Five Tips For Hiring Expat Americans
The digital nomad revolution is in full swing, and talented Americans can be found all over the world. They tend to be college educated, with a variety of skills, including global travel, and often have a dose of worldly practicality that makes them easy to work with. How do you find the ones who are right for your organization? Here are some of my tips from a year of hiring expats in Asia.
1. Understand why the candidate is an expat.
As they say, migration always involves both push and pull factors. Why did they choose to leave the United States? Why did they choose to be where they are? Their answers will give you a sense of the person’s priorities and life direction and help you understand whether they are long-term expats or whether they will return stateside eventually. Then, you’ll be able to match them to your needs, whether for a reliable short-term need, for a longer-term person who is mobile or for something in between.
Warning: Bear in mind that if the candidate is simply passing through a country and is looking for the job to finance their globetrotting, they may have neither a reliable place to work nor consistent access to the Internet. If those are key to the work, that candidate may not be a good fit.
2. KYC: Know your candidates.
This means understanding their legal, working, and banking status in the country. Generally speaking, there are three factors:
• whether the person is legally in the country (visa status)
• whether the person is permitted to work in that country (work permit)
• how the person expects to be paid (i.e., to a U.S. bank account, to a foreign bank account or another way)
Make sure your HR and legal advisors are aware of the candidate’s location so they can help determine what work arrangement will be best, direct hire or contractor (US-based address or foreign).
In the case of direct hires who are sanctioned to work in the local market, you may want to use an employer of record as the local market hiring entity to make sure you are withholding taxes according to local law. If the candidate is passing through the country and not permitted to work in that country, you may be better off having them be a contractor who is paid like a regular U.S. contractor. Keep in mind that the United States asserts taxation rights to all wages that Americans earn worldwide.
Don’t forget to research the local rates that apply. The United States is one of the most expensive labor markets in the world. That is perhaps why you are looking abroad for talent. If you hire an expat, make sure you are aware of what the prevailing local market is. Maybe you pay that rate, maybe more. Either way, the gap is enormous, so don’t be caught unaware.
3. Assess, assess, assess.
If you are hiring an expat, chances are you are not going to meet in person much, if at all. You may not even have much overlapping work time. This makes it all the more important that you can rely on them to do the work that you ask of them, and well. So what is it they need to do? Start with basic skills like typing speed or writing formulas in Excel and ask them to send you the results. Do you need them to serve as a contact center agent? There are well-qualified formal assessments for that and many other roles.
Make sure you check all references thoroughly. Is this the type of person who will assiduously check deadlines to make sure that they don’t accidentally set them to the wrong time zone? If this person loses Internet in their Airbnb, will they go and buy a SIM card to make sure they don’t miss your scheduled Zoom meeting? Or might they be unreliable? You will want to know these things and stay far from those who will be difficult to manage.
4. If things don’t work out, cut bait quickly.
A simple rule for distance hires is that a missed meeting or deadline without advance warning is grounds for immediate termination. You may ultimately not exercise this option, but make sure that your candidate is aware of the standard for success prior to hiring them on. You don’t want to get into a situation where you are waiting and wondering what is going on.
In short, the candidate must be a professional. If they show behaviors that are problematic during the vetting process, don’t advance them. When the entire hiring process is virtual and distanced, every little thing means a lot, and candidates should be aware. Even small misses are big misses in context. Be decisive and move on when you see something you don’t like.
5. Establish routines that fit the working relationship.
Is the new expat hire 16 hours ahead of you? Will you never see them live, even on a screen? Find a way to do a daily check in, or whatever cadence makes the most sense. Even if they are halfway round the world, they are part of your team and you’ll want to integrate them into your regular routines, lest you forget about them and they start drifting off into space.
The world is full of well-qualified expats who could become great remote members of your team. The keys are to understand their priorities, what is making them tick, the local markets where they’re located, and to get into a positive pattern of working together. With the right expats on your team, you might fill a critical need with a strong worker who requires little management and is even cost-effective.
