Can I Hire Offshore Staff with AU, UK, or US Experience?

This is a consistent question we hear a lot from existing and prospective clients. It’s a reasonable question.

Let’s face it. Just like bringing in a local trainee comes with an upfront training burden, your new Filipino hire will need training. And training is work. Perhaps by hiring someone with experience, the lead time to become productive could become shorter.

Seems like a no brainer, but let’s discuss the pros and cons.

Imagine buying a second-hand car.

The seller tells you it runs beautifully. It’s been driven. It's been tested.

It’s got “experience".

You buy the car. But you later find that the previous owner never changed the oil, ran it hard, and skipped all the servicing. Now you have problems, and you realise you overpaid for it and can’t easily recoup your investment.

Being overly focused on hiring ‘with experience’ can be like that.

What Makes a Great Candidate?

When Frontline arrived in the Philippines in 2011, there were no Filipino accountants who had the tax experience I would have liked. I knew I had to train those technical skills.

Here’s what we looked for when hiring:

• Chemistry and fit with our team culture

• Good accounting skills (knows their debits and credits)

• 1-5 years relevant local experience

• Right qualifications (degree or CPA)

• Good English

• Physical proximity (we didn’t want traffic to hinder performance)

• Hunger to learn and grow

This list kept us in good stead. The first item on the list would still be my most important consideration if I were starting now. Over a decade later, some of those hires I made are still around and have surpassed the technical abilities of anyone I could hire in the Philippines now.

Rather than buy the used car (which didn’t exist initially), I got the raw materials and assembled what I needed.

Our early clients have followed this formula, invested in the staff and achieved similar success.

What Looks Easy Isn’t Always Better

Now don’t get me wrong. The pool of experienced staff is slowly increasing as more international firms hire in the Philippines. I’ve hired staff with experience but always saw it as a ‘bonus’ and proceeded to put them through our standard training anyway. After all, who knows how hard the previous firm pushed them in their career and exactly how much responsibility they were given?

But think about this… As a large employer, we must ‘manage out’ a certain number of underperformers each year, whether that be for incompetence, or a terrible work attitude. It’s unfortunately inevitable. What will their next move be? They’ll tidy up the CV. Make sure the references check out and then float it to the BPO up the road.

Just like a new shiny car on the lot, someone will get starry eyed when they see the words “Xero certified”, “QuickBooks trained”, or “Australian bookkeeping experience” and snap them up.

Personally, I’m happy to have the competition take these staff!

But I’m not so happy when these types occasionally slip through our own recruitment filtering process and create problems for a client.

There’s an assumption that experience = less training required.

The reality is, ‘Buyer beware!’

But I Still Want Experienced Staff…

Okay, you’re twisting my arm on this. Here’s what you can expect.

Experienced staff will demand a higher salary. (How much extra did you have to pay when you poached that manager from across town? It’s no different here)

They may be unwilling to work from the office. WFH is a valued entitlement and often not up for compromise, particularly when the previous BPO was a lot less flexible.

You will have to wait longer for the role to be filled.

You simply have a smaller talent pool to choose from.

You will also need to do the extra vetting to ensure the stated experience stacks up.

For Best Results...

Hire for raw talent and cultural fit. Tax skills and software skills are very learnable. You’re a service-based business – training is in your DNA! So back your training to bridge any gaps.

Lean on our training resources – we’ve onboarded hundreds of staff with our Accountants Bootcamp.

Talk to us about our ‘cohort’ of pre-trained staff.

Keep your options wide as you hire, and you’ll maximise the probabilities of finding the new rising star you are looking for.

Final Thoughts

This isn’t to say that hiring experienced staff is always wrong. I’ve done it, and it’s worked out. Some of our clients have built exceptional teams this way. But if it’s your only strategy, you’re limiting yourself.

The firms that thrive offshore treat team development as core to their business model. They build training into the culture, mould staff in their methods, and enjoy higher long-term retention.

Unlike local trainees who often move on once they qualify, Filipino staff who feel valued tend to stick around.

Experience is nice. But it’s not everything.

Build for fit. Train for success.

Connect with me on:

LinkedIn.com/in/jonryall