Recruitment planning in 13 steps: A guide to global hiring

For many organizations, global hiring is a golden opportunity. It allows you to assemble a team that is skilled, diverse, and aligned with your company’s culture and vision.

But building a high-performing global team can be a tall order. There are cultural nuances, time zone differences, and legal complexities to consider, and crafting an effective global recruitment strategy can seem overwhelming.

Luckily, it doesn’t have to be.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to create and implement a winning annual recruitment plan, and explore some of the key digital trends around global hiring. We’ll also provide some key tips on how to attract and retain the best workers.

So let’s dive straight in. 

Understanding recruitment planning

First, we’ll discuss the basics of an annual recruitment plan, including what it is — and why you need one.

What’s an annual recruitment plan?

An annual recruitment plan is a strategic blueprint for your company’s hiring over the next 12 months. 

It’s a comprehensive plan of action that outlines how you’re going to attract, evaluate, and hire the best talent for your team.

This plan guides HR professionals in finding the right candidates through the following means:

• Job descriptions

• Advertising channels

• Selection processes

• Budget allocation

An annual recruitment plan defines recruitment methods and identifies necessary timelines, and is tailored to the unique needs of the job and organization. It serves as an instruction guide for all stakeholders involved in the hiring process.

Ultimately, your annual recruitment plan should:

• Provide clear roles

• Reduce uncertainty

• Improve overall efficiency

A comprehensive plan also considers factors like diversity and inclusion, legal compliance, and branding elements that reflect your company culture.

Why do you need an annual recruitment plan?

An annual recruitment plan is crucial for several reasons, including:

Efficiency

A well-structured recruitment plan boosts efficiency by acting as a step-by-step guide. This removes confusion and eliminates repetitive tasks. 

For example, Google’s hiring process is standardized across the globe, from the initial screening to the final interview. This kind of consistency keeps the company’s hiring streamlined.

Executing a clear plan in this manner results in faster decision-making and fewer delays.

Cost savings

In the US, the average cost of a new hire is estimated to be $4,683 — and that number is likely higher once you account for indirect expenses, such as onboarding and training. 

An annual recruitment plan will allow you to allocate your budget and time more effectively, which translates to fewer unexpected costs and unnecessary expenses. 

By implementing tools like Remote’s Employee Cost Calculator into your plan, you can accurately estimate and manage your hiring costs.

Better-quality candidates

A recruitment plan defines key talent markers, such as:

• Job roles

• Skills

• Qualifications

• Cultural fit

This helps ensure that your recruitment strategies align with the specific needs of your organization, increasing the likelihood of attracting high-quality candidates.

Regulatory compliance

When you create a recruitment plan, you outline steps to ensure compliance with hiring laws and regulations, and to safeguard your organization against potential legal pitfalls. 

Whether it’s local labor laws, immigration regulations, or fair hiring practices, having a plan in place that accounts for these things is critical.

Annual recruitment plans for global companies

A global recruitment plan factors in the additional — often unique — challenges of international recruitment. 

If you’re hiring abroad, here are some of the things you need to take into account in your plan:

Diverse labor laws

Every country has unique labor laws and regulations around work hours, benefits, salary, and employment rights. For instance, some countries mandate employers to provide at least 20 paid days of vacation each year, while others have no such provision.

Cultural and language differences

Cultural differences affect communication, work styles, and even decision-making processes. You may want to mitigate this in your plan by implementing language training and cultural sensitivity programs, or even tailoring your recruitment process to local norms and expectations.

Remote interviews and onboarding

Global hiring includes conducting interviews across the globe and onboarding employees who might never meet their coworkers in person.

Your plan can strategize mutually beneficial approaches to interviews and create engaging virtual onboarding programs to highlight and promote your company’s culture.

Uniform hiring practices

Your company’s values, standards, and expectations should remain constant wherever you’re hiring.

See how Remote hires and retains top software engineering talent around the globe:

A strong grasp on your company’s ethos allows recruiters to find and attract new hires that align with these values. Remember: a company doesn’t just hire to fill roles. It hires to meet its broader goals.

Workforce diversity

Building a diverse team doesn’t just involve hiring people from different backgrounds; it’s about tapping into a wider array of skills, experiences, and perspectives. 

While a strong global recruitment plan will inherently create diversity, you can take it one step further by establishing a culture of inclusivity and collaboration.

Embracing digital trends and technologies

When creating an annual recruitment plan, it’s important to be aware of and understand the latest trends and technologies in the sector. And over the last decade, there has been a seismic shift in how companies approach recruitment.

