How to find elite global talent: Best practices and mistakes

Gillian Obrien, an HR leader at Remote, shares her expertise in our thought leadership series on jobs and talent. Connecting talent with opportunity, Gillian shares recruitment challenges and discusses how Remote Talent offers reliable, efficient solutions.

As businesses expand into global markets and remote work becomes standard, finding top-tier talent worldwide isn’t just a perk‌ — ‌it’s a necessity. The right global talent brings expertise, diverse perspectives, and the unique qualities needed to drive innovation and help teams operate effectively across borders.

But what makes global talent “elite,” and how can companies identify these key qualities? In this article, we’ll take a look at what it takes to recruit elite candidates worldwide and best practice for remote recruitment.

Key qualities to look for in elite global talent

Finding elite global talent requires identifying qualities that go beyond traditional skills and experience. Here are key qualities to look for in elite global talent to build a strong remote team.

1. Practical skills over paper qualifications

Traditionally, companies have leaned on years of experience or specific academic degrees when assessing candidates. However, real-world skills often paint a clearer picture of a candidate’s ability to contribute meaningfully. 

Unless it’s a legal requirement to hire someone with a specific degree, focus on finding highly capable individuals who can show their value. Elite talent may emerge from varied career paths, so emphasizing what they’ve accomplished (rather than how long they’ve worked) can yield surprising, high-impact hires.

2. Global mindset 

People with a global mindset can even be a cultural add to your remote team. A cultural add is someone who diversifies the existing team culture, brings fresh perspectives, and strengthens the team’s global outlook. A person with a global mindset offers unique problem-solving approaches, different perspectives on global challenges, or familiarity with different customer bases.

3. Growth and adaptability

Candidates with a growth mindset aren’t just open to change; they’re actively looking to learn, evolve, and contribute new ideas. Look for candidates who have a history of learning new skills, taking on varied roles, or working in challenging environments. Their ability to adapt to new processes, work styles, and cultural contexts is valuable for your globally dispersed team.

4. Communication skills 

In remote and multi-country teams, effective communication acts as the glue leading to cohesion and productivity. Elite team members not only communicate well, they also know how to adapt their communication style to accommodate different time zones, languages, and cultural nuances.

Best practices for remote recruitment 

Once you have identified the traits you are seeking for in a candidate, implement best practices to recruit top talent. Here’s some ways ‌Remote finds top global talent through remote-first hiring practices:

Create a strong employer brand 

Some remote roles just don’t sound legitimate enough. There’s a huge prevalence of remote work scams and job seekers who have had negative experience with scam posts. 

If your company is relatively unknown or doesn't have an established employer brand, you have to be really careful to create remote job postings that are genuine. For example, you might be tempted to use statements like “work from the comfort of your own home” or “become financially stable,” but these are common terms used in scam articles. 

To recruit top talent, be mindful of the information you share so job seekers can trust you. As an employer, you have the responsibility to not oversell and over promise what you can actually give a candidate. The more objective information you have on your brand, the better – public articles and social media posts written by other people can help say all the things that your company is trying to do.

Specify what remote means to you

Many companies use remote as a blanket term because they know remote work is an attractive thing for candidates. Companies need to be specific about what remote means to them. For example, for some companies, remote work may mean allowing your employees to work from home during specific timezones once a week. For others, remote work means that your employees are unrestricted to timezones and geography.

Update your job descriptions 

If you’re recruiting top talent globally, make sure your job postings and job descriptions are up to date with local laws. Job description requirements in India are going to be different from certain states in the US. For example, you might lose top candidates in Germany if you do not declare your position is open to all genders, as top talent in Germany expects this statement. 

As an employer, you have the responsibility to not oversell and over promise what you can actually give a candidate.

- Gillian Obrien, General Manager, Recruit

Common mistakes in remote recruitment 

Here are some common mistakes that companies go through when hiring remote talent. By identifying and addressing common mistakes in advance, organizations can improve their hiring process and build a stronger remote team.

Using the wrong platform 

Some platforms are incompatible or haven’t caught up to remote work or the future of work. For example, several platforms don't support a multiple-location filter for their job postings. That means companies have to create the same job description for multiple locations, and pay the platform company more. It’s also frustrating for remote job seekers who are also looking for hybrid work from certain locations.

Restricting your candidate profile 

As an HR manager, Gillian encourages you to go beyond your comfort zone in your candidate profile. Slightly stretching beyond your ideal candidate profile can open you up to really strong candidates that you wouldn't have seen otherwise.

Even being open to a candidate with transferable skills versus someone with direct experience, or being open to junior candidates that have held different positions can bring in the best people. 

Disregarding cultural backgrounds 

It’s important to be mindful that sometimes you’re interviewing candidates whose first language isn’t English. They may say things that sound very strong or use incorrect expressions. Employers can take offense to things or just generally not want to work with someone with a different background because it takes effort. 

Employers need to check their personal biases and build acceptance for cultural and speech differences, reminding themselves that all backgrounds are invaluable for building a strong global team. 

Remote as a talent and employment platform 

Several job platforms in the market operate as ad agencies that are rewarded with impressions. So most platforms help you with only top-of-funnel in finding talent, and are not incentivized to help make real hires. 

That means companies are drowning in unqualified applications but not finding the top talent they are looking for. Technology can even exacerbate the issue, where Applicant Tracking Systems are automatically filtering top applicants while job seekers are submitting generic resumes drafted with artificial intelligence.

Remote Talent is connected to an employment platform, meaning it’s incentivized to help you hire elite talent. Remote Talent is also ad-free with no promoted listings — we don’t ask employers to pay for upsells for top-page pins to get more impressions. Plus, Remote Talent has first-party data to match you with top candidates that fit your unique needs. 

To find and hire your next global team member, sign up for Remote Talent today.

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