How I get ahead by hiring my best staff from overseas

Switched On Media stormed onto the Smart50 this year with average revenue growth of 156% over the last three yeras. Founders Scot Ennis and Andy Jamieson met while working at eBay, and founded the company in 2007 to provide support for what they saw as a trend towards Google AdWords and more comprehensive SEO strategies.

But despite reaching $3.2 million in revenue during 2009-10, the company has struggled to find experienced staff, with Jamieson saying the SEO market in Australia is relatively immature.

The solution – look overseas. Jamieson says Switched On looks to the US and Britain for many of its recruits and won’t be turning back.

How has the business performed over the past year?

The business is performing great. We’re loving it, loving working with all our new clients and finding new ways to deliver innovative SEO and social media activities to them. We’re finding ourselves working in bigger ideas and projects, and campaigns, and we’re bringing more people on. We’re doing some big Christmas campaigns in social media as well.

Why the emphasis on staff from overseas?

At Switched On Media we like to bring together the best and brightest team from wherever we can. So to limit that to just Australia, we think, is a bit short-sighted. We think there are insights and good things to learn from bringing forward a team with global experience.

Why look overseas? Is SEO lagging behind in Australia?

In terms of our position in Australia I think we’re a fast follower. The market leadership certainly comes from other parts in the world, in terms of new ways of doing things. What we see here in Australia is consistent SEO, and solid SEO, but is it ground breaking? I would put a question market over that, and I think most of those insights come from other markets and are then applied here.

How long have you been recruiting overseas staff?

We’ve been recruiting staff from international markets during the past two years. We were about a year into the business before we started thinking there was a shortfall of local talent and a shortfall in expertise available to use. As a result the US and Britain are our key markets for overseas talent.

Who are you looking for?

We have a few key experience indicators we look for. We want to see people that have worked in key roles, or even people that have worked in key companies that we think are significant. Then we reach out to those people. We make sure there are a few boxes that are already ticked.

What changes when hiring overseas? Is there a lot of travel involved?

There are a lot of phone calls. You do invest more time in finding these people, and it can be a bigger risk. Although to date, we haven’t had a bad experience. You do have to put a lot more time into it, and it does take some homework. And sometimes the phone is a harder way to recruit someone because it’s often harder for them to sell themselves as well.

How do you examine their work? Do they send portfolios over?

We’ll definitely look for examples of their work online, so there is the same element of trust involved in that. You can certainly see what people are capable of doing and that helps us with clear examples.

A good example is social media work, the people we recruit on social media need to understand it, and we can see their examples online.

Are there increased costs in hiring from overseas?

There can be. For us, I just want us to have the best staff possible. And for the best staff you’re going to find them wherever you can. We’re not interested in having just anyone come and join us, we really do recruit quite vigorously and make sure the staff we have are experts. So sometimes there are increased costs.

How many staff do you have from international markets?

About six. In terms of the mix, it’s really about what you need for the business and we’re looking for those with deep experience, not necessarily a graduate of whom we don’t have many. But experience and capabilities are the key factors in determining who we are and who we hire.

Are there any incentives you offer to bring staff over the line?

I think Australia has a lot of attractive things that people are willing to travel for. The pool of labour that you can expose your business to is quite large. I’d leverage some of those attractive features we have here to make sure people know just how good it is to live here.

What other advice would you offer SMEs looking to hire from overseas?

I think it goes a long way to show off that the country is an attractive asset. Why not? It doesn’t cost you anything as a business, and people have often come out here as travellers and love it here. There are also Government benefits you can receive for hiring people from overseas, it’s called the Living Away From Home Allowance and really helps people out.

So there are benefits for hiring people from overseas, and it doesn’t necessarily cost you more than it would to hire someone here.