INTERNATIONAL TALENT RECRUITER

JOB DESCRIPTION

Many food manufacturing organizations, take their recruitment abroad to help fulfill their labour needs. There are many job seekers internationally that want to opportunity to live & work in Canada, An International Talent Recruiter (Talent Acquisition Specialist) helps to connect amazing foreign talent with real career opportunities here in Canada!

You can work as an independent consultant, as part of a firm or directly for a food and beverage manufacturing company. You’ll collaborate with business leaders to understand their current and future talent needs and help develop and execute a talent acquisition strategy that will work for their organizational needs.

Employers are seeking multi-faceted individuals who not only have an understanding of the end-to-end recruitment process but also have exceptional communication and people skills. If you enjoy traveling and love working with people and making connections, this is the career path for you!

THE WORK ENVIRONMENT

Travelling is definitely one of the biggest perks of being an international recruiter, and it’s not uncommon to spend upwards of 4-6 weeks in various locations meeting with job seekers. Be prepared to be away from home for extended periods of time, and pack your suitcase for both hot and cold weather conditions! If you have specific health or eating restrictions, this is also something you may need to plan for when travelling for extended periods of time.

While this is an office/ computer job, it’s ordinary to work with clients in different time zones, requiring your work hours to be flexible and adaptable as required. This could mean a lot of late nights. early mornings, or even calls at midnight. You’ll need to be tech-savvy and familiar with a variety of communications platforms (or cultural norms) in different countries- such as the use of WeChat in China.

In a digital world, you may find yourself working from the comfort of home or remotely during travels- meaning that you may not have a standard workplace office. Find yourself an ergonomic set up to maintain a healthy working environment while on the go, and ensure that you have internet and phone access.

As a Foreign Recruiter there’s a 50/50 split as to where you’ll be employed: you may be employed with a larger food business or with a recruiting agency who specializes in the food sector. Only large organizations can really afford to have a full-time staff member dedicated to high-volume international recruitment, whereas SMEs are more likely to engage agencies to help them source a solid team. Which one of these situations best appeals to your personality?

Foreign Recruiters have exceptional people skills, understand business staffing needs and have a thorough understanding of Canada’s immigration system. In your early career, you’ll work as an assistant alongside a seasoned professional to learn the ins and outs of the immigration system and slowly develop your skills and experience.

Some people in this role even choose to gain additional certification to become a Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC), so they may both recruit and facilitate the immigration process. As a “one-stop-shop” for Foreign Recruitment, naturally, you’ll be paid much higher.

INTERNATIONAL TALENT RECRUITER JOB DUTIES

Here are some of the job duties you may have as an International Talent Recruiter:

Oversee and streamline the full cycle hiring process, right from building a hiring plan to sourcing the qualified candidates, to signing the employment contract.
You’ll need to collaborate with HR Managers and upper management to get a good understanding of how their businesses work and their hiring needs. Often times companies are looking to recruit 30-100+ people, so it’s really important to be in tune with what their needs are.
Intimately understand the daily operations of food and beverage manufacturing facilities: the types of jobs, characteristics of successful candidates, regulatory requirements, experience required, etc.
You’ll need to develop robust strategic hiring plans that identify the best attraction and retention strategies, outline immigration considerations, contain a process flow and timelines, as well as outlining resource allotments.

Headhunting and recruitment:

There’s tons of different strategies for promoting employment opportunities and recruiting abroad, you’ll need to harness the right tools and connections to help your client (the company) get the best bang for their buck!
Build a rich pipeline for finding the right people for the job by establishing and maintaining relationships with embassies, job fairs, post-secondary institutions, government bodies, associations, and other influential networks.
Create innovative job advertisements, master social media, understand where and how to place advertisements in different countries.
Be familiar with the hiring practices and cultural norms in different countries.
Identify key markets and trends

The hiring process:

Perform application screening, schedule and conduct in-person and online interviews, and discuss immigration considerations. Check references.
Select candidates, negotiate contract and terms of employment. You may even facilitate secondary interviews with your clients to ensure the selected candidates are a good match for the organization.
Work with candidates and immigration consultants to help facilitate the immigration process or worker visas needed for the company to onboard the new hire.
Depending on your experience, you may even facilitate or know of good training opportunities for the newcomers that will help them be more successful in their new careers and communities!
Provide reports and feedback to hiring organizations on the process, progress and relevant statistics
Support the HR team to continually improve the hiring plan and process to find the top talent, ensuring a smooth transition from hiring, to relocation, to orientation.

BECOMING A INTERNATIONAL TALENT RECRUITER

Competitiveness & Availability

There’s a number of seafood products that can only be processed by hand – so employers need a huge workforce to sustain their operations and meet their production targets. This means that there is always a high demand for workers and low competition for securing a job.

There’s a lot of local competition between processing plants to attract skilled primary processors with the right attitude. You may even see more competitive benefit packages and compensation between local plants!

Rest assured, this is a reliable career and a place to call home with endless opportunities for advancement as you gain more experience.

Advancement Opportunities

Seafood plants come in all shapes and sizes- from processing onboard the ship to value added operations. This means that there’s tons of opportunity to hone your skills, to become the fastest and most efficient team member on the floor! Most primary processors learn all their skills on the job through repetition and guidance from team leaders and seasoned supervisors – so don’t worry if you haven’t got any experience.

With hard work, dedication, an eye for detail and quality, you can work your way up the ladder to become a team leader, a supervisor, quality assurance or control, or even a general manager one day. The opportunities are endless! This is an industry that really values on-the-job experience and seeks to promote from within. Getting your “foot in the door” and working up the ladder is very feasible.

Education

Many employers require a Food Safe Level 1 certification and completion of your high school diploma or equivalency. Post-secondary education is not required for this role.

Any prior experience in a fish processing environment is always valuable.

Any education in food safety, food science, processing/ manufacturing or production are also highly attractive to employers. You may want to consider some short courses in food safety and other industry-related topics, such as:

Seafood Spoilage and Food Safety
Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs)
Quality Assurance/ Quality Control
Sanitation & Equipment Operation
Standard Operating Procedures (SOP)
Industrial Health & Safety
Oral Communications
Job Tasking Planning & Organizational Skills
Mathematics

Most training happens on the job through shadowing and being paired with an experienced frontline worker. You’ll perfect your cutting techniques as you go!

Qualifications

Minimum of 7-9 years experience in life-cycle recruitment
High-volume recruiting
Must have working knowledge of all pertinent legislation and immigration policies surrounding international hiring.
Fluency in numerous languages is an asset