Having worked for most of 12 year Business Research career in global companies, I am continually amazed at how many domestic recruiters only hire domestic passive candidates. The exceptions I have heard of breaking this trend are Nokia in its heady days of mass recruitment which would hire people for the Sydney office from far away as Ireland

One might ask the question , well why go abroad when you can get a similar candidate at home (in your own country)? Well there might be several valid reasons for looking internationally for an Executive Search management role :-

1)Since you the recruiter are being paid to get the very best candidate for the position, should you not trawl the globe for other alternatives
which just may happen to be located overseas?

2)Bringing in a candidate with overseas experience where new trends may be emerging could be very beneficial to the company hiring locally. This is an example of an outsider having a fresh approach to facing and solving business challenges

3)Most importantly does not business now operate on a global level. Why should recruitment which is integral to the machination of corporations be any different. Think global in business, recruit global

In terms of sourcing I agree that building a pool of passive candidates through networking can be a viable tactic

This can be achieved by attending conferences not just in recruitment in overseas companies, keeping up to date with overseas company key leaders (via media and press clippings), subscribing to bulletin boards such as ERE or maintaining contact with previous co-workers who now reside in other countries

However there is a very real complement source to all of the above. That of the third party recruiter or recruiting researcher. This is the role I fulfil in my company and whilst I have contacts in the industries themselves and have worked in actual roles in industries as well as researcher I do not have a recruitment background. Instead I have a wide and at times in depth knowledge of the local industry conditions. Having worked in actual jobs too at the coalface has admittedly added to this since often senior management are too focussed on short term goals and the bigger picture to really guage what is occurring at the line management level within and across industries

This is achieved by keeping track of industries via the media and my own conversations with Executives in the industries. That way I keep on top of who the top companies are and who the movers and shakers are. I am also astutely aware of the real situation of supply and demand in terms of employment candidates. This is because as consultant I actively act out the role of employee as contractor. At the same time I get to research the supply side when working on research projects short-listing candidates for Executive positions

The gist of all this is that a contact located in the international arena , in another country has more potential insight than someone employed in the domestic country. In other words does it not make sense for the local recruiter to leverage on ALL possible overseas candidate sources, not just those recommended by fellow corporate recruiters in the overseas country. The other advantage of bringing in third party recruiters and recruiting researchers from overseas is that they have a far broader picture, often having the opportunity to work with different clients in a much wider range of industries (more indication for true economic and hiring conditions)

Just some suggestions from the other side of the world (literally)