We Want You!

The wrong recruitment strategy can backfire, ruining your company’s reputation and scaring away the very employees you hoped to attract. Here’s how to add to your labour pool without getting wet

Nov 1, 2008  

by Shannon Sutherland

Her contempt for the insinuation was obvious, and understandably so. Many people are suspicious of search firms because they believe that the firms will place talent with them, and then turn around and essentially re-sell the talent mere moments after the orientation tour concludes. She says that’s why her firm has made it a policy “not to touch talent” for two years after a placement. She also says that when business leaders encounter someone they want to hire, they have a right to discuss their interest with the candidate, but common sense must prevail. Confidentiality must be maintained. And it’s simply bad manners to approach a potential candidate in a public venue.

There are many ways to fail at recruiting. Some can even get you arrested, which is why international recruiters need to understand the process inside and out. At least 800 workers are trafficked into Canada annually in what amounts to modern-day slave trading. Another 1,000 or more pass through Canada and into the United States, according to the RCMP.

Businesses that hire foreign workers need to know where they come from and how they get here. A Brandon, Man.-based Maple Leaf Foods plant put the brakes on its foreign worker program when company officials discovered 61 workers had paid fees of $10,000 to an immigration consultant hired by the company.

There are more mundane recruitment mishaps, too. Miscalculating the amount of time and energy required to recruit internationally is probably the most common mistake, says McGinnis.

Take Deerline Sales Ltd., a John Deere dealership in Westlock. It hired its first foreign worker from Switzerland in 2004, says Liz Roberts, personnel director. “We stumbled through the Labour Market Opinion (LMO) process to hire him, and he handled the rest from his end. At that time we did not expect we would be doing this on a regular basis,” she says.

The LMO. This is the ticket for a foreign worker’s entry into Canada, and it can put a business on the fast track to satisfaction or the slow train to understaffing. Issued by Service Canada, this document allows a business to recruit foreign workers when no suitable Canadian candidate can be found.

Roberts says it routinely takes the company about six months to get a worker in place – that is, with a pre-approved LMO. It can be tough to check references in non-English-speaking countries and determine the skill level of a foreign worker.

The length of time it takes to get an LMO can be particularly daunting for a new business, warns Werner Siegrist, co-owner of Canadian Premium Meats in Red Deer. About 40% of its staff is from outside of Canada, including the Philippines, Germany, Switzerland and Ukraine.

“The length of time it took for our first LMO was 40 weeks,” says Siegrist. “Even though our business fell within an industry to receive E-LMO [Expedited Labour Market Opinion] status… one of the impossible requirements is that a new business has to have a payroll for a least 12 months before they qualify for the E-LMO. By that time a new business might already be out of business again if it can’t get Canadian employees or foreign workers.”

The number of LMOs issued in Alberta tripled between 2006 and 2007 to more than 60,000 last year. Most business people engaged in foreign recruiting agree that the Alberta government has done a pretty good job of improving the process.

“Staff at Alberta Employment and Immigration are excellent and very helpful,” says Roberts. However, she does not have similar accolades for the feds. “Staff at HRSDC have been inundated with LMO applications and have been totally swamped during the last few years, making it a real waiting game trying to get paperwork processed,” says Roberts. “In 2005, it took about three days to get an LMO for a worker we wanted to make a job offer to, but in 2007, it was taking over three months.” She also says the embassies in each country have vastly different processing times.

Deerline has hired 12 foreign service technicians (mechanics) from six different countries in the past four years under the Skilled Worker Program, which has a two-year work term with an option to renew. Many people underestimate what they will pay foreign workers, but Roberts has learned that they often come at a premium. “Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC), with the LMO, sets a minimum rate of pay,” says Roberts. “While this rightfully protects the foreign worker, it means we pay top dollar for workers who usually require a significant time commitment to training, orientation and integration during their first six months.”

In the end, whether you’re recruiting someone from another continent or from the competition, it’s important that the effort justifies the outcome. The Alberta government has decided that, in the case of its European missions, it does. There will be some fallout, and that seems to be an acceptable risk for the reward. And the beaver, well, what more damage can be done to his reputation? Someone get that thing a chew toy.

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