With the rapid expansion of remote work, more companies are now building distributed teams, with skilled employees increasingly drawn to the flexibility of remote and hybrid work. 

From a business perspective, this allows companies to tap into a worldwide talent pool and access a diverse range of skills and perspectives, which can spur innovation and growth. A remote-first setup can also often lead to significant reductions in overhead costs and an uptick in productivity.

Here are some of the key trends in remote recruitment right now:

Data, data, data 

Analyzed data can help your recruitment plan become more strategic, efficient, and effective as you can identify bottlenecks, assess recruitment channels, and streamline your hiring processes. 

For example, if a metric like time-to-hire is too long, you might be losing out on talent to your competitors. And if your cost-per-hire is too high, you might run into budget problems. 

With predictive analytics, you can study historical hiring data to help predict future hiring needs. If your company is planning a big sales push around the holidays, for instance, you can forecast the number of temporary workers you’ll need during that time and plan accordingly. 

You can also use data to:

• Gather and analyze feedback from potential hires

• Study the relationships between onboarding and performance

• Analyze trends and strategize for upcoming skill gaps

Core and emerging technologies 

There are numerous digital tools and platforms that are shaping the way modern recruitment is conducted, such as:

Mobile applications

According to Appcast, 67% of job applications were completed on mobile devices in 2021 — up from around 50% in 2019. This trend underscores the importance for companies to optimize their recruitment strategies for mobile users.

It’s also part of a broader trend to embrace remote hiring, including virtual interviews and digital onboarding.

Applicant tracking systems

Applicant tracking systems (ATSs) have become the backbone of the recruitment process for many businesses. An ATS lets recruiters manage a large number of resumes, as hiring teams can filter applicants and communicate with candidates more easily.

Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) can streamline many components of the recruitment process.

For instance, with the right conditioning, AI tools can sift through large volumes of applications and highlight ideal candidates. In some cases, they can even predict their potential performance and cultural fit.

Chatbots — another AI tool — can also be used for early interactions with applicants. 

There are less obvious applications, too. For example, AI can aid in removing unconscious biases from the recruitment process, which can lead to a more diverse and inclusive workforce.

Leveraging partnerships

Aligning with a specialized global HR partner — like Remote — can simplify the recruitment journey. 

With a strategic partnership, you can tap into the kind of local legal, tax, and compliance expertise and resources that you may not otherwise have. This enables you to access a much broader talent pool, without the headache of navigating complex and alien regulations.

Learn more about how Remote can make your global recruitment plan come to life.

How to create an annual recruitment plan

Now that we’ve covered the “what” and “why” — and looked at the latest recruitment trends — let’s get to the nitty-gritty.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on creating your annual recruitment plan:

Step 1: Understand your company’s vision and mission 

The foundation of any worthwhile recruitment plan comes down to one basic element: an in-depth understanding of your company’s vision and purpose. 

But that doesn’t mean memorizing mission statements. Rather, it’s a deep dive into what your company’s future looks like.

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Workforce diversity

Building a diverse team doesn’t just involve hiring people from different backgrounds; it’s about tapping into a wider array of skills, experiences, and perspectives.

While a strong global recruitment plan inherently creates diversity, you can take it one step further by establishing a culture of inclusivity and collaboration.

Global growth simplified: How Remote helps TheyDo attract top talent

Remote has been instrumental in helping TheyDo, a globally distributed company, overcome the challenges of global recruitment.

By streamlining hiring processes and providing expert guidance on local labor laws, Remote enables TheyDo to tap into a limitless talent pool without compliance risks. Remote offers simple onboarding and payroll, allowing TheyDo to recruit top-tier candidates with speed and precision. This partnership empowers TheyDo to scale efficiently while focusing on innovation and building a world-class team.

“Remote helps us unlock unlimited talent pools, and having the best talent gives us the greatest chance of business success. They enable us to onboard quickly and seamlessly, providing specialist knowledge on local labor laws. This combination of expertise, speed, and quality creates a win-win situation for both the candidate—our new hire—and for TheyDo.” Matt Moralo Langan, Head of People

Want to check out Remote in action? Book a demo to see how using Remote can lead to a 30% reduction in time-to-hire.

Hire globally with Remote

Understanding the labor and tax laws of multiple countries is difficult, and if you get it wrong, you can face penalties and fines. This is why it’s so highly recommended to work with a proven global HR expert like Remote.

Remote offers a broad array of HR services for globally distributed teams, including:

• Recruiting and onboarding

• Global HRIS

• EOR services

• Global payroll

• Global benefits

• Contractor management

• Relocation

…and a lot more.

To see how we can help you make your recruitment plan a reality, speak to one of our friendly experts today.

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