One of the most powerful advantages of global hiring is access. Hiring across borders gives you access to a larger pool of skilled workers, new markets for expansion, and greater operational and financial flexibility.
But with that access comes a different kind of challenge: choice.
If you can hire anywhere, where do you start? How do you evaluate one country over another? And how do you make sure the decision you make today doesn’t create compliance headaches or cost overruns down the line?
The good news: You don’t need to be an expert in international employment law or labor market dynamics to make smart decisions. You need a framework and the right partner to bring your talent strategy to life.
Whether you’re hiring your first global team member or scaling across multiple regions, this guide will help you assess the key factors that matter most.
How to evaluate a country before you hire
At first glance, deciding where to hire might seem like a purely tactical decision driven by urgency, budget, or whoever happens to raise their hand in a given region. The most successful global hiring strategies, however, start with a more holistic approach.
We recommend exploring these three questions to guide your decision:
- Talent availability: Is there a strong pool of candidates with the skills you need?
- Cost efficiency: Can you hire sustainably based on salary, benefits, and long-term employment costs?
- Legal and operational feasibility: Can your organization support the hire—from onboarding to offboarding—without unnecessary friction?
These three questions can help you identify regions where you can not only find great talent, but set them up for success.
Talent availability
This is where most global hiring journeys begin: talent. You know the role you need to fill, but haven’t been successful hiring locally, or you’re expanding into a new market and want boots on the ground. Either way, the first question is simple: Where can we find the right people?
Answering it, however, requires more than a quick Google search.
The most effective companies treat this as a strategic research exercise by digging into market-level data, talent supply trends, and role-specific criteria to guide their search.
Start with labor market insights
Tools like LinkedIn Talent Insights and local job boards can help you understand supply and demand dynamics in specific countries, and answer questions like:
- Where is talent concentrated?
- How competitive is the market?
- Is there a surplus of skilled workers or is it a high-demand, low-supply market?
If you're hiring software engineers, for example, you might find strong pools of talent in Poland or Romania. These markets not only offer depth, but also growing tech communities that can support your team long-term.
Consider a “hub” strategy
Some organizations cast a wide net across many countries, while others take a more focused approach, building team hubs in one or two regions. The latter approach offers several benefits: easier collaboration across time zones, a sense of community among teammates, and streamlined people operations.
Many organizations have found success with regional hubs, such as tech in Eastern European countries and customer service in the Philippines. These hubs allow both talent availability and operational efficiency to align.
Align skills with business needs
Not all markets are created equal when it comes to building a global talent strategy. To make the right hire, you need to consider the specific needs of your team. Some considerations:
- Language proficiency: Do you need English-speaking talent? Will your new hire be customer-facing?
- Educational background or certifications: Are there local institutions producing qualified candidates in your field?
- Overlapping time zones: Will your new hire’s working hours align with key collaborators or stakeholders? Consider how much real-time communication is needed to support the role – and if your organization effectively support remote workers across time zones
- Remote readiness: Does the country have the infrastructure to support reliable remote work, such as stable high-speed internet and consistent power supply?
Benchmark against your peers
Hiring globally doesn’t mean starting from scratch. Look at where your competitors or industry peers are hiring. Have they established regional hubs? Are there patterns in where certain roles (e.g., customer support, engineering, operations) are being sourced?
Even better: ask your EOR. At Oyster, we often advise customers based on hiring trends we've seen emerging from thousands of data points. Chances are, someone has already walked the path you’re considering.
Leverage local expertise
Sometimes, the best intel doesn’t come from a dashboard—it comes from a conversation. Global recruiters, in-country experts, and even HR community groups can offer real-time, real-world insights about talent availability. Ask questions like:
- What’s the hiring landscape like for this role in [X country]?
- Are there known challenges (e.g., long time-to-hire, niche skills shortages)?
- What does a competitive offer look like?
- How complex is the employee lifecycle, including offboarding?
Cost efficiency
Once you’ve identified where to source talent, the next question is whether you can afford to hire and support that talent long term.
