countries where the local worker is different to the european one. We are always looking for a candidate than can be local or not, but the ideal fact is that he is already established in the country, because visas and working permits are really difficult to handle in terms of time and difficulty, and it makes everything more complex, both for the company and for the worker (children’s school, driving license, accommodation…)
Moreover, there are some countries where it is better for the candidate to be well-established and to know everything about the place, because some times cultural shock can be tough and adaptability percentage must be high. We value candidates that have already worked and lived there, that know the country and its culture and that they can start working when we need him or her to, so the candidate just needs to adapt in terms of knowledge in the working place and about the company, but not adapting to the country or its culture.
Mapa de centros y filiales de Himoinsa.
We have covered two positions for Himoinsa recently: General Manager for Germany and for Panama. What was exactly what you needed in those cases?
For the position in Germany, we were looking whether a German native individual, or an European candidate that could speak German perfectly, apart from having a high level of English and being Spanish a plus, given the company origins. Above all, we were looking for experience managing companies from the same sector as Himoinsa así as well as experience in companies with a high turnover and client portfolio.
For the position in Panama, apart from the mentioned experience, knowledge of the sector and our product, we had as a must the requirement of owning a working permit or visa, as we had previously mentioned.
Had you ever recruited in Germany and Panama for such profiles?
No, we have just outsourced the General Manager for Germany, since our previous GM was retiring and we had a tight deadline. It was the first time we worked together with you.
We worked again with binternational when we needed to fill the vacany for the position as GM in Panama, because the person that is working right now at the place is coming back to Spain to join our headquarters, and we also had a tight deadline so they could share a period working together. The selection process in Panama was way more complex. We had to screen every profile by their experience as GM and working for similar companies, and also by their place of residence (Panama), whether they were local workers o expats from European/Spanish companies that have subsidiaries. The reason why is because candidates that have already every document needed to work there are treated as local workers, and don’t need to start from scratch with the process of getting all the documentation. Panama is also a country where, thanks to our past recruiting experiences, we have felt how these procedures were slowed down.
Before handing the position to us, have you already started the sarch by your own means? DId you obtain any positive result?
Apart from working with you, we also opened the position through LinkedIn. We got a good first list of candidates, but their profiles were too general, so to say, they had experience as GM but not in our sector, and they didn’t know the market nor our product. The longlist of candidates you sent us were far more specific and, once the face to face interviews were held, they were also the final chosen candidates that joined our company.
What is the value in our reports, communications or the availability to contact our international consultants in charge of your projects here at binternational?
The reports we get from you contain the needed and specific information to get a first picture of each candidate and that is where their CV’s start to come alive and to have a concrete story behind. It is always really interesting to know your feedback after having them first interviewed (whether it is a phone call or a face to face interview) and see what is your opinion about them, because you were the ones that got to know him in first place, and that informations seems really legit to get a first impression on those profiles.
To conclude, we would like to know how was your first experience recruiting with us.
The experience has been really good and that is why we are so happy about it. As you may know, we have recommended you to another company that is also in need of recruiting in Germany, and I had absolutely no doubt in recommending you.
We know that your price is higher than other consultancies or recruitment agencies but your success rate is also higher. We can afford to pay it if the service is great, because they are strategic position, that cannot take long in time, because we work with tight deadlines, and for this kind of profiles, time is a key factor.
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