Cultural Diversity Sourcing: How to Find Expats inside the Country

Nowadays, we hear a lot about Diversity, Inclusion, Equality, etc. Many companies have specific requests to hire and source diverse candidates only, focusing on some specific gender, culture, and multicultural candidates. From a sourcing & hiring perspective, it’s a pretty challenging task; from a company perspective as well.

It’s not enough to want to build a diverse environment inside the company because it’s trendy, popular, or some other companies are doing that. It’s a lot of pre-work and a long way to build it not on paper, but build an open and inclusive environment inside the organization and make/prepare current employees for this too. Organisations and people should be ready for difference, multiculturalism, diversity, and dissimilarity. Without that, it won’t work.

This article highlights cultural diversity, why it matters for your organisation, what to consider before developing the sourcing strategy, and how to find diverse candidates.

What Is Cultural Diversity?

What is diversity? If you google the term, the dictionary gives us common definitions:

1. The state of being diverse; variety.
2. The practice or quality of including or involving people from different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.

Cultural diversity is the representation of different cultural and ethnic groups in society. When we talk about cultural diversity in the workplace, it is about the inclusion of employees from different backgrounds, different races, different sexual orientations, different political views, etc. 

Benefits of the Culturally Diverse Team inside the Company

Cultural diversity in the workplace brings a lot of advantages and benefits to organizations and businesses. There is a huge amount of them, the main ones will be: 

• Increased productivity. Bringing diverse talents on board, combining their difference within work, and following common goals positively influence productivity. Such an environment allows each employee to learn from each other’s experiences, see different perspectives and visions of the same things and tasks, and implement this new-found knowledge into their work. All this is the way to new ideas and stimulus to think out of your comfort zone. This result can be reached only in a team of people with a mix of different backgrounds, ethnicity, experiences, and sets of skills they have.
• Creativity. Similar to productivity diverse environment creates the opportunity to meet colleagues with variable backgrounds, cultures, and countries and become more adept at viewing things from various angles. Combining different points of view and perspectives is the way to creative ideas and non-standard solutions.
• Employee engagement and turnover. A diverse environment is a place for constant learning about other cultures, traditions, languages, etc. This is a good opportunity to communicate with each other, build better relationships with colleagues, and feel connected to their company and team; in other words – to be engaged at work. Better engagement reduced employee turnover. 
• Company reputation. For companies, reputation is important. Social media and social networks are fast ways to destroy reputation, even for big brands. Canceling culture influence people and brands be more attentive to public and consumer opinion. D&I is a big plus to the company’s positive reputation and influences financial success, brand, and employee loyalty.
• A wider range of skills. Different backgrounds mean variable skills. Shared learning also results in increased staff skill levels. Because skills and cultures differ, as a result, we have a variety of products and services that the company can provide. 
• Improves cultural insights. It is frequently discovered that employees might become friends and spend more time together outside work. It means that a diverse company environment allows them to build good relationships with people from cultural backgrounds to whom they would never suppose to be so close if they won’t colleagues. Employees ultimately gain new cultural insights, which lowers harmful sentiments like racism, homophobia, sexism, and the like.

Before You Start Cultural Diversity Sourcing: Answer the Right Questions

What to ask before introducing your company diversity strategy

Many companies are focusing on building D&I teams. This trend is a must if your company wants to be a part of TOP companies lists and rankings, have a good rank on Glassdoor, build a strong reputation, become attractive to candidates, etc. 

But a desire to build a D&I environment isn’t enough to set up a hiring plan. Before starting company’s management need to review the current environment inside the team and reply to the main questions regarding readiness for this:

1. What is the cultural diversity within our company? What exactly it means for the exact company? Is it gender diversity? Is cultural diversity? Is it both? 
2. How can we attract culturally & gender-diverse candidates? Do we have all needed to be attractive to candidates? Do we have a competitive parental program? Do we have corporate kindergarten or additional sick leaves for employees with kids? Even simple things are important: readiness to speak fully in English and have small talks with new colleagues from other countries and make them feel comfortable all day, not only in business meetings. 
3. Where to post our jobs to get culturally diverse applicants? Resources should be different if a company wants to attract and find diverse candidates. It can be local Job Boards, Facebook Groups, Twitter communities, etc. 
4. How to express that company is culturally diverse and build that exact environment? D&I approach should be visible on social media and in advertisements; the Job Description should be gender neutral; current employees should know about other cultures and traditions to not discuss or joke about things that can offend other cultures, etc. Education is the first thing you need to do before setting up D&I hiring strategy.
5. Does the company ready to be culturally diverse? Do current employees are open to new things? Are you open to seeing people from other nationalities, religions, traditions, sexual orientations, etc.?

What to ask before starting diversity cultural sourcing

From a hiring perspective, the first thing to do for us is, of course, do talent mapping and answers to the following questions:

• Where can we find culturally diverse candidates? Where outside LinkedIn to find candidates from other countries? Define other resources, job boards, communities, groups, etc.
• How to find culturally diverse candidates? Develop the strategy, define keywords we will use, use filters, etc.
• Can we find culturally diverse candidates in the local market? Does our local market monocultural, and the only way to build a diverse environment is to relocate people from other countries? Do we have diverse candidates inside the country to hire people without a long relocation process?

Real-life Strategies for Finding Expats on the Local Market on LinkedIn

Language filter in Recruiter Seat

The main logic is to source for native speakers of other languages in your location. To find these people, follow the next steps:

1. Add all languages that might interest you in the language filter in Linkedin Recruiter Seat.
2. Add proficiency to identify native speakers: Native or Bilingual.
3. If you have a corporate Recruiter Seat, exclude from the search all candidates viewed by you or your colleagues.
4. Add additional filters suitable for your role.
5. Continue your search as usual and source people from other countries.

