How to Choose an International Employment Agency in Canada

In the globalized and interconnected world, limiting your business hiring opportunities with locally available talent may turn into a serious barrier to growth. However, the process of international hiring is much more than visiting a global job board platform and contacting potential employees. The process of official employment, either on a full-time or contractual basis, comes with numerous organizational and legal implications, which are not easy to handle without a qualified HR and legal team.

In these conditions, your shortcut to unrestrained growth and staffing may be a partnership with a global employment agency. This article introduces the concept and service range you may get from such an entity, explains the vital selection criteria to follow, and clarifies the benefits you can reap from this partnership.

Let’s start by defining the international hiring agency as a form of business. This service provider can assume full responsibility for finding, screening, and recruiting staff for your business across the globe. This way, if you own a company in Canada, you are no longer constrained with hiring only Canadian employees on their terms; you can tap into the global talent pool and conduct international hiring in full line with your needs and expectations.

Before you turn to a global staffing agency for hiring services, you need to understand the potential range of service types you can count on. Obviously, not every firm is ready to provide the full spectrum of help you need, but the more, the better. A standard package you may find in such companies includes:

• Candidate search and recruitment. These companies typically have large databases of relevant talent (so-called passive job candidates) that may be reached out on demand to discuss your job offer. This way, by hiring such a firm, you get access to its talent pool and can enjoy turnkey recruitment services from voicing your staffing needs to getting a new employee on board.
• Legal compliance and documentation. Overseas hiring comes with lots of legal friction and complexities at all steps. Some businesses manage to resolve the issue by means of making an independent contractor arrangement. However, it doesn’t always work out as it should, as some jurisdictions have more stringent limitations on contractor agreements. Thus, by working with an employment agency, you maximize the chances of compliant hiring with no risks to your business.
• Employee support. A firm with a wide range of services, such as employer of record (EOR) or professional employer organization (PEO), can handle administrative tasks and payroll for your remote staff, thus saving you the trouble of setting up legal entities in all countries of presence.

Interested in how global recruitment services in Canada work in practice? Here is a brief overview of the algorithm that will help you and your service provider enjoy a productive partnership.

#1 Negotiation of Your Hiring Needs
The first step is to determine all requirements for the needed staff. You may have a particular tech stack or expertise in mind or pose specific geographic limitations for employee recruitment. The sum you’re ready to pay also matters in the initial negotiation of requirements. The agency will use this data to understand where to look for variants and how to meet your needs.

#2 Candidate Identification
The agency starts looking for the needed staff, first in its own database and across its broader partner network. If nothing suits your inquiry, the search expands to online job portals and local resources specializing in your industry. The initial list of candidates is made for further recruiter review and identification of the most suitable variants.

#3 Candidate Testing and Selection
The selected resumes are usually screened with automated software (if their number is too large), with subsequent manual checks by human recruiters. Based on this review’s results, the recruiter chooses candidates for testing and interviewing. The client company is usually invited to participate only at the final screening stages, as soon as the recruiters make sure the candidates are highly suitable and only need the client’s approval.

#4 Onboarding
After the candidate’s selection and job offer’s acceptance, your employment partner starts the onboarding process to integrate the new employee into the team. There is lots of paperwork at this stage, so your partnering firm should handle all the administrative load to make sure your employee gets to work or physically moves to your place to start working.

It’s also vital to note that the process of your work with an employment agency typically doesn’t end here. A reliable partner should also be able to render post-hiring assistance in the form of employee support, taxation and payroll assistance, and other administrative issues. These services are optional, and you may not use them if you have an international staffing department on board. However, having such support at your disposal is generally beneficial, as you have access to expertise and talent on all issues related to overseas staffing.

The success of your cross-border hiring efforts depends on the choice of the global job recruitment agency. There are many providers on the market in Canada today, and only thorough evaluation and due diligence can help you spot the top-tier option. We recommend paying close attention to the following parameters:

• Expertise in your industry. You need to find a partner with relevant, domain-specific expertise and successful cases in your business sector. Hiring principles and best practices vary widely, so it’s essential to work with agencies that know your niche and understand the implications of hiring the best staff.
• Legal knowledge. Global hiring is indispensably connected with local labor law compliance. Therefore, your partnering firm should exhibit a full understanding of compliance principles and legal knowledge to let you avoid litigation or fines in the markets of your business presence.
• The size of the talent pool and geographical coverage. If you target long-term business expansion and want to hire new staff globally without limitations, it’s better to work with employment agencies with a broad geography. The more countries it can give you access to, the better.
• Staff support. Apart from helping you find and recruit the needed workforce, an employment agency may provide further support with HR and administrative functions. This option is more suitable for businesses that don’t have a standalone HR or accounting department.
• Pricing. It’s always much safer to work with companies that have a clear and transparent pricing policy and rates. It makes your collaboration predictable and simplifies the process of budgeting.

As the labor market is getting more and more borderless, an opportunity to hire staff across the globe with the help of an international jobs recruitment agency is a unique chance for any business to stay competitive and fill its staffing needs on demand.

• Access to global talent. If you feel that the labor market in Canada is too small and can’t fulfill your staffing needs, a global employment firm can address this challenge. It is an international employment agency that businesses use to enjoy legal and smooth team expansion. This way, you can find an appropriately talented employee in Eastern Europe, China, or Latin America and fast-track your contractual agreements on favorable terms.
• Delegation of administrative load related to hiring. The process of finding, testing, and employing a new worker is hectic and lengthy. It requires the engagement of competent HR staff and skilled recruiters, so you may end up spending a fortune on getting new employees on board. An employment agency usually assumes the full spectrum of tasks related to finding and hiring staff, so you may enjoy a positive customer experience and coordinate the process only in its final stages.
• Legal assistance with hiring procedures. As a rule, employment intermediaries can also operate as PEO or EOR providers, thus handling the full process of employee hiring on their part. You remain the factual employer for your new staff, but the legal hassle of managing this workforce remains with the partnering organization, thus freeing you from legal risks.
• Time and cost savings. By delegating the hiring aspect to a partnering firm, you can concentrate on the core business operations in Canada and reap the benefits of staffing only in its final stages. This way, you balance uninterrupted business operations with sustainable growth via the team’s expansion with suitable talent.

If you’re in search of top-quality Canadian international recruitment services, GEOR can provide end-to-end assistance in this aspect. Our expert recruiters possess the needed knowledge of labor laws and policies across jurisdictions of our presence. Find and hire staff from our database of 40,000+ talented tech specialists from over 100 countries and make your staffing easy and rewarding with our help.