The document discusses factors related to selecting candidates for international assignments. It covers recruitment and selection principles, criteria for evaluating candidates, cultural differences that can influence the process, and reasons why expatriates fail in international roles. Key factors that can predict success include professional skills, management skills, communication abilities, flexibility, and support for the expatriate's family.

1. Recruitment & Selection for
International Assignments

2. Objectives
• To identify factors predictive of success for
a global manager
• To identify barriers to effective recruitment
and selection
• To describe staffing issues in an MNE

3. Recruitment:
The process of generating a pool of
capable candidates to apply for your job
vacancy
Selection:
The process of choosing from the pool of
applicants the person most likely to
succeed in the job

4. Underlying key principles.
• Individual differences
• Prediction

5. Selection criteria
• Reliability
• Validity

6. Discrimination:
• Direct
• Indirect

7. Two approaches
• Person specification
based on asking yourself – how can I describe
the person who can fulfil this job description ie
description of duties/responsibilities
• Job competencies
identify knowledge skills and knowledge a
person needs to adequately do a job
(Rees & Porter)

8. Example of JD format
• JOB DESCRIPTION
Job title
Department
Responsible to:
Relationships
Purpose of job/overall objectives
Specific duties and responsibilities
Physical/economic conditions

9. Alec Rodger’s 7 point plan (1970)
• PERSONNEL SPECIFICATION
Physical characteristics
Attainments
General intelligence
Specific aptitudes
Interests
Disposition
Circumstances

10. Five-fold grading system (Munro
Fraser 1971)
• PERSONNEL SPECIFICATION
Impact on other people
Qualification and experience
Innate abilities
Motivation
Adjustment

11. Issues (Rees & Porter)
To identify appropriate selection criteria:
• existing good and bad employee match
• Totality of job
• Over-specification
• Over-reaction to previous failures
• Choosing in one’s own image
• Emotional intelligence
• Danger of using historic performance
• Attitude
• Working abroad

12. Information to collect
• References
• Testimonials
• CVs/application forms
• Assessment centres
• Psychometric test
• interview

13. Interviewing Methods
• To predict performance
• To provide candidate with information
• To sell the position
• Problems
– Immediate judgement, Interviewer not
listening, bias
– Lack of planning time, venue, wrong
atmosphere

14. Interviewing Methods (cont)
• Strategy – frank & friendly, problem
solving
• Individual
• Sequential
• Panel
• Other Methods – presentation, test
case, in-tray exercises, psychological
profile, aptitude tests, assessment centres

15. Variations in selection
Country I/Vs Applicatio Reference Personalit Cognitiv Handwriting
n form s y tests e tests analysis
Belgium 91 74 15 35 30 2
(F)
Belgium 100 92 12 25 32 12
(W)
France 94 89 11 17 7 17
Italy 96 45 32 8 8 0
Germany 60 83 76 2 2 0
UK 91 70 74 10 12 0

16. Culture and job ads
• 80% Swedish job ads emphasis
interpersonal skills
• Germany & UK – 65%
• France, Italy, Spain – 50% (but age often
specified)
Cranet, 2010

17. Variations in recruitment methods
Brewster et al, 2011 (Cranet, 2010)
• Recruitment agencies most popular in UK,
Australia, New Zeeland; unpopular in Germany,
Norway, Sweden, Greece
• Word of mouth common in Turkey, Greece,
France
• Internal labour market dominant in Japan, USA,
UK
• Both informal and formal methods used:
– formal- headhunting, cross-national advertising,
Internet, international graduate programmes
– Informal – family, friends

18. Selection
• Assessment centres used un UK, Germany,
Netherlands, France
• Psychometric testing popular in Spain, Italy,
Denmark and Finland, Sweden; very unpopular
in Germany, Netherlands and Norway
• Interview panels popular in UK, USA, Germany;
used somehow in France and Japan
• Cross-cultural differences in interviews,
assessment centres, psychological testing

19. Influence of culture on R&S
Brewster et al, 2011
• Anglo-Saxon tradition – individual factors used to predict
performance; competencies frameworks
• Australia – fir between the person and the organisation’s
values and ways of doing things
• France – personal values not considered appropriate;
assessment of risk rather than predicted outcomes
• Latin America, Mexico, Peru – who the person is,
relationships, connections
• Regional challenges: India – employee referrals,
succession planning and internal recruitment; ethnicity
important in Malaysia; Islamic principles – experience,
decency etc

20. Black & Stephens
• “Our research has found that the
successful completion of a global
assignment is linked more closely to the
expat’s and the spouse’s adjustment to
the new culture than to the expat’s
adjustment to the new work role.”

21. Selection Strategy
• Ethnocentric – Home Country bias
• Geocentric – Best candidate on worldwide
basis, no country bias
• Polycentric – Host country bias
• Regiocentric – Best candidate on regional
basis

22. International Transfers
• For staffing needs
• Management Development – eg foreign
management, technical skills
• Organizational Development
• Problems eg repatriation

23. Failure (in using expatriates)
• Costs – Cauldron: $250K-$1 million
depending on salary, location, dependents
• Black: 16-40% US ex-pats failed
• Tung: found European and Japanese
failures lower. Are companies judging by
the same standards? Japanese
placements longer than US

24. Reasons for failure
• Mead says less than 1/3 work related
• Tung ranks ex-pat failure in US in
descending order: managers’ inability to
adapt to different physical/cultural
environment; other family problems;
overseas work; lack of technical
competence; lack of motivation

25. Culture Shock
• “ a sense of psychological disorientation that
most people suffer when they move into a
culture that is different from their own.”
• Can’t recognise cues ; perceptions different
• Symptoms – tension & frustration,
alienation, need to be alone, depression
• Study by Black adjustment < 50 months

26. Reverse Culture Shock
• Reduced financial benefits
• Less power, status
• Change in jobs & personnel
• Poorer housing, loss of domestic help
• Solutions – mentor, training, brief
managers on changes, debrief manager

27. Selection Factors Predictive of
Expat Success
• Strategic Factors – Control of subsidiary,
stage of development for MNE, long term
strategy vs reaction
• Exchange of critical information including
technical data
• Management development

28. Selection Factors (cont.)
• Professional Skills – technical and
interpersonal
• Management Skills – able to manage conflict,
collaboration, trust
• Communication – language proficiency, 2-way
conversation, cross-cultural ability
• Individual characteristics – flexibility, open
minds, ability to cope with stress
• Spouse & Family – language skills, spouse’s
career, education facilities

29. Some Other Solutions
(based on Black, J.S. et al – “Global Assignments”)
• Involve family early in process
• Most successful ex-pats are geo-centric
• Candidate should be non-judgemental, mature,
willing to learn
• Experience in similar environment may help but
Black found little relationship between previous
ex-pat work & ability to adapt
• Ethnic affinity

30. Other Solutions (cont.)
• Professional & technical support at
subsidiary and head office
• Clarify duration to reduce uncertainty
• Guaranteed career security on repatriation
• Career planning, promotion opportunities
• Support for living eg medical, housing,
insurance, social events, job for spouse

31. Summary
• Is recruitment necessary?
• Source of best not easiest placement
• Concentrate on personal qualities
• Focus on families
• Consider cost & allow adequate time
• Communicate, clarify progress