Language as a keyword

Don’t forget that people also write their native language directly in their native language:

(“한국어” OR Français OR “日本語” OR Română OR čeština OR Español OR Українська)

Also, pay attention to how they write English in their language to see who can speak English and at what level.

Top abroad universities search

A good way to find people from other countries on the local market is to look for people who graduated from foreign universities. You can source from all universities and choose the top from different countries. 

So, the steps are the following:

• Create a list of top universities in each country that interest you
• Build Boolean with that universities and add them to keywords
• Or choose universities in the ‘School’ filter on LinkedIn

Where to find these universities?

Utilize your lists from previous searches

Google top universities in {{Country}}

Look through the top universities lists: universityrankings.ch, topuniversities.com – for checking world rates; universityguru.com – to check university rates in your country.

For example:

Ukrainian universities: 

(“National Technical University of Ukraine Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” OR “Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv” OR “National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy” OR “Ivan Franko National University of Lviv” OR “Lviv Polytechnic National University”)

Brazil universities: 

(“University of Sao Paulo” OR “State University of Campinas” OR “Federal University of Rio de Janeiro” OR “Federal University of Sao Paulo” OR “Sao Paulo State University”)

Top ex-companies search

Another way to find people from other countries in the local market is to look for ex-employees from foreign companies. Within this strategy, your steps will have the same logic as with a university search:

• Create or find a list of top companies in each country that interest you.
• It should be the companies originally from other countries without offices in the local market.
• Build a Boolean with that companies and add them to the previous company’s filter.

Where to find these companies?

• Use your own lists from previous searches
• Google top tech companies/startups in {{Country}}
• Use top companies lists: seedtable.com, glassdoor.com, clutch.co, crunchbase.com, startupranking.com, craft.co, 500.co, ycombinator.com, etc.

Your list of Brazil locates companies, for example, can look like this: 

(“Globo” OR “OLX Brazil” OR “EBANX” OR “Mercado Livre” OR “Pagar.me” OR “iFood” OR “Elo7” OR “Hotmart” OR “Zup Innovation” OR “M4U” OR “Gympass” OR “Globo” OR “Creditas”)

Origin country as a keyword

Yes! Using the origin country name as a keyword is a working method. Don’t forget to add country names in the original language as well. 

(Japan OR 日本 OR China OR 中國 OR Brazil OR Brasil OR Spain OR España OR Ukraine OR Україна)

Candidate may not add their native language to the profile, so we will miss them with the Language filter search; the country as a keyword will cover it.

Title search

During your previous searches, you might notice that some candidates have their profiles in their native language or translated English information about their experience only after relocation, etc. So, a title search is another method to find candidates from other countries in the local market.

• Slavic language countries use some additional titles and typos in titles.
• In Spanish and Portuguese-speaking countries, developers used to have LinkedIn profiles or titles in their languages.
• Some languages have feminine and masculine titles.

Where to find these titles?

• Your lists from previous searches
• Google translate
• Just pay attention to how developers are writing their titles (all variants, all mistakes) 

For example:

In addition to (developer OR engineer), you can use:

• For Slavic language countries: 

(programmer OR programer OR programist OR programmist OR програміст OR программист OR розробник)

• For Brazil candidates: 

(analist OR analista)

• For feminine and masculine titles:

In Portuguese:

(desenvolvedora OR Desenvolvedor OR engenheira OR Engenheiro OR programadora OR Programador OR analist OR analista)

In Spanish: 

(Programador OR Programadora OR desarrolladora OR Desarrollador OR ingeniera OR Ingeniero)

In French:

(ingénieure OR Ingénieur OR développeuse OR Développeur OR programmeuse OR programmeur)

In German:

(Entwicklerin OR Entwickler Ingenieurin OR Ingenieur OR Programmiererin OR Programmierer)

• General Boolean for Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries + France:

(desenvolvedora OR Desenvolvedor OR engenheira OR Engenheiro OR programadora OR Programador OR analist OR analista OR Programador OR Programadora OR desarrolladora OR Desarrollador OR ingeniera OR Ingeniero OR ingénieure OR Ingénieur OR développeuse OR Développeur OR programmeuse OR programmeur)

To Wrap up: Checklist to Building Cultural Diversity Sourcing Strategy

To make your team multicultural, you need to start by understanding why your company wants to hire diverse candidates and does it is ready and has an inclusive environment.

To find a culturally diverse team, you need to follow this goal in your sourcing approach and build your sourcing strategy around searches for people with different nationalities, races, religions, and cultural backgrounds.

Here are the steps to follow:

• Start with clarifying what diversity is for your company.
• Check the local market and evaluate how diverse it is.
• Start sourcing on the local market first to achieve faster results.
• Review and note all resources outside LinkedIn where you can find culturally diverse candidates and approach them on that resources if possible.
• Use all tips and tricks from the article while sourcing on the local market and invent your ones.
• Use neutral Job Descriptions and text in your messages.
• Share what the D&I environment means and looks like in your company and what value it has for you if your company just started to build a diverse team.
• Include in the hiring process as diverse participants as possible to make candidates comfortable and kind of “prove” by actions your openness to become a D&I company not only on paper.
• When you will finish your searches on the local market, move to other countries where a regular sourcing strategy will work as well.

Hope these tips will help you create an effective sourcing strategy and fill the positions with diverse candidates.