As the global economy heats up and companies in Union City, Ohio, begin to compete with those in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, it should become painfully obvious that talent has become a global commodity, and that recruiters are becoming the front line traders of the most valuable asset on earth. Those among us who understand the new realities of business know that enabling corporate success means being able to find, attract, assess, and close the best and brightest around the world. Regardless of your intentions — be they to relocate talent or relocate work — it is essential that your recruiting toolkit contain an arsenal of approaches that work outside your backyard.
While much of the buzz these days surrounds Asia, it is important to realize that there are a vast number of European countries that produce highly educated populations and that yield the ever-so-popular wage differential. Turkey for instance has a labor force nearly 25 million workers strong, 64% of whom work in globally viable trades earning wages approximately 86% less than U.S. and UK medians. This article will focus on why emerging firms should look to Turkey (Turkiye for those in Europe) for top talent and provide some insight into the tools and approaches that work there.
Turkey Already a Prime Destination for Leading Firms
Most people around the world know that there is a country named Turkey, but few know much about it. However, if you were to take a college student from Ohio and plop them down on the streets of Istanbul, a lot would look familiar. Starbucks is packed, McDonald’s and Burger King are at war, and tucked between them in buildings several hundred years old are recognizable firms like Intel, Cisco Systems, Citigroup, Deloitte, and countless others. Intel entered Turkey in 1997, and has been working with the universities there to strengthen programs in electrical engineering and computer science, programs that will help grow Turkey’s high tech workforce well beyond its current four million. This might explain why just two weeks ago Gretchen’s JobsBlog at Microsoft brought to our attention that a Microsoft international recruiter (talent scout), Priya, would be combing the winding streets of Istanbul in late April in search of talented software design and test engineers.
Reasons to Consider Turkey
Here are some reasons your firm should consider recruiting talent in Turkey:
- Located both in Europe and Asia. Turkey is a unique country, in that it is physically located both in Europe and in Asia. Because it straddles the border between the two continents, individuals living in Turkey are quite familiar with business practices in both Europe and Asia.