It’s easy to focus on salary alone, but that’s only one piece of the puzzle. The true cost of employment varies widely from country to country, and what looks like a great deal on paper can quickly add up once you factor in benefits, social contributions, exchange rates, and compliance obligations.
To build a cost-effective hiring strategy, you need to think in terms of total cost of employment, including:
- Base salary
- Mandatory benefits and social contributions
- 13th-month pay (common in Latin America and parts of Europe)
- Paid time off and holidays
- Termination and offboarding costs
- Exchange rate fluctuations or geopolitical risk
In other words, a $50K salary in Country A might cost your business significantly more than a $60K salary in Country B when you account for the full employment lifecycle.
Salary ≠ affordability
Let’s say you’re hiring a mid-level engineer. Poland and France may both offer strong talent pools, but the total cost to employ someone in France is likely to be much higher due to locally required contributions, allowances, and benefits. In addition to the statutory contributions required across the lifecycle, the costs to offboard a team member can be a cost driver in markets with high employee protections, so it’s always worth understanding the nuances from beginning to end of employment.
On the other hand, countries like Ireland or the UK might have higher base salaries but offer more flexibility in terms of probation periods and notice requirements, making the overall investment more predictable.
Use benchmarking tools to model real costs
Oyster’s Salary Insights Tool is designed to help you compare the total cost of employment by role and country, giving you a more accurate picture of what hiring in a particular market will look like financially.
If your budget is tight or tied to specific margin requirements, having this data upfront can help you narrow your options early and avoid surprises later.
Account for long-term scalability
What’s cost-efficient now may not scale well later. Consider your growth plans: Will you need to build a team in this region? Will benefits need to evolve? Will currency fluctuations impact compensation in 6–12 months?
Hiring globally is a strategic investment, not a short-term fix. Cost should support your ability to scale, not undermine it.
Legal and operational feasibility
You’ve found a talent-rich region that fits your budget. But there’s one more essential question to answer before moving forward: Can your organization legally and operationally support this hire?
Many global hiring efforts stall at this point, due to complexity.
Partnering with an employer of record (EOR)—which removes the burden of establishing legal entities and managing local compliance—can help mitigate the legal complexities.
A good EOR partner handles:
- Locally compliant contracts and offer letters
- Statutory benefits and contributions
- Payroll, taxes, and regulatory filings
- Protection against misclassification
Consider onboarding, offboarding, and everything in between
Legal feasibility doesn’t always mean operational readiness. The true test of operational feasibility is how well your team can support this hire at every stage, beginning with day one. Consider the full lifecycle of your employee to determine your ability to bring them onboard. Some questions to ask:
- Hiring: Will local regulations (e.g., mandatory medical checks) slow down the start date?
- Onboarding: Does your team have the tools and workflows to support a fully remote hire in a particular time zone?
- Support: Will your new hire be the only person in their region or function?
- Performance management: Are there specific documentation requirements to support a performance improvement plan?
- Growth: How accessible will mentorship and support be for them?
- Offboarding: Is termination straightforward—or does it involve multiple legal steps and payouts?
Even if it’s technically possible to hire in a given country, strong consideration should be given to the employee experience, as it is paramount to the success of your global talent strategy. Being honest about what you can offer in the immediate and long-term is a necessary step before pursuing a candidate in another market.
Hire anywhere with Oyster
Global hiring is full of possibilities.
Whether you’re exploring new markets, building regional hubs, or hiring your first international team member, Oyster’s EOR service can help.
With local insights, full employment support, and tools to help you scale strategically, Oyster makes it seamless to hire, onboard, and support talent around the world.
Our specialized global employment solution helps you move fast, without compromising compliance or employee experience.
Reach out today for a personalized consultation and learn how Oyster can transform your talent strategy.
About Oyster
Oyster is a global employment platform designed to enable visionary HR leaders to find, engage, pay, manage, develop, and take care of a thriving distributed workforce. Oyster lets growing companies give valued international team members the experience they deserve, without the usual headaches and expense.
Oyster enables hiring anywhere in the world—with reliable, compliant payroll, and great local benefits and perks.
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