An overseas recruitment company finds workers in India for employers abroad and sees them through trade tests, paperwork and departure. Its staff handle large candidate files, tight employer deadlines and anxious families.
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Share your requirementsAn overseas recruitment company receives a demand from a foreign employer for welders, nurses, drivers, hotel staff or technicians, then finds, tests and selects candidates in India. Field staff visit towns and training centres to gather candidates, interview coordinators arrange employer visits or video rounds, and an office team collects documents, tracks each file and arranges departure. Every candidate is a person leaving family and home, so questions and complaints are frequent. Deadlines are set by the employer, not by the agency. See the professional services hub and the recruitment agencies hub.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
One missing page holds up a whole departure, and the person who spoke to the candidate last cannot find what was collected.
A demand changes headcount or date overnight, and the office team works late to rearrange tests, files and travel.
Recruiters travel to villages and small centres, make promises about jobs, and the office finds out only when a candidate calls.
Anxious calls about a delayed date, a fee or a document fill the helpdesk, and the same questions are answered differently by each person.
A dispute over fees, pay promised or a cancelled job can spread through a candidate's town and damage the company's name.
The Gulf desk and the Europe desk each build their own method for files and tests, and little passes between them.
Big batches mean weeks of heavy work, then quiet periods in which good staff look elsewhere.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Employee Relations; HR Analytics and Management Reporting. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a overseas recruitment companies business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A single file, with a checklist of every paper and a status that anyone can read, so a colleague can take over a call.
What this coversHideA single file, with a checklist of every paper and a status that anyone can read, so a colleague can take over a call. See employee information management for method.
What they may say about jobs, fees and timelines, and what must be left to the office.
What this coversHideWhat they may say about jobs, fees and timelines, and what must be left to the office. A one page guide and a short call each week.
A short training on tone and common questions, with agreed answers, so candidates hear the same thing from anyone.
What this coversHideA short training on tone and common questions, with agreed answers, so candidates hear the same thing from anyone. See customer-service skills.
Who receives a complaint, who investigates, how quickly the candidate hears back and what happens to staff found at fault.
What this coversHideWho receives a complaint, who investigates, how quickly the candidate hears back and what happens to staff found at fault. The grievance and disciplinary process shows the steps.
Candidates at each stage, delays and reasons, shown monthly by country desk.
What this coversHideCandidates at each stage, delays and reasons, shown monthly by country desk. Reporting gives the format.
A calendar of expected demands and tests, with extra hands and rest after the peak.
What this coversHideA calendar of expected demands and tests, with extra hands and rest after the peak.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
A single candidate and staff record that colleagues can pick up without starting again.
Training for helpdesk and field staff on speaking to anxious candidates and families.
A clear route for candidate complaints and staff conduct, with fair steps and records.
Monthly views of candidates by stage, delays and reasons for each country desk.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
6 min readRead article
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead article
An employee brings you a complaint about their supervisor. What happens next should not depend on who is in the room. A grievance procedure a small company can actually run.
8 min readRead article
Six numbers, one page, same format each month. What they are, how to define them so they mean the same thing twice, and what each one tells you.
8 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Give each candidate one record with a checklist of papers and a clear status. Anyone picking up a call should see what is missing and what was promised.
Only what the office can stand behind, in writing. Give them a short guide on jobs, fees and timelines, and ask them to refer anything else to the office.
Name a person who receives complaints, set a time for a first reply, record each step and tell the candidate the outcome. Where staff conduct is involved, follow a written disciplinary route.
Candidates and families call when frightened. A calm, consistent answer reduces repeat calls and complaints, and shows that the company treats people with respect.
Plan the calendar around expected demands, use quiet weeks for training and review, and give rest after peaks. Staff leave when only the heavy weeks are visible.
We would pick five candidate files and see if a colleague could continue them, listen to how the helpdesk answers the same question and count recent complaints. A candidate record method with helpdesk training is a natural start, and scope is agreed in writing for your sign-off.
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