Going global in search of scarce skills

Robert Olivier. Pic by: Bob Finlayson

Headhunters are expensive, but they're often the only option when high-level talent is desperately needed.

Desperate for more than 100 new staff, Queensland-based Technology One has brought about nine overseas IT recruits to Australia in the past six months, and will hire more this year as the skills crisis continues to bite.

"It is a fact of life now, with the shortage in Australia, that we just have to hire overseas," Technology One executive chairman Adrian Di Marco says.

"It is a far longer, harder process and, much more expensive than hiring locally, and it really is a last resort," says the software entrepreneur, who has used career fairs in Britain to source people.

"We try to portray the benefits of lifestyle here, with the theme of sunshine and beaches."

Di Marco says staffing is one of the biggest impediments to expansion of the business, which has experienced 25 to 30 per cent compound growth in the past 10 years.

The company, which has 700 staff in Australia, Britain, New Zealand and Malaysia, is currently looking for about another 120 people.

There are also plans to open a US office within two years.

The technology skills shortage is forcing many employers to look further afield for staff.

According to the Immigration Department, computing professionals led the list of occupations for primary 457 visa grants in 2006-07.

Skilled migrant visas allow employees to stay in Australia for up to four years.

The Information Technology Contract and Recruitment Association is hoping a submission to the Government for a new technology sector labour agreement will compensate for changes to the 457 visa process, which it says have hampered its members' access to foreign workers since October last year.

Jane Bianchini, chief operating officer of recruiter Candle ICT, says skill sets that have been exhausted in Australia, particularly Unix, storage, Java and telecommunications engineering, are in greatest demand.

"Organisations come to us saying they need 20 or 50 telecommunications specialists in this area to start on a project next month, and can we find them." Such numbers of people with those skills don't exist in Australia, Bianchini says.

"It is mainly the large systems integrators and outsourcers that tend to look for these skill sets in bulk."

Bianchini says English-speaking countries such as India, Singapore and Malaysia are the main sources of overseas hires.

Britain and New Zealand are considered the best places to find recruits because of the cultural alignment in language and business practices.

"Australian organisations tend to be a bit impatient and they have projects with tight deadlines and they can't compromise on quality, time-frame or budget," Bianchini says.

"When all those things come together, people are forced to think differently about how to acquire talent."

Bianchini says an organisation setting up a project team internally to hire skill sets can cost more in salary, time and brand reputation than it would cost to go to a recruitment agency and negotiate a bulk deal. "The biggest trap is making sure the organisation understands the individual's prime motivations for moving countries,'' she says.

"Also make sure that their reference and probity checks are supreme. Because of the distance, people feel that they can fudge their resume."

Andrew Cross, managing director of recruiter Ambition Technology, says there is big demand from candidates who want to move and pursue career options, and from clients wanting to hire candidates from overseas.

"The organisations here that are looking for overseas workers are seeking resources we just don't have here, or resources that have a time leap on where our market is currently," Cross says.

Ultimately, there is time and cost involved in securing overseas resources, which are mostly favoured by larger companies.

"If you are bringing in new skills that you can't find here, or we don't really have in the marketplace, there is a competitive advantage and a benefit in putting your team ahead of the competition," Cross says.

He advises using agencies with global networks and notes that Britain and Europe are popular hunting grounds where the Australian lifestyle is considered a major drawcard.

"You need to have somebody on the ground who can meet the candidate, or at least facilitate the set-up of a telephone conversation or video links."

Chris Carter, managing director of software testing systems provider Planit, recently headed to Britain himself to vet potential recruits. Planit provides software testing consultancy and software testing training.

It has about 180 staff in Sydney and Melbourne and is expected to reach 200 staff by the end of the financial year and add another 50 or so by Christmas.

"We are experiencing increased demand for our functional testing and user acceptance testing, but there is significant demand for the more technical testing roles that we undertake, which is test automation and performance testing, in particular," Carter says.

"One of the reasons we are heading overseas is to try to bring in some people from Britain who are seasoned veterans in those particular fields."

Carter undertook a regional tour covering London, Dublin, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol.

In Manchester, Planit participated in a trade show with the aim of drawing people to Australia to work.

Planit had more than 350 applications, and narrowed the field down down to meetings with 85 to 100 candidates.

Carter hopes to secure about 10 staff from the British tour.

In its 800-strong local workforce, Indian outsourcer Satyam Computer Services currently has a mix of about 47 per cent locally recruited staff and about 53 per cent foreign workers who have come to Australia on a 457 visa.

A large part of Satyam's expertise in program and project management, as well as some business analysis skills, are sourced locally, along with graduates from Australian universities.

"We get specialists in solutions architecture or processes from various other regions where we have operations," Satyam Australia and New Zealand manager Deepak Nangia says.

Satyam has about 28 development centres globally, with three in Australia: Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

The majority of Satyam's overseas IT recruits for Australia have come from India, followed by Malaysia, South Africa, China and Singapore.

"Whenever we have gone out saying there are positions open in Australia, we have had more hands go up than we have expected, so it has been good," Nangia says.

A proven way of hiring overseas is to advertise in the targeted country and get candidates to contact a central point locally where responses can be collected.

Companies should then send someone from Australia to interview potential staff, says Alan Hansell, an adviser with analyst IBRS.

"But the more senior the role the more likely a headhunter will be involved,'' Hansell says.

"With the more professional and graduate roles, people typically find it hard to justify the recruiter's fee."

Such fees usually are a percentage of the annual gross salary of the recruit with benefits, and could be up to 25 per cent.

Olivier Group director Robert Olivier says there is no imperative to use a larger recruiter with offices in other countries when hiring from abroad.

"Most recruiters are able to, and are experienced in, sourcing candidates from overseas using the web and telephone interviews,'' says Olivier, who is a recruiter.
An area of high risk in international placements is the welfare of a candidate's spouse, he warns.

"The candidate may not be happy at work in the new role if his/her spouse finds it difficult to integrate and is sitting at home missing friends and family. That may jeopardise the placement."

The Australian, April 1, 2008