Depending on which industry you work in, “skills shortage” is possibly the status-quo condition in which you recruit. Australia’s mining industry is one of the most challenged in this regard, and with BHP Billiton predicting the industry will need to recruit an additional 150,000 workers by 2015, only a shortage of skilled workers can foreseeably dampen this booming sector.

When the current labour market falls short, one of the most effective means of sourcing staff is to bring in a skilled workforce from overseas, and the mining industry hasn’t been slow at adopting this practice. Recently, one of the most effective markets for mining companies to target is proving to be Canada.

Recruiting for Australian mines from Canada makes sense when you consider Canada’s population of 38 million and its historically-strong but stagnating mining industry worth approximately $40 billion annually (1). Compare this to Australia’s 23 million people to service a rapidly expanding mining industry, currently estimated at over $200 billion per year (2), and expanding rapidly in both dollar value and proportion of GDP.

Employment Office Managing Director Tudor Marsden-Huggins works extensively with the mining sector in both Australia and Canada, and says that increasingly, Australian employers are recruiting their niche workforce from Canada when local methods fail.

“Australia has a relatively small population, and its economy has continued to grow throughout the GFC, where so many similar countries have seen massive layoffs,” he says. “We’re in a unique recruitment position here, which makes importing skilled labour a realistic option for employers of all sizes.”

“Within the mining, energy and engineering industries, Canada has been a particularly successful source of staff for our Australian clients. There’s a strong mining industry there, but the sluggish North American economy has had a negative impact on growth and development of new projects, so you’ve got a wealth of skilled workers wondering where they’re going to work next.”

“The two countries are similar in many ways, so there’s not much of a culture shock or language barrier when Canadians come to work here. By running recruitment advertising campaigns in both countries for Australian mining projects, we’ve had a lot of success in attracting the right people for our clients.”

Marsden-Huggins says that employers in any industry that shy away from recruiting skilled staff overseas because it’s ‘just too hard’ are passing up opportunities for growth. “In this global climate, skilled migration is only going to increase, so if employers aren’t taking part, they’re just leaving the best recruitment to their competitors.”

1. http://www.caving2010.com/canadas-mining-industry-may-be-set-for-a-boom….

2. http://www.ibisworld.com.au/industry/default.aspx?indid=55

Hiring employees from other countries can provide businesses with the opportunity to find motivated and skilled workers, especially in the case of national work force shortages in specific industry sectors. It can also contribute to increasing corporate innovation and competitiveness.

However, finding workers from another country can be a daunting task if you have not done it before. How do you get started? What should you consider? Employment Office asked these questions to long-term client Bruce Stronge, co-founder of NetEngine, a business at the forefront of web application technologies, who has hired from abroad on multiple occasions.

Things to Consider

• Outline the objectives, benefits, risks and costs of recruiting abroad. Work out your deadlines as it may take longer to find international candidates.

Stronge turned to recruiting overseas due to a lack of technically suited applicants in Australia. After placing several recruitment advertisements in the Australian market, he found that he was not able to find to fill the roles locally. As such, due to skill shortages, Stronge turned to the global market.

• How do you begin the process of hiring overseas? What research needs to be conducted?

Firstly, you need to know which overseas job boards will target your potential candidates most effectively. NetEngine enlisted the help of Employment Office to advertise their roles to overseas candidates.

Secondly, as an employer you will need to research what you need to qualify as sponsors to overseas candidates. The Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s website is a great place to begin this research. Through research, Stronge found out that because many of his overseas candidates were under 31 and from Europe, they were able to qualify for the one year working holiday first. “This was a great way to assess them before sponsoring,” he says.

In relation to the actual process, Stronge comments, “The visa application process was daunting at first, with lots of paper work.” However, he also concedes that “It took much quicker than I thought to get approved.”

• What are the specific skills, competencies and qualifications needed to perform the job role? Will these translate across to Australian qualifications?

Does a trade qualification from another country warrant the same skills set as the same qualification from Australia? This is an important thing to consider when hiring from overseas – you need to know that the skills learned in the hiring country are transferable to an Australian market.

Stronge was lucky in this regard, as software development is an international language. As such he was able to get remote people to work remotely for a few weeks/months first before offering them sponsorship. “We built project management software for managing remote workers, to get full visibility into everyone’s productivity,” says Stronge. He further clarifies by noting that, “Being a cloud based team, client location is not important and everything was still under one roof.”

Another way to assess candidates, other than conducting remote trials, is through the use of Skype interviews.

• Assess how much support is available to your new employee. Consider the practical steps a new employee from abroad will have to take to find accommodation or housing. Is it available locally? How is it found and how much does it cost?  Can you provide advice or support to the new employee?

This is quite an important factor when hiring from overseas. Once you’ve found a suitable candidate, what process are you going to undertake to get them to Australia and settle them in?

NetEngine offered their overseas recruits assistance in applying for medical insurance, along with advice on accommodation options and locations.

• Think about the level of language competency required by your candidates.

As programming is international, Stronge comments that, “Language competency is not of the highest important, unless the candidate will be playing a higher level project, team or client management role.” However, Stronge continues, “With one candidate who has recently arrived, we will be sending him for English language lessons as his level could be improved.”

The Australian Government’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) is the federal authority on immigration and can provide information on:

• visas, including the various types and application processes;
• citizenship;
• employer obligations for hiring overseas workers; and
• support services for people coming to Australia.

For more information, please visit http://www.immi.gov.au/employers/

Considering the amount of time and effort that goes into performing reference checks, Employment Office posed the question: Are Reference Checks really worth it?

EO’s Shortlisting Specialist team believes that reference checks remain a critical aspect of the recruitment process in the modern job market. When done properly, a reference check provides the future employer with assurance of a candidate’s abilities to successfully perform in the position, and has also become a matter of necessity due in part to an increasing number of applicants making false claims on their job applications and resumes. ‘Stretching the truth’ in resumes is not uncommon and happens more than you may think!

The benefits of a comprehensive reference check are multiple, and can include increased applicant quality, reduced losses from employee dishonesty, and making the right hire the first time. Employees are the livelihood of an organisation, and reference checks can help an organisation achieve more success by placing the right person the first time around, allowing for greater profits and impact. Conducting reference checks is a good predictor of future performance and checking references all the way down the line has also become much easier with the advent of social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, which provide a place for you to list your employment history.

The negatives for conducting reference checks for employers are primarily time and expense constraints. Our Shortlisting Specialists note, however, that forking out the time and money to do this may save a significant amount of time down the track when you find that you’ve hired an unsuitable person and now have to re-recruit!

So, how do you know who’s lying to you and how do you get the most out of a reference check?

Here are our Top Tips for Performing an Effective Reference Check:

• Tailor your reference check questions to help clarify any potential areas of concern. When appropriate questions are asked, the information gained can be a very valid predictor of future performance and can provide extra information during the recruitment process to confirm/clarify decisions.
• Specify ahead of time what sort of questions you are going to ask. If the questions aren’t used effectively (i.e. are very general and vague), they can be an ineffective use of time.
• Implement free ‘modern day reference checks’ by making the most of social media – You can search for people on LinkedIn and see where they have worked in the past, what skills they possess and how many people have recommended them.

Hiring mistakes can be extremely costly, and due diligence can really pay off in a company’s recruiting process. Quality background checks easily pay for themselves!