Recruiting Across Borders: Where Should Your Next Hire Be Based?

When a company expands internationally, deciding where people should work becomes part of its growth strategy. However, an existing office provides a starting point, but does it offer access to the skills the business needs?

A company lists offices including Paris, Barcelona and New York. Additionally, another company’s careers page lists specialist roles in Prague and a New York leadership position.

Thus, this reflects the location questions facing international employers. Public vacancies do not reveal the reasoning behind their decisions.

Start with the work and its relationships

Before assigning a department to Paris or Barcelona, management should consider its purpose, customers and dependencies. Which teams must work closely together? Which positions require local language skills, customer contact or regular access to physical operations?

Some functions benefit from being concentrated in one hub. Others can operate across locations, with clear ownership and agreed working hours. Even within a department, individual roles may need different arrangements.

When hybrid working narrows the search

Consider a specialist supporting a New York team. If suitable candidates are difficult to find within commuting distance, requiring weekly office attendance may unnecessarily restrict the search.

An alternative could be remote employment from an approved location, with agreed overlap with the US team and planned office visits. Depending on the work, those visits might take place quarterly or for two or three days each month.

That is a proposal to assess, rather than a solution for every role. The decision should account for collaboration, onboarding, travel costs, candidate availability and a workable employment arrangement. A time zone alone does not determine where someone can be employed.

What a Talent Acquisition audit contributes

A Talent Acquisition audit can identify where location requirements are slowing recruitment and whether they reflect genuine business needs. It brings together vacancy data, candidate feedback, local talent research, salary expectations and the company’s hiring plans.

Before opening a new office or subsidiary, this work can help management compare locations: can the business recruit the required skills there, at the intended scale and budget? For an existing hub, it can reveal which roles should remain local and which could be recruited more widely.

The outcome should be practical: a recommended location and working model for each role, essential requirements, realistic hiring assumptions and alternatives where the preferred approach limits access to talent.

Make the decision together

Hiring managers define the outcomes and collaboration needs. Recruiters test those expectations against the candidate market. Leadership sets priorities and budgets, while HR, finance and legal colleagues assess employment feasibility.

This discussion should happen before advertising. Candidates need clarity about their manager, eligible work locations, working hours and travel expectations.

At Access Talent Management, we help growing businesses review these decisions through Talent Acquisition audits and tailored hiring advice. Contact hr@accessproject.tech to discuss your plans.